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ESPN FC and Kick are launching a 10-episode series on Saturday to engage North American football fans with Euro 2016. Kick, a division of London-based Bigballs Media, is sending a team of filmmakers and football fans to Europe to provide complementary coverage to ESPN’s game broadcasts of the European Championship in France. Kick’s team will travel through 10 European cities over 35 days to highlight fandom and explore its cultural impact. It is about experiencing different cultures all through the lens of football, Bigballs Media Chief Content Officer Ross Whittow-Williams told SBD Global. “We believe everything outside the 90 minutes of a soccer game makes the 90 minutes matter more,” he said. The content will predominantly air on ESPN FC’s digital platforms. However, Bigballs will also make use of its social media presence, which reaches more than 8 million fans globally. Bigballs Media, which was founded in ’06, considers itself as a "kind of Vice Media of soccer," Whittow-Williams said. In the first episode, Kick’s team will join Irish football fans on their way from the Emerald Isle to France, the tournament’s host nation. The series will then follow the Kick team on its journey through France and neighboring countries, Whittow-Williams added. Kick previously teamed up with NBC Sports for a project surrounding the Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton in the English Premier League. However, the partnership with ESPN is Kick’s biggest project to date, Whittow-Williams said. N.Y.-based Kick currently employees between 20-25 people and is part of Bigballs’ Copa90 network.
