Five years after launching as "a YouTube football channel with no rights to show matches," Copa90 said that it is "about to start broadcasting live games," according to Cameron Clarke of THE DRUM. But having reached 80 million views a month across "a breadth of digital platforms by focusing on fan culture and covering all the action that takes place off the pitch rather than on it," the media brand is pledging to bring a "radically different approach to coverage of the sport." Copa90 Head James Kirkham said, "Everything we do is the antithesis of the suits sat in a studio ethos, that slowly, slowly build-up and prosaic conversation. We're in the crowd, among the pyros and the flares, in a very visceral way. Why would we stop doing that?" Copa90 has "at least three live matches planned between now and the end of the year." The games will be shown on Copa90's platform, "Copa90 LIVE," and there will be a "tandem presence on a major social network." Do not, however, expect Copa90 to be broadcasting regular season Premier League fixtures "any time soon." Kirkham: "We're not going in with tons of money competing. This isn't us going, 'Let's get the war chest out and start outbidding people.'" Instead, rights holders are approaching Copa90 with offers to show games, according to Kirkham. He said, "We've got a couple of big European clubs -- and I'm talking elite, A-list European clubs" (THE DRUM, 7/11).
