Liverpool growth made clear as major gap could make club millions - Dave Powell

Liverpool's YouTube performance is something that commercial partners will take an interest in

Growing the Liverpool brand globally has been a key part of the club's commercial strategy in recent years.

This summer the Reds have been on their first pre-season long haul tour since 2019, before the pandemic hit, as they seek to reach out to their legions of fans across the world and provide them with the kind of physical presence that they can't do during a regular Premier League season.

It has its commercial benefits, of course. The Standard Chartered extension to the main shirt sponsorship deal , worth more than £50m per year, was inked out on the tour of Southeast Asia, while existing partners were able to tick the boxes of their initial deals by having Liverpool present, while the commercial team were hard at work linking up with potential partners, too.

The power and financial value of these tours has grown as the lure of the Premier League has grown globally. A bumper TV rights deal for England's elite competition saw international rights outstrip domestic ones for the very first time as a total deal worth £10bn for the next cycle was reached - £2bn of that sum coming from the US market .

But it isn't just through television screens and matchdays that Liverpool are seeking to reach their audience, it is through social media and other platforms. One of those platforms, the video sharing site YouTube, has been valuable in achieving further reach for the Reds and providing an extra layer of value to their commercial partners, both existing and potential. It is a space where they are outperforming their Premier League rivals considerably and one that, while not delivering huge revenues directly, is an indicator of the strength of the brand globally that can indirectly impact revenue streams in a positive way.

According to the European Football YouTube Report 2022 , compiled by BuzzMyVideos.com, Liverpool led the way in European football in May 2022 when it came to YouTube views, attracting 77.8m monthly views as of May 2022, an average of 722,000 per video. That figure placed them more than 20m ahead of their closest competitor when it came to monthly page views, Real Madrid.

Liverpool have 7.47m subscribers on YouTube, third behind leaders Barcelona with 13.6m and Real Madrid with 8.24m. But Barcelona didn't make the top five when it came to monthly views while Real Madrid trailed Liverpool in second, the statistics showing the connection between subscribers and being engaged with the content provided, something that commercial partners look at to seek just how valuable a partnership can be for them.

Of the all-time views on YouTube, Liverpool (1.59bn) were in second behind Barcelona (2.12bn), showing that the Reds are gaining ground on the Spanish giants through their success on the field and their European rivals' regression. Manchester United (1.11bn), Manchester City (1.09bn) and Real Madrid (946m) completed the top five.

Speaking to SportsPro Media , Paola Marinone, founder and chief executive of BuzzMyVideos, said:

"The report shows how the transformation of football to the entertainment industry is progressing.

"The top European clubs are already treating their YouTube channels as a broadcast D2C (direct to consumer), as a strategic part of their media business strategy. It is not only a media play but also a global strategy, reaching the audience wherever they are, hence having an even more sizable addressable market.

"There’s a massive area of growth between the top ten European clubs and everyone else, which means there is going to be a lot happening in the coming seasons with different strategies and approaches. I’m curious to see what the results of next year will tell."