Football media platform OneFootball has announced the acquisition of Dugout to form the world’s largest owned and operated digital football media business.
The acquisition will combine Dugout’s global video network and distribution with OneFootball’s personalised digital experience – to reach 85 million highly engaged football fans every month with live OTT streaming, highlights, behind-the-scenes and archive video content, news, scores and statistics.
OneFootball’s shareholders will now include Dugout founding clubs – Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid – as well as new shareholder Olympique de Marseille.
Financial details of the deal have not been revealed, but the companies say they expect it to complete in early 2021.
According to Lucas von Cranach, CEO and founder of OneFootball, the acquisition of Dugout reflects the company’s ambition to become the ultimate destination for everything football.
“This move will benefit the whole football ecosystem with clubs, federations and leagues able to increase audience reach and harness our powerful data insights to gain a deeper understanding of their fans’ engagement,” he added. “Our brand and advertising partners will have access to new, contextually-relevant destinations to reach highly engaged football fans on a global scale, with a local approach.
