By Anthony Barbagallo
With COVID-19 causing world-wide havoc in 2020, there seems to be uncertainty surrounding the sports journalism industry. The situation is becoming more challenging for emerging sports journalists.
While I am in the last couple of months of finishing up my journalism degree, the current competition in the football media industry is going to be vast and intense. This pandemic is forcing many sports media companies to reduce their amount of football journalists.
An example of a sports broadcaster restructuring their business model is Australia’s Fox Sports Football. Several football commentators and journalists from Fox Sports lost their jobs earlier this year when there was no football being played in Australia or abroad. But Optus Sports – Australia’s new digital football platform – took some of those football journalists that left Fox Sports. So as you can see, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the instability surrounding the large sports media players. It shows that innovations or running a niche sports brand might be a beneficial backup in this competitive industry.
At the end of 2018, I created a football brand called Sicilian Football. Having a strong passion for Italian football and being proud to have a Sicilian background made me start this niche project. I essentially wanted to offer Italian football fans something different from mainstream football media – a place that focused on football for a specific Italian region. Due to many Sicilian football fans living abroad in the US, Australia, Canada and the UK, I thought I would create a community where English-speaking Sicilians could go to keep up to date on football in Sicily. With hardly any football media platforms covering Sicilian football teams in English, this was the perfect opportunity to distinguish me as a football journalist with the rest of the competition in the industry.
I still operate Sicilian Football on an individual basis – hoping to create a team in the near future. Running the brand entails working with social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), creating graphics for news and matchdays, and producing several articles for the website. I am currently updating the Sicilian Football website – looking to expand on it by including an online merchandise store.
Woking on this Sicilian Football requires many hours of research, keeping up to date with contacts in the football industry in Sicily and producing fresh content daily. In regards to posting social media content, I have been learning new skills with Photoshop. Creating captivating graphics for transfer signings, game previews, match scores, and several news templates can be a great tool to enhance football journalism on the digital platform.
By initially starting Sicilian Football as just a side project, little did I realise that this football brand would gain quickly gain traction in the Italian football community. After gaining around 6000 followers in total for the last 1.5 years, it has indeed been a remarkable journey and humbling experience. To interview professional and semi-professional footballers Sicily, talk with some club presidents and leaders, interact with multiple fanbases and keep in contact with renowned Sicilian football journalists – it has diversified my football journalism portfolio.
Covering professional, semi-professional and amateur football in Sicily has allowed me to find my authentic voice within football journalism, and it has also helped connect with a loyal audience – something that can be too tricky in these days of football reporting. By creating Sicilian Football, I have been quite lucky this year as an emerging football journalist to have still had work available with several football clubs.
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