Olympique Marseille has boosted its fan engagement opportunities by announcing that its upcoming friendlies against FC Pinzgau and SV Heimstetten will be streamed live on Twitch, becoming the first french side to broadcast on the platform. 

The matches, which will be directly broadcast from Marseille’s twitch channel and its official website, marks the return of professional football in the city after more than five months without playing a match.

Olympique Marseille chief marketing & media officer Hervé Philippe stated: “Olympique de Marseille continues to innovate digitally and is proud to be a pioneer once again by broadcasting its first two friendly matches on Twitch, a platform we will be more and more active on in the coming months. 

“After TikTok, which we joined very early in January 2019, and Snapchat in February 2019, OM plans to connect with a younger and more digitally active audience on social networks. Football and OM have quickly become highly sought and interactive themes on these platforms. So it makes sense to participate with creativity and interactivity.”

The initiative is set to further boost Marseille’s innovation and digital strategy by allowing fans worldwide to see the football club on the streaming platform. The Ligue 1 side’s first match will be against Austrian third division team FC Pinzgau on 19 July with Marseille then facing German Regionalliga club SV Heimstetten shortly after on 22 July. Given the ongoing global health pandemic Marseille has warned that the schedule is subject to change if the fixtures need to be moved. 

Twitch-France partnership manager Corentin Dubois added: “This is the very first time that Twitch will broadcast a live match for a Ligue 1 club. We are very proud to support Olympique de Marseille in its preparations for next season. Football fans were able to follow their favorite stars on Twitch during the confinement and can continue to support their clubs on the platform.”

Insider Insight: Olympique Marseille’s decision to broadcast its games live on Twitch continues to show the growth on online streaming platforms and how they have developed in recent years. Despite being primarily gaming-based, Twitch has gained a lot of traction in the sports sector particularly as all of Amazon’s allocated Premier League games after its resumiton have been available on the platform. 

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