Portsmouth chief’s hint over coverage plans amid bid to build club’s worldwide standing

Andy Cullen believes it’s imperative Pompey ‘think a little bit differently’ as they look to build the club’s status across the globe.

And that means the Blues needing to be creative in their offering, as they aim to crack the US market and increase their growing popularity in Australia.

A documentary chronicling life at Fratton Park has been mooted in recent weeks, with chairman Michael Eisner discussing the possibility of doing so last month.

That got supporters thinking of the Blues going down the route of a Wrexham or Sunderland-style project, with both doing so successfully in recent years.

Cullen distanced the chances of Pompey replicating that formula when speaking to The News last month, though he highlighted American network CBS’s deal with the EFL and the immersive entertainment venues showing EFL games as evidence of the opportunities Stateside.

The Blues also launched their Pompey+ channel last year with the biggest overseas market for subscribers coming from Australia, as Aussie fans follow the progress of their compatriots at Fratton Park.

Cullen also spoke of the success of Pompey offering their pre-match show free on the final day against Hull last term, with 50,000 tuning in.

With The News and BBC diversifying their Blues content and independent content creators proving popular, the Pompey CEO feels there is much to consider about the club’s pathway forward.

Whatever the route travelled, Cullen is sure the club need to avoid repeating the formulas seen elsewhere in a crowded market.

Pompey chief: We have to think a little bit differently

He said: ‘We launched our Pompey+ channel last summer when we took our website in house.

‘The Pompey+ channel is in its first year, but we want to grow more content on that. We’re really pleased with the matchday show and the feedback from supporters is really strong.

‘It’s hosted by George Wedlake and we have Andy Awford, Paul Robinson and a number of different guests.

‘That’s quite good because what we can do is show the pre-match show domestically, but internationally we can show pre-match, half-time and full-time. The reason for that is because at half-time and full-time they are showing a lot of match footage, and we can’t show that domestically until midnight because of the domestic rights held by Sky.

‘Being able to show that internationally has been really successful, but what we did for the last home game of the season against Hull City was we made the pre-match show free-to-air just to see if we could get people to sample it.

‘On the day we had 26,000 views and it’s now over 50,000 views. That’s something which is really interesting because if we have that amount of people interested in looking at it, we have to think a little bit differently.

‘Domestically our supporters have always wanted to get as much access to content about their club as they can.

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‘There is a repertoire they will get from the club, but they will get plenty from people like The News who’ve branched into podcasts. There’s (the BBC’s) Andy Moon who has, too, and there’s a number of independent podcasts.

‘That’s great, because it’s all really good content. We as a football club may disagree with some of those comments or opinions aired, but that’s what football is all about.

‘It’s about opinion and that’s fine, but if we can start to deliver that into a different world outside of Portsmouth then it starts to deliver a lot of opportunities for the football club going forward.

‘You can see with Wrexham they haven’t necessarily made a huge amount of money out of the show itself. It’s been the add-ons they’ve had from the interest it’s created and new partnership opportunities. That has increased investment into the club

‘So it’s something for us to really work hard as a club, in terms of how do we do that and how do we make it work? How do we build it? How do we create more interest in the football club in what is an emerging market.’

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