Manchester United launches official YouTube channel

Manchester United has launched an official YouTube channel after a 13-year absence as it looks to build its brand and commercial income in a deal with the world’s biggest video-sharing site.

Manchester United is the only Premier League team and the only one of the top clubs globally not to have an official YouTube channel since the video-sharing site launched in 2005.

Until now, United, one of the world’s biggest club has relied on distributing its content via it's pay-TV channel, MUTV.

The Red Devils already dominate social media with 17.4m followers on Twitter, 73.8m on Facebook and 20.9m on Instagram and despite having been without their own channel, videos related to United on YouTube are already the most viewed in the Premier League.

They have seen 843million views since the start of 2017-18 season alone - a growth of 60 per cent year on year. YouTube chiefs have said they expect those figures to soar now.

The lure, however, of YouTube’s 1.3 billion users and a slice of its $11bn (£8bn) in annual revenue has galvanised Manchester United into playing catchup with its rivals.

Amazingly, even without an official football channel it is the most viewed club in the world on YouTube, said Tomos Grace, YouTube’s head of sport for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

But one channel that people are looking for is the official Manchester United voice. The plans they have are very exciting. They want to go big.

YouTube said that since the start of this football season views of Manchester United video content had risen 60% year on year to almost 850m.

Cross town rivals, Manchester City, is crowing about being the UK’s biggest club on YouTube with 1.1 million subscribers, though its target will be to surpass the world’s most popular club, Barcelona, which has been on the site since 2006 and has 3.8 million followers.