COPA90

About COPA90

COPA90 is a London-based football media company creating fan-first football content for a global young audience. Founded in 2012 by Bigballs Media under Tom Thirlwall, it grew into one of the world's biggest football media brands on social and digital platforms — known for its documentaries, fan culture coverage and distinctive voice — attracting investment from Liberty Global and Turner before earning a place in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100. Visit the official website at copa90.com.

History and founding

COPA90 was founded in 2012 by Bigballs Media, the company led by Tom Thirlwall, as a football media brand built for the social and mobile era. The name referenced the 1990 World Cup — "Italia 90," a touchstone tournament for English football culture — signalling the brand's grounding in fan nostalgia and passion. COPA90's insight was that young football fans weren't watching traditional sports television; they were on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and they wanted football content that spoke their language. The company built a global network of creators and contributors, producing documentaries, fan-culture films and social content from football communities worldwide. Its growth attracted serious investment: in 2015 Liberty Global took a 14% stake for £7 million, valuing the young company at around £50 million; in 2017 Turner (the US media giant behind CNN and Cartoon Network) took a stake; and in 2020 COPA90 ranked 57th in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100, the league table of Britain's fastest-growing tech companies.

Ownership and funding model

COPA90 was founded by Bigballs Media and grew with venture-style investment: Liberty Global's 2015 investment (£7 million for 14%) and Turner's 2017 stake gave it the capital to scale globally. The company's commercial model blends branded content — working with major brands seeking to reach young football fans — with platform revenue, distribution partnerships and original productions. Its investors' confidence reflected the brand's extraordinary audience growth and its position at the intersection of football, youth culture and digital media.

Editorial focus and coverage areas

COPA90's content celebrates football fan culture worldwide: documentaries on supporter communities, from the terraces of Europe to the streets of South America, Africa and Asia; films on football's intersection with music, fashion and politics; coverage of major tournaments; and social-first formats designed for sharing. The brand's tone is passionate, inclusive and global — football as a universal language rather than a television product. Its creator network gives it authentic voices in football cultures across the world, distinguishing it from London-centric traditional media.

Notable leadership and creators

COPA90 was founded under Tom Thirlwall at Bigballs Media, whose vision of fan-first football media defined the company. Its growth was driven by a global network of creators, filmmakers and contributors — young football storytellers given a platform and production support. The company's leadership navigated the complex economics of digital video, building one of the few independent media brands to achieve genuine global scale in the platform era.

Audience and reach

COPA90's audience is football's global youth — the under-30 fans who consume the sport primarily through social and mobile. At its peak the brand's cross-platform audience numbered in the tens of millions, making it one of the world's largest football media properties on social video. Its reach spans continents, with particularly strong followings in the UK, Europe, the Americas and Africa — reflecting football's global demographics and the brand's creator-network model.

Business model

COPA90's revenues come from branded content and partnerships with major brands — from sportswear giants to consumer brands seeking young, passionate, global audiences — plus platform monetisation and distribution deals. Its value proposition to advertisers is unique: authentic access to football fan culture worldwide, delivered by creators those fans trust. The Turner investment reflected strategic interest in this model from traditional media seeking youth audiences.

Digital platforms and social video

COPA90 is a platform-native brand: its content lives primarily on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other social platforms, with its website serving as a hub. The company's mastery of social video — from short-form viral content to long-form documentaries — made it a case study in digital-native media. Its global creator network produces locally authentic content at a scale centralised newsrooms cannot match.

Awards and recognition

COPA90's ranking at number 57 in the 2020 Sunday Times Tech Track 100 recognised its explosive growth, placing it among Britain's fastest-growing technology companies. Its investments from Liberty Global and Turner validated its model at the highest levels of the media industry. Within football culture, its documentaries and fan-culture coverage earned it credibility with supporters — the hardest audience to win.

Community and industry role

COPA90 demonstrated that there was a massive global audience for football content made by fans, for fans — and that traditional sports media was missing it. Its creator network gave young filmmakers and storytellers worldwide a platform, and its documentaries preserved and celebrated supporter cultures that mainstream coverage ignored. For the media industry, it proved that independent digital brands could achieve global scale in sports; for football, it gave fan culture the premium treatment it deserved.

Outlook

COPA90 continues to create football content for its global audience, navigating the evolving economics of social video. Its brand — passionate, global, fan-first — remains distinctive in a football media landscape increasingly dominated by rights holders and betting companies. For football's young global fans, it remains one of the most authentic voices in the sport's media.

The fan-first revolution and football's global youth

COPA90's significance extends beyond its audience figures into what it proved about media and fandom. Its founding bet — that young fans wanted football media that treated them as participants rather than viewers — anticipated the creator economy by several years. By building a global network of local creators instead of a centralised newsroom, it achieved something traditional sports media never could: authentic coverage of football cultures from Buenos Aires to Lagos to Jakarta, in voices those cultures recognised as their own. Its documentaries elevated fan culture — ultras, street football, terrace fashion — to the status of art, arguing implicitly that supporters are the sport's true protagonists. The investments from Liberty Global and Turner showed that the wider industry understood what was happening: the future of sports media was social, global and fan-led. COPA90 didn't just cover football's global youth; it gave them a mirror — and in doing so, built one of the defining media brands of the social era.

COPA90's deeper significance lies in what it revealed about the generational shift in sports media consumption. Its founding insight — that young fans experienced football primarily through screens, social feeds and gaming, and that no traditional broadcaster was speaking their visual and cultural language — was vindicated by the audience it built. The brand's Derby Days series didn't just document rivalries; it redefined how football documentaries could feel — intimate, fan-centred, culturally literate. Its FIFA/EA FC gaming content recognised that for millions of young supporters, the game on the console is as real as the game on the pitch. The creator-network model — partnering with fan channels and independent filmmakers rather than employing a conventional newsroom — anticipated the creator economy that now dominates digital media. And its brand partnerships showed that advertisers would pay a premium to reach an audience that trusted the messenger. COPA90's journey from 2012 start-up to Bigballs Media centrepiece to the post-2020 media landscape mirrors the wider story of digital sports media: explosive growth, venture and corporate investment, consolidation, and the ongoing search for sustainable economics. But its core achievement endures: proving that football culture — the fans, the cities, the stories around the game — was a media proposition in its own right, not just filler between matches. Every football creator working today operates in a landscape COPA90 helped create.