OneFootball is a German platform-based

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

media company. The OneFootball app features live-scores, statistics and news from 200 leagues in 12 different languages covered by a newsroom located in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. In 2019, OneFootball partnered up with

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to have the rights to stream directly on the app

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as the Primera División or La Liga, and officially known as LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest ...

in UK and with

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

to transmit 2. Bundesliga and

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal (), also known as the German Cup in English language, English, is a German knockout Association football, football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competiti ...

matches in Germany. In 2020, OneFootball bought club-founded video forum Dugout. Speaking of the deal to

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

, OneFootball CEO Lucas von Cranach said that the move will "benefit the whole football ecosystem with clubs, federations and leagues able to increase audience reach and harness our powerful data insights to gain a deeper understanding of their fans' engagement as the rise of advertising means they need to know as much as possible".

History

Founded in Berlin in 2008 by Lucas von Cranach, the app provides extensive football coverage, including

live scores In sport, score is a quantitative measure of the relative performance of opponents in a sporting discipline. Score is normally measured in the abstract unit of ''points'', and events in the competition can raise or lower the score of the invo ...

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

, and video content. In 2009, von Cranach launched iLiga, which merged under the OneFootball brand. The app was featured in the 2016

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

keynote for

WatchOS watchOS is the operating system of the Apple Watch, developed by Apple Inc., Apple. It is based on iOS, the operating system used by the iPhone, and has many similar features. It was released on April 24, 2015, along with the Apple Watch, the o ...

3. The management team expanded in 2018 with Franz Koch, former CEO of Puma, as COO and Patrick Fischer, former CEO of Sport1 Media, as CBO. In 2019, OneFootball rebranded with a new logo. In May 2022, the raised €300 million in a Series D financing round led by Liberty City Ventures, with participation from

Animoca Brands Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd. is a Hong Kong–based game software company and venture capital company co-founded in 2014 by Yat Siu and David Kim. The company initially focused on developing mobile games, then shifted to blockchain gaming a ...

, Dapper Labs, and others.

Acquisition of Dugout

In 2020, OneFootball acquired Dugout, a digital media company, to enhance its video content offerings and bolster its position in the football media industry. Dugout brought its global video expertise, network, and distribution capabilities to OneFootball. This move also added Dugout's founding clubs –

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), commonly known as Bayern Munich (), FC Bayern () or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. They are most known for their men's professional football team, ...

, Chelsea,

Juventus Juventus Football Club (; from , ), commonly known as Juventus or colloquially as Juve (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Turin, Piedmont, who compete in Serie A, the ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

Manchester City Manchester City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Manchester, England, that competes in the Premier League, the English football league system, top flight of Football in England, English footbal ...

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...

, and

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional Football club (association football), football club based in Madrid. The club competes in La Liga, th ...

– as shareholders, enhancing OneFootball's reach to over 85 million monthly users globally.

Web3 Investments

Seven months after raising more than $300 million in

NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

funds, the company made three waves of layoffs in 2022. This was due to OneFootball's overinvestment by signing various licensing

Web3 Web3 (also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. This is distinct from Tim Berners-Lee's concept of th ...

deals, including the Italian

Seria A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

and

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

. When the contracts were finalized, the crypto winter set in, and the market was in ruins. This prompted OneFootball to restructure all the contracts and realign cost-cutting measures to survive financially. In total, the company reduced its workforce to 250 employees, which came just one year after an fund-raising of over 300 million dollars. In June 2024, CEO Patrick Fischer assured within the German media

capital.de ''Capital'' is a German language, German-language monthly business magazine published by Gruner + Jahr in Hamburg, Germany. History and profile ''Capital'' was established in 1956. The magazine is published monthly by Gruner + Jahr. It appears ...

of the company's good health and that there would be no more layoffs. "We now have 240 employees, and over 250 employees have been laid off. It was one of the hardest times for me personally. But that's finished now."

Leadership changes

In March 2023, Lucas von Cranach stepped down as CEO amid the company’s financial challenges. Maurits Schön, who joined OneFootball in 2022 and previously served as Vice President of Operations, was promoted to

Chief Operating Officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...

(COO). In his new role, Schön was

Managing Director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

alongside the newly-appointed CEO, Patrick Fischer.

Financial Health and Future Prospects

The company has faced significant financial challenges, prompting a re-evaluation of its business model and strategic direction. Reports indicate that OneFootball is undertaking measures to stabilize its operations and continue serving its user base with high-quality football content and services. Fischer stated: "We burned our fingers heavily one and half years ago, like any other company in the Web3 space, so our proposition going forward will be a global football marketplace for content products and services."

OneFootball broadcasting rights

OneFootball partnerships

References

External links

Official website

Official website
{{In lang, de 2008 establishments in Germany Internet properties established in 2008 German sport websites Companies based in Berlin