The 2022 Fifa World Cup final between France and Argentina alone attracted 1.5 billion TV viewers.
Making a name for himself in the online space is 18-year-old Harry Eastwick from Halswell United’s premiership side.
The Hawks’ goalkeeper has more than 160,000 followers on TikTok, where he posts highlights from his games filmed on a GoPro that sits behind him.
His videos have been liked almost five million times.
An inspiration was former England goalkeeper Ben Foster, who posted matchday videos to his YouTube channel The Cycling GK between 2020 and 2023 during spells at Watford and Wrexham in England’s professional leagues.
Foster has almost 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube.
“Some of my mates said to me I should post them online just because it’s quite interesting to see, and obviously Ben Foster had been doing it as well,” said Eastwick.
“I started posting them online and then and then one day they started going viral and it just picked up from there.
“I just started gaining followers and gaining a lot of interest in my videos.”
His first video to really blow up was in March 2023, from a 1-1 draw between Halswell and Parklands United.
It has more than 13 million views.
“It’s just ridiculous,” Eastwick said.
“I was thinking maybe I might get a couple of thousand followers, a few thousand views, but I was not expecting the amount of success that I’ve had.”
Success has come on the pitch too - Eastwick graduated from Halswell’s academy into the first team last year as second-choice, and this year has been the club’s starting goalkeeper.
He said he’s enjoyed the step up.
“I always felt like I was ready to play first team, it was just a matter of time.
“I just had to stay patient, keep training hard, trust my ability.”
But dealing with strikers trying to score on camera is challenging.
“Strikers always have a bit of an ego, so they like having the camera there and if they score, they’re going up to it and celebrating.
“I’ve had a striker score against me and pick the camera up to celebrate."
