Sports got weird when covid hit. Teams had to play in empty stadiums and fans had to watch silent games on TV. Completely losing out on one of the best things about live sports: the atmosphere.

IFK Gothenburg is one of Swedens most popular and successful football teams. They wanted to find a way to connect with their fans even when they couldn’t come see their favorite team play.

Support 24/7 is the first ever radio channel that broadcasts crowd chants every hour of the day, every day of the week. Fans could turn on the radio while watching a game on TV. Or at any other time during the day. And on game days, the stream would sync with https://www.api-football.com/ and adapt to what happened on the pitch. With the crowd getting louder if IFK played well and celebrations breaking out if IFK scored. Fans could also add their own chants by simply recording them and posting them to our admin who would then add them to the audio mix.

We wanted to connect with IFK fans in Gothenburg and from all over the country. ?Most of them were stuck at home during the pandemic and with little to no budget we had to rely on a completely digital launch – from the online radio itself to the social posts promoting it.

We gathered hundreds of recordings from IFK games by searching hi and low in places like YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram and on fan forums for the best clips of IFK crowds singing and chanting. We then cleared them and converted them to audio files. Our sound technicians then built a player that would seamlessly mix all of these different files into a smooth and never-ending audio stream. On game days, the stream would sync with https://www.api-football.com/ and adapt to what happened on the pitch. Fans could also add their own chants by recording them and posting them to our admin who would add them to the mix. And the radio itself could be easily accessed on mobile. The only channel used for the launch was IFK’s Instagram, where a few posts and stories was enough to reach the hardcore fans, who would then spread the word further into the fan community.

Fans from all over the country tuned in to experience the atmosphere.

Around 20 000 people have listened to the radio, roughly equivalent to a full stadium (IFK’s Gamla Ullevi Arena seats around 18 500).