Introducing Match the Bar
Next year, we will be launching our Match the Bar app. On our Medium blog page we will be sharing tips and best practices for bar owners to take their bars to the next level.
We hope to use this first blog post to help you understand What is Match the Bar, How does it work, and Why are we creating it?
Why
I’m a British-American expat that moved to Barcelona over four years ago. As a huge football fan, there’s few things I enjoy more to my weekends than heading to a sports bar to watch football. But, I found it hard to find a bar to watch my favorite teams.
I don’t support the big Premier League teams of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, etc. Although like most football fans I love a match featuring the top four, if I want to watch a match of Swansea City or West Ham United it can be quite difficult.
If Barcelona is playing at the same time as a top Premier League match you might even miss out on an opportunity to watch a great match as it’s almost impossible to find a local bar that will be showing it. I had to scroll through Facebook and contact several different bars trying to locate one that would be have it on. Many times I ended up just watching the match at home on an online stream because it was too much effort to try and locate a bar.
Lots of my friends in Barcelona also face this problem with La Liga matches. For example, my friends from Girona complain that last year when their club were still in the second division it was extremely difficult to find a bar here in Barcelona that would be showing the match.
The Girona and Barcelona matches often clashed as they were scheduled at the same times. Now that Girona is in the top division, fans might not have as much trouble. But, what about Nastic fans or other top local teams?
Most football fans have also faced a problem during the Champions League when there can be up to 8 games on at a time and you’re not sure if the bar will be showing a Barcelona match, or a Real Madrid or Athlético Madrid match. It is tiresome to have to research and organize a group of friends to watch the match and frustrating that it takes so much effort.
Ultimately, the answer to the question: “Why did we create Match the Bar?” is because we understand it’s frustrating and time consuming to be able to find a bar to watch your favorite football match.
How
In order to solve the problem we needed to find a way to better connect sports fans and bars.
There are 260,000 bars across Spain, it is hard for bar owners to differentiate their bar. Bar owners are always struggling to get more clients and keep loyal customers happy. There is 1 bar per 175 Spanish citizens, so there is huge pressure from competition.
As a result, over 65,000 bars contract TV sports packages. But, many of these bars do not promote this fact enough. Many bars just show the big matches on an opportunistic basis.
Match the Bar helps bar owners to successfully promote their businesses, and get more clients through the door. We make it easy to connect bars with clients and expand a bar’s reach.
So, “How does Match the Bar connect sports bars and fans?” by making a platform that helps both parties solve a problem they currently face. Bars are looking to earn more money by getting more clients and fans want it to be easier to find what they are looking for.
What
At the heart of it: “What really is Match the Bar?” We are just a simple app.
Fans enter and search the match they want to see, quickly seeing a map of all the bars across the city that will be showing it.
Bars pay a monthly subscription to have a profile on the Match the Bar app. The bars can quickly and easily select the matches they will be showing in their bar.
Both fans and bars are happy, because Match the Bar solves a problem they are facing.
In the future, we see all kinds of expansions for our app, from reservations features to premium metrics. But, the core USP of our app is just that: to help fans find a bar to watch football.
We hope that you will join us as we continue to grow.
You can subscribe to our newsletter by visiting our website here.
Join us also on social media to see upcoming matches, football news and engage with us about your favorite sports bars!
Twitter: @matchthebar
Instagram: @matchthebar
Facebook: @matchthebar
