Mycujoo, the site that wants to turn the soccer world upside down

Sometimes putting yourself in the shoes of a typical soccer fan makes you realize what’s missing in the experience of watching the Beautiful Game.

That was the inspiration for mycujoo CEO Pedro Presa. Being from Portugal and a supporter of Boavista — the country’s fourth biggest club in that country — he developed the idea for soccer streaming website mycujoo after seeing his club get relegated to the third tier of Portuguese soccer.

As Boavista would get relegated from lower division to lower division, the club practically disappeared from TV stations and was invisible to viewers who wanted to continue supporting their club via TV or online.

That experience is something that countless fans have experienced worldwide. When the going’s good at the top, it’s great. Just ask any Fulham supporter in America. But the agony and pain of seeing your club relegated is compounded by the fact that it’s nearly impossible to continue watching your team as often as it was when the club was playing in the top flight.

That’s where mycujoo comes in. Presa developed the legal streaming site with a number of other professionals who wanted to broadcast soccer games that are often overlooked by broadcasters. Every day, an estimated 275 million people are playing soccer. Out of all of those soccer games, Presa estimates that only 5% of them are televised live. The other 95% are either not produced or broadcast anywhere, which equals a lot of disappointed and underserved soccer fans around the globe.

Presa soon found that most countries only have a limited amount of bandwidth to broadcast the top flight games. For the other games that are played at the same time as the big clubs, those games are either not shown or no one is filming the game for live broadcast.

After raising funding from a variety of investors, mycujoo launched in 2015. In 2015, mycujoo streamed 56 games exclusively. That number increased to 1,084 in 2016. And so far in 2017, mycujoo has streamed 300 games.

With mycujoo, the legal streaming site focuses on the long tail of soccer games. The games that other networks either don’t have the bandwidth for or aren’t interested in. Or the games that are currently very niche — such as UEFA Women’s Champions League matches, or games from the Danish women’s soccer league.

The Danish women’s soccer league is one of mycujoo’s best case studies. All of the league’s games are streamed live on mycujoo, which has helped create more awareness for the women’s league across Denmark. As a result of the increased interest, the women’s league has now caught the interest of a TV network that has expressed an interest in broadcasting a few games.

The benefits to soccer fans are numerous. First, mycujoo is free. The costs are absorbed by the leagues, federations and clubs who are working with mycujoo to have their games produced and streamed to soccer fans via the mycujoo website. Second, mycujoo opens up a huge assortment of quality soccer from around the world at your fingertips. Whether you’re interested in lower division soccer or scouting teams for the next big star, or watching women’s soccer, the choices are endless. Third, 98% of the broadcasts have no geo restrictions, so you can watch almost every game without being blocked.

Presa believes that soccer should be freely-available for viewing from around the world.

So far, mycujoo is averaging 7,000 viewers per stream. One match, in particular, had 87,000 viewers for a game featuring Singapore.

Presa has been flying around the globe recently to sign more clubs, federations and leagues to mycujoo. Most interestingly, he said that he hopes to add clubs from North America and Asia-Pacific in the near future.

“We’re growing a lot,” said Presa. “There’s more content coming.”

Out of that content, approximately 95% of it is exclusive to mycujoo, added Presa.

mycujoo.tv is definitely a site for soccer fans to keep a close eye on in the future.