Bristol Rovers Head of Media Mitch Waddon speaks to BRTV about his responsibilities at the Football Club, 2024 successes and the exciting plans for 2025.
Please could you introduce yourself with your name and your job role?
“Of course, I’m Mitch Waddon, and I’m the Head of Media at Bristol Rovers Football Club.”
What does your job entail here?
“Media has changed quite a bit over the years. I think in a club capacity, that would traditionally have been the matchday programme, any sort of club-related interviews, transfer announcements, or a new head coach, as we’ve announced recently. But in the last ten to 15 years, what media is has changed quite dramatically, and we’re now dealing in an age of social media, press releases and club communication with our fanbase and with external journalists and media outlets as well.
“So, I think media now takes on any form of communication that the club is putting out into the outer word, so that would sit under my remit.”
Tell us about your career so far and how it led you to Bristol Rovers...
“I started as a sports journalist. I studied journalism at the University of Falmouth, what feels like a lifetime ago now. Coming out of Falmouth, I freelanced as a football reporter for a few different organisations. I had a lot of fun reporting on events like the European Championships in 2016, the Premier League and those sorts of competitions.
“Then I went to work for West Ham United in 2017, and I spent seven years with West Ham working across an abundance and a variety of different projects. I was with their women’s team for a good few years as that team went from semi-professional into a fully professional WSL outfit. Then I was with their academy, one of the best academies in the world, and working with them to enhance that image and that reputation and really bringing those young players to the centre of what we were doing as a football club.
“My last few years were working closely with the first team. We had David Moyes as manager at West Ham at the time and working across the European campaigns, and I got to be part of that European final that the Club won in 2023, so that was really special.
What do you and your team achieve in 2024?
“I joined Bristol Rovers in March 2024, so quite close to the end of last season. With no disrespect to what came before me, I think it’s fair to say we were dealing with quite a base-level media department, not much in terms of equipment owned by the Club, or resources available. Some very passionate and talented individuals working here that perhaps need a bit of guidance to go to the next level and take their content and their strategy to the next level.
“The first two to three months were certainty just getting an idea of the lay of the land and then slowly putting in those foundations for what we wanted to take into this season, the 2024/25 season. That was making sure we had the right people in the right places, bringing in yourself for example, Harry, bringing Ben in on a full-time basis as well as our Clubs videographer and just really putting those foundations in place to take the Clubs media output, firstly internally, to a level where we felt it was sustainable, but also of good quality.
“I hope supporters have felt that in terms of the quality of the interviews we’ve been doing as a football club. The Monthly Magazine has been very successful with our fanbase, and they seem to really enjoy that piece of content on a month-by-month basis, bringing out players and our head coach closer to the fans with the content we’ve been producing. High-quality photography, which has been fantastically done, predominantly by Will Cooper, who has been working with us.
“That was the main aim for 2024, just to really get those foundations in as a media department that we could then carry on into 2025 and beyond.
Finally, what do you look to achieve in 2025?
“It’s a really big and interesting question because I think the role of media, particularly at a football club, has expanded so dramatically in previous years. In my capacity as Head of Media, within that going forward will also be marketing, and I’m thrilled to have a new Marketing Manager starting with the Club in February.
“I’m really looking forward to working closely with her on how we can engage further with our supporters to bring them as much information as they need and want in regard to fixtures here at The Memorial Stadium, but also anything else that is happening around the Club. Whether that’s ticketing or events or special occasions that we can bring to them with that Marketing Manager and just make sure it is in their face as they want it to be with the work I can do with that person. But also, there is a lot of excitement for me in taking on a lot of the work around fan consultation and the fan matchday experience moving into next season.
“I’m really excited to share that we will be launching a fan consultation group in the not-too-distant future. That group will be made up of a number of supporters who are voted for by the Bristol Rovers fanbase. So, they will choose their supporters in that group themselves. That group will meet with myself and the Club at regular intervals throughout the season to listen to and provide feedback on the ideas and initiatives that we want to take forward as a Club.
“We’re really, really eager to have fan consultation at the heart of everything we do now at Bristol Rovers and that means communicating. It's a word that we see a lot of in the modern social media sphere. Communication, communicating, it’s a bit of a buzzword, but the core of that is then talking to our fanbase on that one-to-one level, on that face-to-face level, getting their thoughts and opinions and feedback on those ideas and then we can then present them to the wider fanbase in a more rounded, cultivated way. That’s something I’m really excited to get my teeth into in 2025, and then a big part of that will be the fan matchday experience.
“We’re sat here at The Mem today filming this interview. I can see the fanzone out my left eye and I’m really excited to talk to our supporters about how we can make that even bigger and better for them going forward as well.”
