Previous studies have shown that football is getting more commercial and together with increased digital possibilities football clubs can bypass traditional media and attract audience via their own media channels. With strategic communication and agenda setting as a theoretic background I wanted to investigate how Swedish top football clubs used their own media channels, what affected the media strategy of the big clubs in Sweden and how sports journalists perceived the football club’s communicative development. I choose AIK as a case and I observed them and sports journalists before, during and after the local derby against Djurgården. Furthermore, I analyzed AIK´s content in their own media channels and media’s coverage of AIK-Djurgården. Finally, I conducted qualitative interviews with representatives from AIK and three sport journalists at three Swedish newspapers.

My study revealed that the AIK significantly planned and applied strategic content and messaging across their media channels, consistent with the techniques used by more mature and traditional media organizations. When it comes to access to the club and players there are tendencies and signs of less accessibility, but in general Swedish sport journalists see the Swedish Allsvenskan as open and not as commercial and controlled as the major European football leagues. In the end journalists believe that the material which is produced by AIK and the other big Stockholm clubs (Djurgården and Hammarby) can be seen as a compliment, but also a competitor to the material that media produce.