Red Bull & Beta Film team for football corruption scripted venture

Red Bull Media House and Beta Film are set to launch an ambitious high-end scripted series that looks at football corruption, set to launch in 2019/21.

Titled The Net, the project will be a total of 40 hours across five series, each based in separate locations in Europe.

Company execs told TBI that a third party producer is essential to the financing of each individual project, on Sunday night at the MIPTV market in Cannes.

Beta Film director Moritz von Kruedener said that the budget would be “a huge number in total”.

All five series will stand alone, but also have to be interlocked to create a wider universe. To bring the project to life, Red Bull and Beta will be looking for local production partners across Europe and have already begun work with local producers in Germany and Italy.

Company execs also told TBI that they have begun discussions with producers in the UK but nothing is yet confirmed.

The Net will focus on football outside the stadium. It will touch on themes such as doping, match fixing, betting, modern slavery and human trafficking.

Each series will be produced both in local language and English. They look to make at least 50% of each show will always be in English due to the international nature of the sport.

The hope is that while each series will stand alone in each local market, but that ultimately the entire 40 hours will eventually be picked up by international services such as Netflix.

The concept was created by German theater director Matthias Hartmann and Plinio Bachmann.

This marks the first time Red Bull Media House will work on a scripted project. The media company’s expertise in sports streaming is to be used to create an “authentic” world of football in the series, according to execs.