Speaking to iGaming Expert, Igor Petrulevich, Chief Business Development Officer at Tribuna.com, discusses how the media publication’s community-driven approach has cultivated a loyal and empowered audience.
Ahead of the upcoming SBC Summit and the Affiliate Leader Summit, he also delves into how Tribuna.com has successfully merged sports content with affiliate marketing, and why social media remains a vital part of their strategy.
Affiliate Leaders: Igor, thank you for sitting down with us. To start off, could you please share with our readers who may not be familiar, who Tribuna is and your journey to where you are in 2025?
Igor Petrulevich: We’re a sports-media publisher that runs Tribuna.com, the FootballXtra app, and mobile apps for top European clubs like FC Barcelona, Liverpool, Bayern Munich and a bunch more. All in, we’ve got over 10 million users worldwide. On top of that, we’re running a network of social media accounts and YouTube channels, hitting 20 million subscribers and racking up north of 150 million in monthly reach.
Our mission is as ambitious as can be: rethinking media from the ground up. Fans today want to debate, react, and shape what they see. So while we serve up deep stats and proper football content from every angle, we’re just as focused on building a real community. A place where fans can interact, influence what gets seen, block out the noise, and feel like they actually matter. It’s about giving them a voice, not just a content feed. We bring football closer to fans, as we like to say internally.
Affiliate-wise, we’ve seriously stepped up our efforts over the last two years. What could’ve been called a side hustle not so long ago is now a pretty serious business, working directly with over 200 betting brands. Meanwhile, we’re also building what we believe can become one of the standout media voices in the iGaming space. We’re sure there are smarter, fresher ways to get content out there, and we’re ready to shake things up.
AL: As an avid football fan myself, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of football content on your site. As a sports‑media publisher first, how do you balance football news and analysis with your affiliate content? And how do these two areas complement each other?
IP: Cheers for the kind words. If you like what you see, this is where I shamelessly plug our app, Football Xtra. Apart from just news and live scores, you’ll find deep-dive stats in there too, like player values and salaries, which add real depth to users.
That just goes to show we’re pretty skilled at blending different types of content and data. It’s exactly how we strike the balance between football coverage and affiliate features. Take betting predictions and previews, for example. They’re solid affiliate content that slots right onto our homepage, sitting comfortably alongside injury updates, controversial interviews, and transfer rumours.
Then there are betting odds, which work out as a win for everyone. Our football editorial team gets extra data to enrich the match pages, giving users handy odds info they really appreciate. Meanwhile, our sales team sells those prime spots to affiliate partners, making it a solid deal all around.
We’re keen to push more creative features where football news and affiliate content intersect. We’ve invested €1.5 million into Football Xtra, and soon we’ll be rolling out AI features to help bettors play smarter. In the future, there are plans for a dedicated product specifically for bettors.
AL: Tribuna integrates comments, upvoting, and “best comment” highlights, creating a vibrant community that many traditional affiliates strive for. What inspired you to build these features, and how have they influenced user retention and growth?
IP: Building an active community is absolutely key, and from day one, our organisation was built with community front and centre. We even have a dedicated development team that’s exclusively focused on pushing community features forward.
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about dependency on platforms, with everyone nervously watching Google updates or Facebook algorithm shifts. In that sense, we enjoy a solid degree of independence because we always know there’ll be steady, returning traffic from our loyal user base.
Our goal is to become a community-rich platform. Comments are what most users value, and naturally, we’ve got those too, but let’s be honest, everyone does these days. What really sets us apart is letting users have a proper go at creating their own content, which shows up right alongside our own editorial content in the feed. Any user can write a pre-match or post-match article, or whatever else they fancy. It’s one of our top UGC features, and we’ve now rolled it out across all the languages we operate in.
AL: Your editorial output spans global football, casino gaming, analytics, and more. How do you maintain high‑quality content at scale, and what processes or systems support that consistency?
IP: Honestly, it’s the great people on our team that keep the pace and quality high. That’s pretty much the main thing. Scaling is definitely a hot topic right now, and it means keeping a close eye on processes. But we trust our heads of departments to keep things tight, and we’re constantly hunting for talented editors worldwide.
Right now, we have over 200 people across 28 countries. Our main base is Ukraine. Most of the team is still working there despite the war, but we’ve also got folks from Madagascar, Benin, Togo, India, Peru, Argentina, and more. It’s a diverse team, and that diversity helps us cover all the angles while keeping quality consistent.
AL: AI, analytics, and automation are buzzwords across media and affiliate marketing in recent years. Is Tribuna using any of these technologies?
IP: Absolutely. The scale we just talked about wouldn’t be possible without integrating tech trends. Breaking into the Premier League and affiliate marketing takes more than effort. You also need AI, analytics, automation, etc.
Deep traffic analytics have played a major role in our growth — we’ve more than tripled our affiliate performance by truly understanding our users: what they’re engaging with, which pages convert, and which content blocks actually hit the mark.
We’re also staying alert to new developments. Interestingly, ChatGPT has become a traffic driver too, so we decided to dig deeper. Conversions are still modest, but the traffic quality is on par with Google. It’s still early days, but we’re keeping a close watch on how AI tools are shaking up SEO and impacting overall volume.
AL: Turning to social media, Tribuna’s own Instagram account has an impressive 143k followers. What strategies were implemented to amass this following, and what role do you see social media playing in the future of affiliation?
IP: I know for a fact that having an audience on Instagram delivers great brand awareness for our partners. In our home market, Ukraine, we’ve run dozens of projects like that. On top of that, we’re always looking for ways to bring more value to affiliate partners through social media.
Our motto is simple: be where your audience is. That’s how we got into Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Years of active work on socials have taught us how to grow audiences quickly.
And once you’ve got the audience, it’s easier to find ways to monetise it. As the person in charge of project revenues, I always tell the team: bring us the traffic, and my team and I will handle the rest.
AL: You’re attending the SBC Summit in Lisbon this September, which includes the Affiliate Leaders Summit. What are your expectations, and what are you hoping to achieve?
IP: I personally believe words like “global event” get thrown around a lot in iGaming these days, but having been to SBC last year, I can genuinely say it lives up to the hype. The scale is huge because industry leaders from the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe all come together in Lisbon.
I’m really looking forward to being back this September, especially because it’s a chance to make the sort of connections you just can’t make at smaller events. It’s also a great chance to take a step back and get a fresh perspective on the business.
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For more information on Tribuna.com, you can visit their website here. Want in on the Affiliate Leaders Summit at SBC Summit 2025? Apply for a complimentary pass for full access to the expo floor, all sessions, evening networking, and free catering!
SBC’s Affiliate Leaders community brings together a vital segment of the iGaming industry, empowering affiliates to connect, share insights, and explore challenges and opportunities within the sector. Built around information exchange, Affiliate Leaders offers exclusive benefits, including speaking opportunities at SBC events, interview features, VIP dinners, and complimentary access to all SBC events globally, amplifying affiliate voices in the iGaming discussion. Apply for membership.
