Marseille receive 60,000 submissions for ‘fan designed kit’ competition

Back in March we posted an article praising French team Olympique Marseille for their asking fans to submit their own designs for a new official kit. Marseille used the landmark of hitting 1 million Facebookfans to reward their international fanbase and are the first football club world wide to essentially crowd-source their jersey. This week the club announced that they received a staggering 60,000 submissions for the competition and that after months of development and judging – they let their Facebook fans have the final decision.

The kit will be worn in several league games and domestic cup matches and will undoubtedly be a popular purchase for the Marseille faithful. The club initially utilised an Adidas created Facebook app to let fans mix a large variety of styles, colours and layouts – as to ensure that they were not going to have the competition hijacked and end up with a potentially disastrous end product.

As we reported in March, this is an excellent piece of Sports Social Media innovation and is such a clever way to create more ‘affinity’ between the fans and club. Sports fans want to feel that they matter to the club, and they want to influence the way the clubs performs – both on and off the pitch. By allowing fans to design the club merchandise, not only are they uniting fans closer to the club, but they are making fans feel a sense of ownership of the club – something that is becoming more important in an industry where clubs are controlled by playboy millionaires or tight fisted faceless boards.