Manchester City has achieved a Premier League “first” by launching a new app for Amazon Fire TV that will showcase the acclaimed CityTV video series. Other content that will be available includes: a behind-the-scenes look at the tunnel on match day, team manager Pep Guardiola training tips, player profile segments and the club’s 10-part series called Global City.

Club officials felt their fan base viewing habits have changed over time, as more of them are using online streaming services for their broadcasting needs. Man City believes that Amazon Fire TV is a growing media platform with huge potential, and felt it was important that CityTV be apart of this growing trend. A move of this nature is a clear sign of how trouble the waters are for cable television providers because their former viewers now exist on multiple digital platforms.

Manchester City is Sport’s Leading Technological Innovator

This announcement is just the latest of a long line of technological advancements offered by Manchester City, who have become an innovator in the professional sports business world. They recently launched “Instant Articles,” which provides the fans with the latest club news on their Facebook page. Plus, Man City will send iPhone users an official exclusive club sticker set via a text message.

Marketing on various social media outlets allows the club to better align itself with a wider global audience. The hope is to strengthen the demand and distribution of Man City’s video content on a broader, more popular digital television platform. Last season, Manchester City’s YouTube channel was the second most popular professional football club website in the world. The club’s videos averaged 150 views-per-minute during the regular season.

Prior to the 2015 campaign, Man City became the first Premier League club to offer a “second screen” video app to their fans sitting inside the Etihad Stadium seats. The CityMatchDay app offers a live video stream of the match and real-time stats to the paying customers and Man City fans around the globe on various social media outlets.

Inside the stadium, fans are able to connect on a free-WiFi network to watch live alternate camera angles from the match that isn’t available to the viewers at home. Plus, you have instant access to a multi-camera setup that provides a bird’s-eye view of the pitch. Many of the fans enjoy the reverse angle replays of the match’s most controversial plays, which offers a different view to argue with other patrons. The video stream can be rewound up to 30 seconds, as this allows the fans another opportunity to re-watch those breathtaking goals after they actually took place.

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Recent data acquired from acuity digital shows that the combined total of all followers on Instagram for every Premier League has surpassed 40 million. More surprisingly, Instagram is just 2 million followers away from becoming the 2nd most popular Social Network – a crown currently held by Twitter.

Data from the digital marketing consultancy based in Leeds showed that as of November 5th, there are 42.1 million Instagram users following a Premier League account. On Twitter for comparison there are a total of 44.3 million users following a club. However, this pales in comparison to Facebook that boasts an accumulated total of 236 million Likes.

Instagram Followers by Premier League team (November 2016)

Unsurprisingly Manchester United dominate the table with 14.4 million followers on their official Instagram account, just as they top both the Twitter and Facebook league tables. What is interesting is that the Red Devils have some 5 million more followers on Instagram than they do on Twitter.

Noticeably, the United team have put substantial investment into Instagram with only Liverpool FC beating them on the sheet volume of media content posted on Instagram. On Twitter in comparison, Man United appear third from bottom for volume of tweets – though they were notably the last Premier League side to join Twitter in July 2013.

In the coming months we can expect to see the Facebook owned platform overtake Twitter. With a focus on rich media across mobile devices, Instagram has allowed the Manchester United social team to communicate to their fan base with historical footage, photos of what players used to look like and repurpose imagery and video shared by past and present members of the squad.

In addition, the team at Old Trafford have done a great job of monetizing the channel to just the right level. This season saw them quite heavily promote the launch of EA Sports FIFA 2017 game through Instagram. The marketing however was quite subtle and allowed EA Sports to piggy back on United’s enormous marketing platform. As Instagram continues to grow, more and more sponsors and brands will look to ways to leverage their commercial agreements with football clubs to amplify their own marketing activity.

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However, still so few have managed to really grasp and invest into the headset or VR. The content remains somewhat thin and more a fringe element and not an inevitability.

With this in mind, what are companies already trying to do (And nearly about to break through on) and what are the future possibilities of the technology?

Immersive Live Broadcast

With the addition of a VR headset like Oculus Rift and a 360 degree live stream from the venue, broadcasters could immediately place fans within the stadium. We’ve already seen significant investment in HD, 4K and 3D technology in the past from sporting broadcasters, but we’ve seen very little from a VR perspective. Imagine being able to take your seat in the stadium (or several views) and be able to experience the match in a much more real way. Broadcasters could offer viewers the chance to watch from the bench, the commentary gallery, within the main fans stand, or even a ‘FIFA View” from the TV gallery.

In February, the Welsh Rugby Union used a 360 degree camera to capture the atmosphere during the national anthems for the Wales vs. Scotland match. This was a relatively simple concept to execute and worked incredibly well to showcase the atmosphere the Welsh fans and team generate. As a piece of content, it worked well for a relatively small cost.

Tactical Training

The presentation that Sander Schouten gave at SoccerEx highlighted the technology being used to help provide tactical training directly to coaches and players. The technology from Beyond Sport uses match data to simulate virtual matches through VR. This was then used with the players to test their decision-making skillset and help improve reaction time. Furthermore, the technology could be used to help managers and coaches work with players to recount key decisions made in a match, with both parties being able to see what the player would’ve seen.

Developing Younger Players

Other applications for the technology included being able to place younger players in the field of play at a higher level without them being at physical risk. The thinking behind this that our younger players don’t need to rely on just gametime alone to getting better at making decisions but can regularly test themselves without having to set foot on the pitch.

Whilst there will always need to be the reality in the sport, this at the very least, does give younger plays a chance to appreciate and taste the pace and reflexes required for a step up to the next level.

Upselling Better Seats in Stadia

We’ve long advocated a better system for allocating seats in stadiums. Many of the major sports clubs still continue to use the standard flat image of a block covering nearly 900 seats. This is widely the most help you’ll get for trying to figure out where to sit. What if instead, you could individually test the view of every seat in the stadium?

Whilst perhaps an extravagance and a need for some poor soul to take a 360 degree photo from every seat in the house, it would be a nice tool for helping ticket sales and could be used by clubs and venues to let fans sample their seat and try upsell to a better one. In subtly monetizing this, seat upsells based on VR decisions could very quickly cover the initial costs of set-up and start to generate its own revenue  stream.

Got any further ideas on how VR might work in the future, or perhaps think it’s just a fad? Leave us a comment and let us know.

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Sunderland’s Victor Anichebe suffered an embarrassing incident after Saturday’s last minute defeat to West Ham. The Nigerian tweeted to his account post – match a message reading:

Can you tweet something like Unbelievable support yesterday and great effort lads! Hard result to take! But we go again!

Anichebe clearly wasn’t that fussed about a direct copy and paste to Twitter, but it did show that footballers are still relying on third parties to write their tweets for them. Not only has the mistake completely cast into doubt how much of their content players actually write, but it’s also done some damage for the football. The mistake has a sour note for football fans and takes all credibility away from praising fans, making it instead somewhat hollow.

What could have been a message of appreciation for the fans has instead backfired entirely. Whilst there is nothing new with third parties, and even sponsors, helping craft social media content for their athletes to promote, this incident does show there is a risk involved.

The incident does pose an interesting question for clubs whether they’ve catered for third-party involvement when players sign official club Social Media Policy documents? With so much sponsorship now focused on social media, this doesn’t just harm club/player brand but also potential revenue generated from sponsorship activation.

Why shouldn’t players out-source their Social Media to third parties?

• Users follow the players individual account for a real interaction. If it’s clear that the player isn’t the one tweeting then why should they bother follow?
• Ensuring consistency between tweets can be difficult. The content and language used by a footballer is likely to be very different of a PR/Social Media professional
• It’s not particularly transparent and therefore carries no credibility amongst fans
• Some clubs and institutions may prohibit players providing access to third parties as part of their Social Media Policy

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Recent Social Media data from Digital-Football.com showed English Premier League clubs have added an additional 30 million followers on Twitter alone in the past 3 years. As clubs have managed to clearly grow their social media presence, they’ve also been able to look to monetize these channels and attract new sponsorship revenues. With just football shirt sponsorship growing by 30% across the Top 6 leagues in 2016 alone, sports clubs and their sponsors have been thrust forward and forced to work together to make the most out of the relationship.

For the sponsor, their objective is to get the most from the fees they’ve paid and ensure that their brand awareness and reputation benefit from the deal. For the sports brands, they want to ensure that they provide sponsors with everything they need but don’t jeprodise the integrity or relationship built their fans across their social networks. Getting the balance right between the two can be difficult and easy to over-complicate.

With this in mind, we’ve put together 5 very simple sponsorship activation tactics that can be employed from smaller clubs on a budget up to the global elite. If you want to explore how to implement one of these tactics, or just want a general chat please do get in touch to see how you can work with Digital-Football.com in the future.

#1 – Branded Twitter Q&A

The branded Twitter Q&A has been about for years – sponsors live tweet fans questions with a particular athlete either under a branded up hashtag or through their own brand Twitter account. The tactic relies on using an athlete who firstly warrants the attention and can draw in engagement for the sponsor, but also that the athlete understands the opportunities/pitfalls of Twitter as to avoid a PR disaster.

Typically, live Q&As last for 30 minutes to an hour and are usually moderated by a Social Media expert either from the club or the sponsor to ensure things don’t go out of hand. Sponsors tend to ask the athlete to tweet out/promote the live hashtag a few days in advance to build anticipation as well as brand awareness. Crucially, it’s important that some of the questions are actually interesting/engaging. A mix of humour, insight and a tad of personal opinion goes a long way.

#2 – Video Content

Becoming every popular but perhaps more difficult to execute is a sponsored video campaign. The continuing trend, and one we highlighted nearly 4 years ago, is to provide behind-the-scenes content with staff and athletes. Some clubs/sponsors choose to take the Q&A further by making is a Skype session, others have worked with clubs to go behind the scenes at the training ground in order to offer fans an insight into what makes their club work. Increasingly though, sponsors are desperately trying to inject humor into the videos and often engage players in some form of challenge.

Such challenges can be as simple as a crossbar challenge or a keepie up challenge. More creative clubs have leveraged the sponsors country of origin and tried to get the players to participate in some activity that has cultural significance e.g. attempting to kick an NFL football. Video can be tricky as it does require athlete access during busy periods and relies on the athletes actually being open and up for having some fun, which depending on the current performance may be harder to generate.

#3 – Creative Content with a simple “Sponsored by”

This year football has seen some wonderful creative content pieces produced by football club art teams – there’s numerous great programmes out there that have changed their artwork from the usual drab “us vs. them” footy programme to following themes more akin to a comic book. Sponsors and clubs should be jumping on the back of this and looking at ways they can do more with their creative.

As an example, any football programme enthusiast will know, there are some seriously great vintage designs from the 50s and 60s out there. Clubs are already redesigning their traditional matchday programmes to give them a vintage twist. Sponsors should be working with clubs to reproduce / mock-up glorious famous matches or try hype up upcoming derby games by going back to their routes with vintage programmes.

#4 – Social Media isn’t just online – bring your online fans offline

American sports, as ever, nail the concept of taking a social media audience online and bringing them into the real offline world of a football stadium. Clubs and sponsors need to be doing more with their brand influencers across Social and hosting offline events that allows these precious brand ambassadors more access than ever before. Whether that’s a “blogger training session” with the gaffer or inclusion in the press pit for core fan led blogsites.

Marriot recently announced a competition allowing superfans to sleepover in the stadium ahead of the next Super Bowl so they can be their first to take in the atmosphere. This isn’t anything new in the NFL in fact, as it’s been going on for nearly 6 years – in most cases with a charitable angle to help kids without beds sleepover in the same stadium their heroes perform in week in / week out.

#5 – Sponsored App Development

Unbelievably many sports brands are still struggling to get a half decent app developed that actually has a purpose. A purposeful and well built app costs money, and whilst sports like football are multi-billion pound industries, marketing budgets are often tight. Therefore, there’s a fantastic opportunity for sponsors to stump up the cash to develop the club app in partnership with the club.

This might mean sacrificing an area of the map to some branded/sponsored content somewhere, but it will also allow the club to create a new potential revenue stream and partnership with their sponsors and fans. Whether thats the design and build of an informational live match day app or perhaps just a branded game, there’s a great opportunity for both sites to collect audience data and help each another out

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There is no doubt that the English Premier League’s popularity has soared with a huge injection of television and sponsorship revenue, but what does this look like online? The above graph shows data from Google Trends that puts into perspective just how huge online search interest has been over the last 10 years. So far April 2016 holds the highest peak in search interest from the search engine giant – Google.

With over $52 billion (net) generated in revenue by Google in 2015, the search marketplace presents a huge opportunity for football clubs and sponsors alike. There are clearly millions of sports fans using Google every month to search for their favourite teams and rivals, but which football club commands the greatest search volume? We’ve utilised data taken from Google’s Keyword Planner Tool   to calculate the average monthly search volume for football team’s brand terms.

Who tops the Google Search Volume table?

Unsurprisingly, Manchester United top the table for the most average monthly searches (in August), but Arsenal aren’t far behind with 2.9 million searches every month. Meanwhile, near the bottom, Hull City FC or perhaps Hull City Tigers, have had just 13,400 average monthly searches – even despite matches against Manchester United and Leicester City in August.

Are clubs capitalising on Google Search volume?

A brief look at Manchester United around “manchester united tickets” shows significant Google Adwords advertising on this keyword. The likes of Thomas Cook – who as an official ticket partner – are bidding on this term, along with a number of other online ticket sites. However, the official ticket office has not PPC adverts running and could be missing out on driving their own revenue stream.

However, when it comes to official merchandise such as shirts – specifically a keyword like “manchester united shirt”, the official club megastore is bidding on the term and has a PPC strategy in place. Interestingly, the official club site faces stiff competition in somewhat of a bidding war against it’s own official partners – namely adidas and KitBag. It’s not just in the paid search arena that the United marketing team face a challenge. Mike Ashley’s SportsDirect actually occupies the Organic search #1 spot ahead of the official store, which suggests they may need to be some work done on United’s Search Engine Optimisation.

So, whilst the former Champions may remain one of the world’s largest sporting brands and most Googled football team in the Premier League, there may be still some work to do to absolutely maximise their marketing strategy.

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Only three years ago the @ManUtd Twitter account languished behind the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool in terms of size and engagement, but how times have changed. Using data recorded by Digital-Football.com back in November 2013, we’ve compared where English Premier League clubs were then versus where they are now (plus a few new clubs in the league since then).

It took only 70 days in 2013 for the @ManUtd account to hit 1 million followers, but in less than 3 years the Mancunian giants have added an astonishing 7.3 million new followers (+505.98% growth).

Even though fierce rivals Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal have added an incredible 4+ million in the same time period, only Crystal Palace come close in terms of relative growth seeing +498.65% November 13 to September 16.

With transfer signings like Zlatan Ibrahimović and Paul Pogba, it’s no surprise that United have stormed their way to the top of Twitter league tables. However, the real value of this huge growth isn’t just vanity metrics, but the sheer size of an alternate advertising platform that United now have. With an audience of over 8.8 million, the Red Devils have developed a social strategy that doesn’t just engage with looks to activate sponsor partnerships.

With branded sponsored content from the likes of Chevrolet and adidas, United have been able to leverage their growth to presumably command better sponsorship deals and generate a new revenue stream. Quite simply, 3 years ago – this wasn’t happening on a major scale.

When it comes to PKs and goal celebrations: practice makes perfect! #ChevroletMascots pic.twitter.com/fIpSjD0yPk

— Chevrolet FC (@ChevroletFC) September 24, 2016

The clubs marketing department have also looked to actively advertise alternate and internal marketing initiatives such as the clubs TV channel MUTV and corporate social responsibility programmes.

As per our 2014 recommendation that Sports Social Media had to monetize in order to thrive, clubs need to continue to invest and innovate in not just engagement, but also for strategies to generate revenue and reduce operating costs.

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“Mido – The only box you will find him in these days is a KFC box. He retired aged 30 last year.”

Mido, who has long been the target if fans for his weight, clearly must’ve been searching for himself (as the tweet hadn’t been directed to his main Twitter handle) and took great offence to the tweet by responding with the excessive reply,

“@FadedFootballers my friend the amount of money that I have made from football is good enough to fuck your mum 20 years for free”

The bizarre (and poorly constructed) insult was quickly deleted by the player but not quick enough for someone on Reddit.com to take a screenshot. Mido, who retired last season after one substitute appearance with Barnsley, is just another player to add to the list of athletes giving in to provocations from fans and responding unnecessarily.

Abuse from fans – in the stands, on the radio, in the street and increasingly online – has always been part and parcel of the footballing life. Players, despite often being on the receiving end of awful abuse, have to remain professional and as calm as possible in order to avoid bringing upon themselves negative press coverage.

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Whilst a simple and fairly basic tactic, it’s one rarely seen in football stadiums are clubs struggle to properly integrate their online activity into the football stadium. We’ve long been advocates of the “Connected Stadium” model that advocates using technology to not only encourage social media engagement within the stadium, but also pulling in the external fanbase who follow the match via social media into the matchday experience.

Obviously there’s the usual challenges of ensuring the right technology is used by the club as well as making sure that content is properly moderated, but this is fantastic to see arguably a lower profile club (Albeit Southampton have been excellent in the Premier League this season) not scared to invest in the strategy.

The benefit of this is undoubtedly that it should encourage fans at the stadium to tweet the official accounts, thereby improving engagement and potentially giving the club some further data capture. Secondly, the initiative also shows the club being innovative with technology and undoubtedly fits with the clubs ambitions to position the brand as a serious top tier Premier League team. Thirdly, this again an excellent idea for engaging with fans and giving them  real reason to engage with the clubs social media presence.

Earlier in the season, Queens Park Rangers announced they would be advertising match specific hashtags on the home dugout in a bid to encourage fans to use Twitter to share their thoughts and photos about the game.

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Michael Chopra tweeted,

“Fucking joke this come in training only 6 fucking players here then find out the fitness coach taken the football session #joke.”

The tweet was later on deleted by Chopra and the club announced that the tweet was in relation to the fact “Chopra was one of number of players asked to report to training as normal this morning for extra work with the fitness coach.”  Chopra has been fined the maximum amount for breaching the clubs code of conduct and given a very public warning from the staff at Blackpool FC.

The Seasiders issued the following statement on their website around midday that stated:

“The manager has requested that the fine levied against Chopra, which equates to more than £10,000, be donated to the club’s Community Trust, to assist in their work as part of Altogether Now – A Legacy for Blackpool. The club can confirm that Chopra was one of number of players asked to report to training as normal this morning for extra work with the fitness coach.

Both the manager and the chairman are aware and disappointed with the contents of his tweet, prompting this course of action.

The player, who has the right to appeal, has since apologised for the tweet and removed the contents from his account. The money will be utilised across a number of projects to improve the lives of young people in Blackpool, through the delivery of health, education and inclusion schemes.”

Whilst the action itself is to be frowned upon, Blackpool must be commended for their quick turn around on not only identifying the tweet but preparing a statement and the necessary punishment. In less than 3 hours, the Championship side managed to react and readdress the situation.

Blackpool could’ve improved their image further by perhaps suggesting the player would now have to undergo a Social Media best practice session and be refreshed about the club’s own Social Media Policy (which we can assume the club has).

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