Marketing Sludge Flood as Manchester City Signs New EA Sports Deal

Super soccer team, Manchester City FC has signed a new deal with Electronic Arts EA Sports label that is is calling an extension of their award-winning partnership.

Frankly, Christ knows how a commercial sponsorship deal can win an award is beyond us, but nevertheless let's read on... *

"The three-year extension was announced today in Hong Kong as part of City’s summer pre-season tour and will enable City to continue reaching its global network of fans via digital content," says the press release which continues to staggeringly under-estimate the actual playing of football to state:

"Most significantly away from the pitch, has been the Club’s rapid growth in global popularity within the FIFA series." How on earth this 'growth in popularity' is measured is another mystery of marketing that the rest of the press appears to be buying into like WAGs at a Harrod's sale.

Maybe we're being harsh though, maybe you can reverse engineer the following the mean the game has increased the team's popularity.

Tom Glick, Chief Commercial and Operating Officer for Manchester City Football Club said: “Proof positive of the appeal to our supporters is that registrations among City fans for FIFA 13 - one of the all-time top selling global games - has way exceeded the 400,000 mark. This is a remarkable figure and is testament to the strength of this now established partnership."

This would appear to suggest that already self-identifying fans of the team have increased sales of the game and not that this happened:

Bloke: "I have no idea which super rich, highly marketed soccer team to support. Let me think about this while playing some EA Sports FIFA 13... " [a minute passes]

Bloke's Mate: "Any thoughts?"

Bloke: "Yes. YES! Playing FIFA 13 has made my mind up. I shall from here on in support Manchester City!"

Or maybe that does happen?

For its part, EA is incredibly excited by the deal... "Dan Holman, Head of UK Product Marketing EA SPORTS added: “We’re delighted to be extending our partnership with Manchester City. The Club has proved themselves to be forward thinking in their approach, with a willingness to expand and digitise their partnership efforts through EA SPORTS FIFA. This has proved a huge success and we’re only too pleased to be able to continue our relationship."

Zzzz... eh?

To complete the deal, there is also a competition for MCFC fans to choose three players to go on the cover of the MCFC specific edition of FIFA 14.

* Actually, the award was the "Club Sponsorship / Partnership of the Year".

The runners-up if you're interested:

American Express / Brighton & Hove Albion FC
Aston Villa FC / Macron
Samsung Electronics / Swindon FC
UCFB (University College of Football Business) / Burnley FC
Wolverhampton Wanderers FC / LaSer UK

These awards are presented at the Football Business Awards (standard entry fee is £175 + VAT per entry then Prices for the Awards ceremony are as follows: individual seats: £250 plus VAT, table of 10: £2,250 plus VAT, platinum Table of 10: £2490 plus VAT. These tables will be in premier positions and will include two bottles of champagne")... so it says here.

So now you, us and Christ all know. Cheers to Keith over at Pocketgamer for keeping us honest on that award.

Source: Manchester City FC