October 25 – Arsenal have launched a new chat tool, powered by artificial intelligence and operating across social media channels including Facebook Messenger, Slack, Sky and Telegram, that will give supporters easy access to the latest news, fixtures, results, videos, player stats and ticket information.
By David Owen
October 23 – Next month will bring the end of a football broadcasting era, with Francis Tellier set to step down as chief executive of Host Broadcast Services (HBS) after almost two decades.
October 22 – Bookmaker Betfred has agreed a one-year extension to its title sponsorship of the Scottish League Cup taking the company through to the end of the 2019/20 season.
October 19 – Internet sports broadcaster Eleven Sports says it is reluctantly dropping screening European football matches in the UK on Saturday afternoons.
October 19 – Alisports, the sports arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has signed a deal with Happy Valley (HVAA), a Hong Kong first division club, to promote Alisports’ esports World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) event.
October 18 – Manchester City have agreed a deal with cashless experts tappit, who becomes the Club’s Official Events Cashless Payments Partner.
By Paul Nicholson
October 17 – A self-imposed broadcast advertising ban by bookmakers on pre-9pm ads could drive UK betting sponsors and their marketing money back to clubs and drive up the value of premium shirt sponsorship positions.
October 17 – Germany’s Continental Tires has extended its sponsorship with the Chinese Football Association (CFA) and its national teams.
October 16 – UEFA has diplomatically stepped into the debate over UK football’s traditional Saturday afternoon broadcast blackout being breached by saying it is in talks with the English and Spanish leagues following reports that online streaming service Eleven Sports is defying the rules.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 15 – UEFA has firmly denied reports that it has banned Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, from televising qualifying games in the disputed occupied territories.
October 12 – France’s Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) has expanded its deal with Italian car maker Fiat to include the sponsorship of the LFP’s Ligue 1 Conforama and Domino’s Ligue 2. Fiat has been a partner of the BKT League Cup for the past two seasons.
October 11 – Bundlesliga’s VfB Stuttgart is the latest German club to open up links in China, signing a five-year contract with the Chinese Super League club Guangzhou R&F to develop youth players and train coaches.
October 11 – Digital fan engagement and data capture specialists FanCompass has launched Check In, an engagement product specifically designed to digitally capture offline fan data.
October 11 – New sports technology businesss Fanbox has launched a behavioral marketing platform for clubs that it says will change the way they interact with fans for good.
October 10 – Brazil’s top league, the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, has agreed a $150 million international streaming deal with sports tech startup Fanfoot which will launch its OTT platform in 2019.