February 16 – AS Roma from Italy’s Serie A is the latest to join the esports action, partnering with Fnatic to create the club’s first competitive gaming team. Aman Seddiqi, Sam Carmody and Nicolo Mirra will play as AS Roma at tournaments and events.
February 15 – Chelsea are maintaining their Twitter surge and are now closing in on 8 million followers. This week they were again fourth in the growth chart with 51,500 new followers, just 3,800 behind Liverpool who they are more than 1.1 million ahead of in terms of overall followers.
February 15 – Mexico’s Liga MX will hit the Facebook Live platform with Univision this weekend at the start of a new broadcast deal that will see 46 matches, including playoff games, streamed live.
February 14 – Lionel Messi has been handed a ‘lifetime contract’ by Adidas that will tie him to the company until the end of his career. No figure was announced for the deal.
February 13 – Manchester United’s famed Class of ’92 players that included Gary and Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes are being linked with the opening of a new university in the Greater Manchester area.
February 10 – Manchester United are to launch a premium streaming app targeting fans outside the UK with the club’s MUTV channel. The app will be available in 160 countries with pricing levels between £1.49 and £4.99.
February 10 – Man City looks like they may have found their saviour on the pitch in Gabriel Jesus whose arrival in Manchester has sparked a reinvigoration of Pep Guardiola’s missionary zeal. And their disciples are flocking to worship with yet another massive leap in followers with 104,900 new Facebook likes this week.
February 9 – PepsiCo is activating its Champions League sponsorship with a series of videos and ads promoting its Pepsi Max brand celebrating the dedication of football fans.
February 9 – Afghanistan may not be able to host international matches but the process of football development knows no boundaries and Afghan football administrators for the first time took part in their own series of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) workshops this week in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe.
February 8 – In what looks likely to be the first deal of its kind for one of Europe’s big clubs, Real Madrid is poised to sell its internet image rights for 10 years to US investment Providence Equity Partners for €500 million.
By Paul Nicholson
February 7 – The rehabilitation of Uli Hoeness now looks complete. Having been re-elected as president of Bayern Munich last November, he has now reassumed the position of chairman of the Supervisory Board. In separate news the club are said to be close to launching a new TV channel with main sponsor Deutsche Telekom.
February 7 – The Hull City resurgence is in full flow and they are talking it up. The club were the most active tweeters this week with 435 tweets, producing the second largest percentage growth of the week at 1.25%.
February 3 – The past week of social media stats in the Premier League has seen a rare win for Twitter over Facebook or Instagram in terms of growth number.
February 1 – Dutch brewer Heineken has renewed its sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League for another three years that will take it to the end of the 2021 competition. The deal also includes the UEFA Super Cup 2018, 2019 and 2020.
February 1 – Manchester United broke the 10 million Twitter follower barrier, while Arsenal moved past 9 million last week. In contrast, at the other end of the table Middlesbrough crept past 200,000 followers and Bournemouth hit 250,000.