March 21 – Italy’s Internazionale have signed car manufacturer SWM Motors as an official partner with the company’s SWM X7 becoming the Official Car of F.C. Internazionale for the Greater China area.
March 21- Liverpool became the fourth Premier League club to break through the 7 million Twitter follower barrier this week. They put on 27,100 new followers for the week.
March 17 – Manchester City have become the first Premier League club to sign a sleeve sponsorship for next season when the league relaxes its branding exposure rules.
By Paul Nicholson
March 17 – It has been a busy week in the sports broadcast market with UK Culture Secretary Karen Bradley referred 21st Century Fox’s £11.7 billion bid for full control of Sky to communications regulator Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority – Sky are the Premier League’s dominant TV partner. In France, Qatari owners have pumped in another €600 million into beIN Sports to cope with losses believed to at more than 1 billion.
By Paul Nicholson
March 16 – With Issa Hayatou no longer president of the Confederation of African Football and the future of CAF general secretary Hicham El Amrani uncertain under the incoming presidency, there is also a question over whether the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) and Presentation Sports will continue with their complaint against CAF over the award of a 12-year marketing rights package to Lagardère Sports for $1 billion.
March 15 – The past week has been a good one for growth in Twitter followers to Premier League clubs. Manchester United topped the weekly growth stats again with 70,500 new followers compared to 59,200 the previous week.
March 14 – Leicester City, battling to save their Premier League season and status, have received encouragement from their long term sponsor, snack manufacturer Walkers, who are rebranding “one of its most popular flavors of crisps in a sign of support” ahead of the club’s Champions League tie tonight (Tuesday) against Spain’s Sevilla.
March 13 – Premier League Liverpool have added a new official partner with Halewood Wines and Spirits joining the club’s sponsorship roster.
March 10 – Manchester City continue to dominate growth on Facebook with 133,600 new Facebook likes this week – a 0.57% growth. This is 55,000 more new likes than local rivals Manchester United who grew by 78,780.
March 9 – CONCACAF has signed Post Consumer Brands as an official sponsor of the 2017 Gold Cup to be played in the US this June. No figure has been announced for the one-tournament only deal.
March 8 – Signs that the focus of Chinese football money is not solely on acquiring European clubs and sports assets have been seen in Tianjin where Tianjin TEDA have announced new sponsorship deals with TEDA Holding and the Elion Group for the 2017 Chinese Super League season.
March 7 – It was not going to be a second week of double top for Manchester United but it was a double top for the city. United continued their long run leading the weekly Twitter growth in followers tables, but plummeted to 13th place in the most tweets for the week table with less than half the number of tweets of the previous EFL Cup winning week. Instead Man City took over the weekly lead in the tweets ranking.
March 7 – Having complained about the ever-inflating cost of broadcast rights to football, BT Sport has stumped up a huge £1.18 billion for UEFA Champions League rights that will see the world’s leading club competition exclusively on the pay broadcaster in the UK for the three seasons from 2018-19 to 2020-21.
March 3 – MLS has a new snack partner with Cheez-It and Pringles named the official snacks of Major League Soccer. The Kellogg brands take over from Mondelez, which manufactures Oreo, Trident and Ritz. No figure was announced for the sponsorship.
March 2 – Spanish giants FC Barcelona are reportedly in the final stages of contract negotiation with Qatar Airways for a new four-year sponsorship that will see the club earn €50 million from the airline.