With sport becoming increasingly global, it is no wonder that teams around the world are identifying ways to reach fans at all corners of the earth. Manchester United has one of the largest global fan bases in all of sport and have recently partnered with Indian tech firm, HCL.
According to the club’s own estimates a startling 85% of it’s 659 million supporters currently live in developing countries, this being one of the major factors that determined the need for HCL’s services.
According to The Drum, Manchester United’s group managing director, Richard Arnold, said that the aim was about, “quality of execution – the right content to the right fans at the right time, in the right language, in the right technology format, through the right medium.”
While specific tasks are unclear at this stage, HCL has been brought in to engage with fans in the most personal way possible, and maximize revenue streams in countries that are not traditionally targeted.
Manchester United appear to be a part of an emerging trend that has seen many football clubs adopt digital tech companies to engage fans. The German national football team, Bayern Munich and Manchester City have all joined with SAP Software and Solutions in an effort to improve on-field performance by analysing data and processing it into useful graphics for coaching staff to draw ideas from.
Chelsea has signed with HCL’s local rival, Wipro, another Indian tech firm focused on fan engagement. Chelsea, much like Manchester United has a monumental international following, with 50 million Indian supporters alone. Wipro’s role is to engage with fans at the game, as well as global fans that follow their team via digital presence.
Furthermore, Barcelona Football Club has partnered with Intel with a focus on improving the digital experience from within their home stadium, Camp Nou. It is believed that Intel will also be providing all of the computing hardware to those within the club.
Similarly to Manchester United and Chelsea, Real Madrid are planning to revolutionise fan engagement through their partnership with Microsoft by giving fans all around the world access to club content.
For the time being we are only seeing the monster clubs invest in this form of technology, but data and analytics is already growing at a lightning fast rate. These partnerships are capable of bringing people all around the world into the heartland of their club, regardless of their location. Digital tech companies will soon solidfy their place in the sports industry.