Six Nations Rugby, the official organising body responsible for the biggest annual international rugby competitions, has announced an exciting new partnership with Sage, a global leader in software technology.
The partnership will bring rugby fans even greater insights into the game; enhancing their viewing experience through real time data and analytics captured through smart ball technology and advanced predictive analytics.
The Sage partnership with Six Nations Rugby will span the Autumn Nations Series, Guinness Six Nations and TikTok Women’s Six Nations.
The 2022 Autumn Nations Series kicks off on October 29th when Scotland host Australia and will be the first time Sage uses the smart ball data and presents its insight to fans in a Six Nations Rugby competition.
The Autumn Nations Series will consist of five rounds of international rugby fixtures that sees the best Northern Hemisphere nations welcome the best Southern Hemisphere nations, reigniting rugby rivalries that stand to offer fans a Series of truly unmissable experiences.
Sage is renowned for helping businesses make better data-led decisions and will be using this expertise through its partnership with Six Nations Rugby. The partnership with Sage will enable all participating Unions, coaches and players valuable insights to aid performance and on-field decision making.
Commenting on the partnership with Sage, Ben Morel, CEO of Six Nations Rugby, said: “Six Nations Rugby is a fan-focussed organisation, working in collaboration with each union, Federation, and partner and to deliver truly unmissable experiences. The partnership with Sage is incredibly exciting for everyone involved, as they share a desire to enhance the experience for audiences, and ultimately bring even more fans into the game.
“To offer fans even greater data and insight from the on-field action through innovative broadcast and social presentation is going to be another important step in ensuring we are offering the best possible experience for the audience, as well as supporting the teams on and off the field.”
Cath Keers, CMO of Sage said: “Becoming the Official Insights Partner of Six Nations Rugby is an exciting step for Sage, as we continue to bring our insight and decision-making capabilities to life, in a human and accessible way.
“For some teams, the Autumn Nations Series will be the first time they have been able to gather data and insight from the smart ball technology. This is incredibly exciting, given our ambition to support teams in their decision making in training and during games, based on data led insight.
“For fans watching, Sage wants to use its role as Official Insights Partner is to help bring that new insight to life and enhance their experience, both through broadcast coverage and across social media. Our Sage customers, partners, employees and communities internationally will also benefit from the partnership with access to tickets, experiences, and content.”
This new partnership follows Sage’s successful integration as Official Insights Partner to the Hundred, in cricket, and most recently a new partnership with Major League Baseball.
Peter Silverstone joins the club from OneFootball, the world’s largest football media platform, where he was Senior Vice President of Global Development, responsible for OneFootball’s clubs, leagues, federations and players network and partnerships division.
Peter brings almost two decades of commercial experience in the football industry that will be critical to delivering the club’s ambitious commercial growth plans.
Prior to OneFootball, Peter spent almost seven years at Arsenal FC, leaving his role as Chief Commercial Officer in February 2022. Peter initially joined Arsenal in 2015 as Business Development Director before becoming a key member of the Arsenal executive team in 2018 in the roles of Commercial Director and then Chief Commercial Officer.
During his tenure at Arsenal, Peter led several successful commercial initiatives, including the onboarding and development of Arsenal’s Adidas partnership, and the signing and extension of Arsenal’s sleeve partnership with Visit Rwanda.
He also oversaw the rapid growth of Arsenal’s e-commerce business and the agreement with Amazon for Arsenal’s much acclaimed ‘All Or Nothing’ documentary.
Peter also drove Arsenal’s club-wide commercial focus on the Arsenal Women’s team and the initiative to bring an increased number of women’s matches to the Emirates Stadium during the 2021/22 season.
With experience on various Premier League, Football Association and European Club Association groups and committees, as CCO, Peter led Arsenal’s full commercial function managing over 150 people across the Retail & Licensing, Brand Marketing, Partnership Development, Partner Services, Digital Experience and Venue departments.
Born in Glasgow, Peter attended Edinburgh University where he read law before beginning his professional career in investment banking with Morgan Stanley.
Prior to joining Arsenal, Peter worked at Pitch International in London and South America where he built and led their Brasil Global Tour project which was responsible for the organisation and commercialisation of the Brazil national football team’s global friendly schedule.
Peter said: “I am delighted, and honoured, to join Newcastle United as the club embarks on its exciting journey to build a sustainable, leading, Premier League and European club. Achieving that position will reward the unrivalled passion and loyalty of the incredible Newcastle United fans.
“I am committed to immersing myself in the heritage and culture of this giant club, and the vibrant city of Newcastle, while building and leading a talented and diverse commercial operation that will deliver the commercial success vital to power the fans’ and the club’s ambitious growth plans.”
Newcastle United CEO, Darren Eales, said: “We are delighted to announce Peter Silverstone as the club’s new CCO. After an extensive recruitment process, we are confident we have found the right person to work with our team to deliver our commercial growth plans.
“He will be a key member of the club’s executive team as we look forward to delivering on the club’s commercial potential.”
Deltatre, one of the world’s leading sports and entertainment technology providers, today announces the launch of a new turnkey end-to-end video and application platform that will allow new entrants to the OTT sector to go live with market-ready video streaming services within 90 days.
Deltatre has distilled a combination of its award-winning products and expertise behind some of the world’s biggest sports and entertainment platforms to offer a complete out-of-the-box solution, opening its offering to a host of new OTT players.
The new easy-to-use and intuitive platform gives both existing streaming services seeking to enhance their current offering, and new market entrants looking to monetize content, a toolkit of templates and ready-to-launch features that can be branded to suit their needs.
Quick launch capabilities enable clients to build an OTT platform supporting a range of unique devices and revenue models in under 12 weeks, meaning clients can increase reach and generate revenue while testing their solution in the market.
Through the platform, which can support AVOD and SVOD business models, clients have access to Deltatre’s best-in-class publishing platform and powerful data analytics tools. This allows them to use a combination of metrics, including number of hours watched, video quality, user device and location, and popular content to guide the evolution of the platform for their customer base.
Deltatre can then support clients with growth plans and adapt the platform, adding new features and tailoring the solution to meet customer needs informed by collected data.
In addition to Deltatre’s proprietary tools, the platform encompasses a range of selected partner products and services to offer a one-stop-shop solution. Working with top-tier partners across the OTT ecosystem, the new platform can deliver best-in-class performance with guaranteed compatibility between components to provide a smooth-running service from launch.
Gilles Mas, President Video Experiences at Deltatre: “Our latest innovation marks a new era in Deltatre. We are distilling the key components of our award-winning solutions and hard-won expertise to deliver a platform that breaks down barriers to entry for the OTT market. Where there is content there is opportunity. We aim to enable a broader range of customers to capitalize on that opportunity and monetize it without needing to onboard a significant technical team to support the revenue stream.”
Andrea Marini, CEO at Deltatre: “The development of the new platform was a hugely exciting proposition when looking at the company’s growth. We firmly believe that there is a large market of specialist, regional and niche content players that technology vendors have traditionally underserved, and we look forward to working with new customers to both deliver streaming services and accelerate growth.”
The Women’s Euros was the sporting highlight of the summer, captivating a nation and changing the shape of women’s sport for the future. Helma von Zadow (Women’s Football Content Lead) and Sam Adams (Content Team Lead) led the team that delivered the app, web and social media content for UEFA, building excitement in the lead up to the tournament, during the event and beyond. Our Content Manager, Alex Brinton, sat down with them to talk about it.
For a bit of background, what projects do you work with UEFA on and when did the partnership begin?
Sam (S): InCrowd took on the UEFA content contract in the summer of 2019. The team have been delivering the content across The Champions League, Europa League and the Euros. When planning began for the Women’s Euro competition it quickly became apparent that we needed to establish a specific team to exclusively cover women’s football
The team needed a figurehead to lead the charge on this big project. Helma von Zadow joined us with great experience having worked on the Women’s Euro project with The FA before the pandemic hit and was a perfect choice to lead the team.
To focus on the Women’s Euros more specifically, when did the planning process for the tournament start from your side?
Helma (H): The tournament work specifically started a year and a half or two years out. There were two phases, the preparation phase that covered certain milestones like 500 days to go, 100 days to go, the ticket sales milestones, and then of course the second phase was the in-tournament content which was very different.
We have a super close relationship with UEFA because as much as we create all the content, the official photography, the video content is all sourced and created by the team in Switzerland and we work hand in hand with them.
S: There was a lot of emphasis from UEFA on women’s football, and the Women’s Euros marked the halfway point of that strategy.
H: 2019 was the first time ever that UEFA had a women’s football specific strategy in place, and a specific budget allocated to it which was amazing.
What were some of the issues you faced in this project and how did you resolve them?
H: In times of remote work, it took a little bit of time to build the infrastructure for the team and how we work together to prepare, meet objectives etc, with us all working from home and/or in and out of the office.
For me personally, getting an understanding for how UEFA and InCrowd work together, was definitely a bigger task than it might have been in-non pandemic times. But the positive side of it is because you come into a job that’s new, you also get to build your own ways of working.
S: In terms of the tournament itself, and the build up to it, especially, we were expecting coverage levels on a completely different scale to anything that we’ve done before in women’s football. So there wasn’t anything for Helma to really go off. In the men’s European Championship, you can always look at the last time and think right, what did we do there? How are we going to tweak it to make it better? What are the recent trends in the digital industry that we can capitalise that have changed our last few years? Helma wasn’t starting completely from scratch, but it really was a completely different level of coverage that we are planning.
What was great was that we could also draw on the experience of members of the team covering men’s football, and Helma and her team could collaborate with them to work in the slightly different way a women’s tournament required.
What were your goals before the tournament and how did you make sure you achieved them?
H: We had topline goals from UEFA that came from their “Time For Action” plan. They have very specific goals, like doubling web traffic from 2017. We also had internal targets in terms of engagement and the closer we came to the tournament knew that we were definitely going to reach these targets,
I think overall, what was really important is that we wanted to create a unique tone of voice and premium content. We wanted to portray the women’s game in the best way possible, especially because last year we had the men’s Euros. We felt like people expect to see similar content on the same level, in terms of concrete numbers, and potentially channel growth. But for the Women’s Euro we saw x10 in web traffic compared to 2017, and engagement numbers were x30. These are massive numbers that we will never see on the men’s side.
S: Benchmarking is so tough in such a fast growth industry like women’s football. The coverage levels of the sport have changed massively, so it was hard to benchmark. But for me all I wanted to do was make sure we were setting them up to succeed.
There were more partners involved than ever before, how was it handling their content commitments?
H: I think that I would probably say two things. First TikTok, a big sponsor that is also a social media platform. Having them as a partner on board definitely helped to lift the content and offered us expertise to produce content in a way that would resonate with the audience and become the type of content we wanted it to be.
From the hashtag #WEURO2022, the number of shares was over 1 billion which is the biggest number we have across any platform.
S: I just think it’s worth saying that UEFA puts incredible emphasis on producing successful branded content. The result is that it’s been refined to such a level that they’ve managed to create brand-associated content that does well, despite the penalties that the platform’s sometimes associate with overly branded content. Having the men’s Euros the year before really helped, because we essentially had a portfolio of sponsored products that we could roll out.
InCrowd’s TikTok producer Luke Gardner films a video before the England v Spain match
When you first start putting one of these plans together you’ll see a spreadsheet with a thousand different colours. You see all these branded and sponsored posts that need to be published, and you think it’s just not possible to maintain the quality but with scheduling, collaboration and communication with partners, it is possible to create engaging, branded content…… and we did!
What did you find was the most successful form of content? Did anything surprise you in terms of engagement levels?
H: I would say the most successful pieces were those from the pitch side, post match, because they’re very authentic and close to the players. It felt like people fell in love with some of these players during the tournament, which is part of our strategy; to create brands of the athletes to grow their following
Of course, all the record-related content always sees high engagement..
What sort of increases are we looking at in terms of engagement?
H: The increase in engagement on social channels for the tournament was great, I think probably even more than we would have expected for it to be.
We saw a huge increase in UEFA web/app sessions compared to the same reporting period for Women’s EURO 2017, which is massive.
What is your favourite moment of this experience overall?
H: Probably one of them definitely would be our TikTok Producer Luke coming back from all these games and saying, it’s the best football experience he’s ever been part of. This is a guy who was pitchside during the Men’s Euros and literally standing next to Lionel Messi during Finalissima this year. Luke represents the audience we were hoping to capture but where we might see the most resistance and he just loved it so much. He would chat about games with all his mates in group chats and that made us so happy.
S: The first week altogether as a team we had the best atmosphere in the office kicking around loads of ideas.
The day of the first game, I’ve never felt so confident that we were going to deliver; watching the collaboration within the team and those that we hosted from the UEFA digital team and Nyon (UEFA HQ). Incredible feeling.
People have called it a turning point for not only Women’s football, but Women’s sport in general, does it feel a bit surreal to say you played a role in that?
H: To think that we were a part of it! For me, always having played football and my MBA was on the developments in women’s football and national associations – women’s football has always been a huge part of life. Seeing the progress of the game is so exciting, and rewarding.
It’s also such a joy to work with all these really talented people.When I look back these last two years, a lot has happened. It’s the year of women’s football, but then also the Women’s Champions League with the new format, the partnership with DAZN that lets fans see all these matches. I personally know that living in Germany it was never possible to see a game that was taking place in England.
Having some of these experiences… it doesn’t feel like work. We are creating content for sport which is something we are all truly passionate about. We love what we do.
The 2022 NBA Champion Golden State Warriors today announced a dynamic, multi-year partnership with DoorDash. A key component of the partnership will allow fans attending games and events at Chase Center to order in-arena food and beverage items using the DoorDash mobile app. Additionally, to celebrate the partnership and the start of the 2022-23 season, the Warriors and DoorDash have announced various opportunities for fans to win prizes, redeem discounts on orders, and more.
“We are honored to partner with DoorDash to elevate the food and beverage experience for fans at Chase Center and in the Bay Area,” said Warriors Executive Vice President, Mike Kitts. “Chase Center will be one of the first NBA venues to offer fans the ability to order food and beverage through DoorDash. This is the beginning of a multi-faceted partnership that will redefine the food and beverage experience both in-arena and for Dub Nation around the Bay Area.”
As the 2022-23 Warriors season begins, the team and DoorDash will soon offer mobile ordering from Chase Center eateries through the DoorDash mobile app for fans attending events, becoming one of the first NBA venues to offer this experience.
Additionally, the Warriors and DoorDash have launched Golden Gamedays, a season-long campaign for DashPass members, DoorDash’s membership program. Eligible Bay Area fans can discover the best of their neighborhood food offerings, while entering for a chance to win a “Warrior for a Day” experience. By entering “GOLDEN” on any eligible DashPass order at checkout, eligible Bay Area fans will be automatically entered to win the experience, which includes custom jerseys, participation in an on-court skills clinic, gift cards and more. Throughout the season, DoorDash will give away tickets to DashPass members to certain Warriors home games as part of Golden Gamedays *. The first Golden Gameday will tip-off on October 18, the Warriors first regular season game, with support from four-time NBA Champion Andre Iguodala.
On October 18, the Warriors’ first home game this season, DoorDash customers in the Bay Area can enjoy 50% off their order of $20 or more, up to $10 off, by using the code WARRIORS50.** As the team’s exclusive on-demand delivery platform partner, DoorDash will be featured throughout Chase Center, including LED signage, on-site activations and more.
“We’re thrilled to be an official partner of the Warriors, an organization that’s truly committed to making an impact both on and off the court,” said DoorDash’s Senior Director of Partnerships, Vanessa Carr. “We look forward to working together to meaningfully accelerate our shared values, uplifting our shared hometown of the Bay Area community and championing hometown pride as we work together to bring the best of the neighborhood to fans.”
The partnership also names DoorDash the Official On-Demand Pick-Up Platform and Official Grocery Partner of the team.
FIFA has struck a multi-year agreement with digital consultant and software provider Globant to supercharge the growth of the FIFA+ streaming platform and support football’s flagship events, starting with the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™.
Globant will be the Global Platform Supporter of FIFA+, the game-changing digital destination launched earlier this year. As part of its responsibilities, Globant – which has 25,900 employees and a presence in 20 countries – will create new features and connected experiences for FIFA+ users while supporting the distribution of the platform.
In addition, the company will be a Regional Supporter of this year’s FIFA World Cup™ in North America and Europe, as well as a Sponsor of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™.
Globant will also be a FIFAe Series™ Global Sponsor in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and a worldwide Tournament Supporter of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2024™, FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2024™, FIFA U-17 World Cup 2025™ and FIFA U-20 World Cup 2025™.
“Since its launch in April, FIFA+ has quickly established itself as the go-to platform for fans, as well as the digital home of FIFA events, including those that will be supported by Globant over the coming years,” said Romy Gai, FIFA’s Chief Business Officer.“Through its multi-faceted support, Globant will play a vital role in accelerating the development of FIFA+ as a groundbreaking digital hub that inspires and engages football enthusiasts across the globe.”
Martin Migoya, Co-Founder and CEO of Globant, said: “We are proud to start working with FIFA to accompany them in their digital transformation process and continue propeling our goal of reinventing industries. This multi-year partnership transcends any specific competition and supports this sport in all of its expressions – women, men, esports and youth. We believe that unlimited voices bring unlimited power, and diversity is a pivotal factor for innovation.”
Wanda Weigert, Globant’s Chief Brand Officer, added: “We believe that technology can boost passion and elevate the sports experience. Participating in all these global competitions will allow us to connect with people from every corner of Earth and with beloved brands to support them in their reinvention paths.”
Ear to the Ground are going to unveil their 2022/23 Fan Index at the iSportConnect Brands Masterclass on October 19.
The fan index is an annual brand ranking tool for charting the trends shaping sports, esports and gaming, giving you vital insights to help you win big with the New Breed of Fan.
Relied upon by top marketers as the industry standard for cultural relevance, the Index is born of the Fan Intelligence® Network – our global network of 11,000+ culturally-connected fans and tastemakers. They speak, we listen, then we collaborate – all on behalf of the brands that we work with.
This new edition comes at an inflection point.
As the global economy rocks under unprecedented volatility, there is a real opportunity for brands who can cut through the noise and deliver what fans are craving.
Learn who is leading the way when it comes to the new digital playgrounds of the metaverse and Web3.
Discover why brands who educate their audience are seeing positive results, alongside those who embrace cultural crossovers.
Understand how brands are seeking to drive positive change, as fans demand a more authentic diversity.
Find out who is doing it best and what everyone else can learn from them.
All this and more is included.
We all know the value of listening but few have the ability to do it at this scale. That’s why we built the Fan Intelligence® Network in the first place – a vital resource for marketers at the cutting edge of culture, informing the strategy and creative of major global brands including PlayStation, New Balance, and Coca-Cola.
The Index is your taster of that insight, and this year’s report is one you won’t want to miss.
The 2022/23 Fan Intelligence Index will drop on 25th October.
To book your place at the Brands Masterclass click here: https://share.hsforms.com/1pMHXEN6UT1-s62O4iA0bCQ31xsb?_hsmi=227076374&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9P2xgrbPIrmS1tYRs3d4ZVDnz1EYd7Hc7oWkKaH4ZnKGTjkTwlAXwRllPF9ZU4WckF0EswBmO9kSg8SNMi3JM8QvV0vw
Pre-order your free copy by emailing stevynmonaghan@eartotheground.org
The Domestic Media Tender is out for the English Football League (EFL) rights from the 2024/25 season. The major talking point is how the EFL is testing market interest in removing the 3pm protected broadcast window.
Until now, the EFL and the English Premier League (EPL) have adhered to UEFA article 48 which allows leagues to block broadcasts of the 3pm window matches to protect both match attendances and grassroots football.
Most other European leagues have now opted out of this protection, but would the EFL abandoning the blackout be like Turkeys voting for Christmas? Will it green light EPL to do the same, thereby diminishing the EFL product further, damaging attendances and leave the EFL and non-League football in a worse place?
There is no doubt the EPL would love to opt out of this rule, as it would allow another saleable match window and bring its domestic rights packages in line with its international packages.
However, in the wake of the controversy over the European Super League, and with the prospect of an English football regulator very much a possibility (despite rumours the new government may drop it), this would be a step too far for the EPL – at the moment.
Then there is the question how much additional revenue would it generate? For the latest rights cycle, Sky, BT and Amazon renewed their domestic rights at the same level without an auction at a time when the EPL realised a competitive auction process might reduce the overall domestic fees.
To shake up the rights packages when the right market is so uncertain is no guarantee of enhanced revenue. Better to wait until the rights market picks up, either if Warner Bros Discovery BT (WBDBT) decide to bid more aggressively (unlikely) or a major global digital player decides to go all in (Amazon, Apple or the like). So the EPL is content to bide its time.
Does grassroots football need protecting? Technology is allowing more and more amateur sport to be broadcast live on digital platforms and viewed on smart TVs. There is therefore a real risk that established leagues will lose viewers to this amateur coverage. 3pm Saturday may become compulsive viewing for Amateur football.
The new technologies will only grow grassroots viewing. Not to mention all the kids know how to access illegal streams for the 3pm EPL games anyway, so would legally live EFL games make much of a difference to that?
There is also a feeling that the Women’s Super League (WSL) would benefit from moving into the Saturday 3pm slot. Currently it is scheduled on Sky late Sunday to avoid clashing with the EPL. This potentially would help continue to raise the profile of the WSL. The option, if it is realistic, would be quashed if the EFL took the slot. The WSL could probably get away with a first move without the EFL and EPL subsequently reacting given the optics of being seen to damage the women’s game.
Is the EFL moving to potentially counter the grassroots digital revolution, or any potential WSL move – doubtful. The issue for the EFL’s member clubs, coming off the back of Covid, is how to increase its revenues. Many clubs are simply unsustainable at the moment.
While there is clearly a governance issue over club’s spending beyond their means, the EFL management is under significant pressure to increase income. The last deal, reported at about £600m pa, was heavily criticised by the big Championship clubs which felt it undervalued their rights. However, rights values are driven by competition, and BT was simply not prepared to try and outbid Sky. There is nothing to suggest WBDBT would wish to do so this time either.
So, in a static or even falling right market for domestic rights, the EFL has chosen to shake things up. More games allow broadcasters to offer more money, even in a declining market. It also opens the possibility of the EFL putting the 3pm games on its iFollow digital steaming platform, building a much bigger digital presence for itself in the UK.
Premium global media rights are becoming fewer and will likely settle around the NFL, EPL, F1, IPL and NBA. The EFL will struggle to keep its offering compelling to broadcasters which is why developing an own brand digital approach is so important, and something the EFL have been ahead of the game on.
Including all non-Sky games on iFollow could be a domestic game changer for the EFL. Such an approach is also less likely to cannibalise club’s attendance revenues, so long as each club gets the majority of their iFollow revenue.
A fan of Sheffield Wednesday is unlikely to pay to watch another team. It would also bring its domestic offering into line with its international digital offering, perhaps eventually looking for outside investment in the vehicle.
Until the time is rights for the EPL to move, this feels like a purely internal cost benefit analysis for the EFL. Grassroot will be fine. The WSL will continue to grow. How would EFL attendance revenues be impacted by streaming 3pm games? Is it not better to lead the way, and build its content assets now, rather than follow the EPL, WSL and grassroots after the fact?
This is going to come sooner or later, so better to act sooner. And if that impacts in stadium revenues, perhaps the EFL clubs should be looking at how to improve their match day experience, how to attract a broader, more family-based crowd? How to keep fans in the stadium longer? This is key. Streaming will happen. The EFL needs to find its long-term place in the future media and entertainment landscape, and I don’t see how sticking with the status quo now helps them achieve that. So why not vote for Christmas?
David Murray, Director EM Squared Consulting, specialising in Sports Rights and Negotiation
Quadrant is perfectly placed to showcase the esports title to its predominantly motorsport and gaming-focused audience. The championship has proven to provide excitement and drama time and time again, making it ideal for new or seasoned esports viewers to consume. Quadrant hopes to have decals and in-game items available for fans to use in 2023 to showcase their support for the franchise.
The Quadrant RLCS 2022-23 Roster:
● (Player) Kurtis “Kash” Cannon
● (Player) Lucas “Relatingwave” Rose
● (Player) Dylan “Eekso” Pickering
● (Coach) Nicolai “Snaski” Andersen
● (Analyst) Wesley “Hotness” Canady
The RLCS gets underway today (14-16 October) with the Fall Split Open. With the commencement of the first Regional this year, Quadrant will be gunning to become the first all-British roster to make a Major in RLCS history.
Lando Norris, Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Quadrant, said: “Quadrant finally has our own Rocket League team. It’s a title we’ve always had an interest in, so after a great debut year in esports, we’re now adding another team to our roster. Competition is in our DNA, so it’s going to be awesome to see how we compete on the big stage, and it all starts today with the Fall Open.”
Jamie MacLaurin, Chief Gaming Officer of Quadrant, added: “We are starting to build some good momentum now with our esports programme and signing this roster was a big statement for us. Rocket League is an esport we have admired for a long time, and we know will resonate well with our fan base. This all-British lineup is full of star quality and we look forward to an exciting season with them ahead.”
Reds fans can now customise their own digital avatars in official club colours with this unique collection on Meta’s platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram.
Supporters have the options of digitally decking out their avatars in the bold, no-nonsense home kit or the iridescent, multi-coloured away strip from the 2022-23 season, as well as LFC’s own-label lifestyle collection.
The Meta Avatars Store features digital outfits from global brands offering a unique way to create a digital version of yourself and express your personality online.
Drew Crisp, SVP for digital at Liverpool Football Club, said: “We’re incredibly excited to be the first Premier League club with our own Meta Avatars. This is another fantastic opportunity for our global fanbase to digitally engage with Liverpool Football Club and create their own individual club-coloured avatars.
“Having a digital connection to the club that our fans adore – whether they’re here, near or far – is so important and helps to bring our global family closer together when physical connections aren’t always possible.
“We have more than 70 million global supporters following our Facebook and Instagram channels, and we’re really looking forward to seeing many of those avatars change and don our iconic kit or lifestyle apparel.”
Available from today, the debut collection of LFC digital apparel can be purchased in the Meta Avatars Store on Facebook and Instagram in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Thailand, as well as in Spain, Italy and the UK, where Meta recently introduced its Meta Avatars Store.
