People generally only tend to have nice things to say about Pep Guardiola’s maverick Manchester City side these days, but last week, via a different kind of pitch, the club were perceived to have put the ball in their own net.
An advert posted on Tribe, a platform that connects brands to people with large social media followings, claimed that City were on the hunt for Facebook and Instagram influencers to create content conveying the ‘electrifying atmosphere’ of a Uefa Champions League match at the Etihad Stadium. More specifically, the brief called for fan-centric content that would instill a sense of FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out, for those of you not down with the lingo – so that students, young professionals and Manchester newcomers might be stirred to attend City’s European home fixtures.
That’s right: the champions of English soccer supposedly wanted to pay people to come and watch their games and film themselves having a good time doing so. As bizarre as that might sound, it isn’t actually an unfamiliar marketing ploy in sport at the moment, but we’ll come back to that later.
More head in hands inducing was the fact that the ‘influencer requirements’ – more commonly known as a job specification – were only aimed at men between the ages of 18 and 55. The post also referred to the Premier League club’s group stage opponents – Italy’s Atalanta, Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb and Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine – as three ‘relatively unknown teams’. Perhaps most damaging was the fact that City appeared to be planning for the absence of their ‘core fans’ during their Champions League campaign.
Football is dead. pic.twitter.com/SBGoOIz8w9
— The Square Ball (@TheSquareBall) October 23, 2019
For background, City’s supporters have a notoriously frosty relationship with Uefa. As a result, some fans choose to boo the famous Champions League anthem on matchdays; others go as far as to stay at home altogether. In that context, the Premier League club’s influencer recruit could have been seen as an attempt to combat a growing problem and offset some of the low attendances the club were anticipating by encouraging neutral fans to come to the games.
Only apparently it wasn’t. City were quick to distance themselves from the post, stating that it was created without their knowledge or permission. That, of course, was not before it had been screenshotted, written about, tweeted and retweeted for all to see. Less than a week later, the club severed ties with PHD Media Manchester, the agency responsible for the blunder.
A statement later issued by Jon Kershaw, PHD Media Manchester’s managing director, read: ‘The brief we issued to a third-party supplier, Tribe, fell short of the high standards that PHD Manchester is committed to delivering for its clients and we regret any negative impact on Manchester City FC.’
But by that point the damage had been done. For City’s detractors, this was an easy stick to beat them with. The sight of unfilled seats at the ‘Emptyhad’ have long been the butt of easy to make jokes; the subdued atmosphere at the ground an excuse to criticise a club that has otherwise been defined by success in recent years. The fact that City, by essentially advertising for artificial fans, seemed to be openly acknowledging those problems was embarrassing press for both them and their supporters. If nothing else, it was an episode which demonstrated both the power and perils of social media, as well as the general need to tread carefully rather than charge full steam ahead into this space.
Ignore the poor execution and ill-advised messaging for a moment, though, and the end goal isn’t actually that far detached from what has now become the norm for soccer clubs and sports at large. Onlookers seemed to be getting a genuine kick out of the fact that City might be hiring influencers to promote the experience of their games, when in reality the sport industry is already beyond that point.
Indeed, according to a 2019 study from Cascade Influencers, which surveyed marketers from franchises in the NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB and CFL, 45 per cent of teams increased their influencer marketing budget last year, with nearly 25 per cent spending more than US$20,000 on influencer programmes. Their reasons for doing so are clear: 42.3 per cent said they track follower growth more than any other metric to gauge the success of such programmes.
Regardless of whether they are spending money on it, the proliferation of vlogging culture now means that most sports teams have their own merry band of micro-influencers whether they know it or not. The soccer-focused internet platform 90min, for example, has a vlogger assigned to each Premier League club. Those contributors then film their reactions to key moments during games from inside the stadium, which are then condensed into short videos that are posted on 90min’s YouTube channel.
As recently as Sunday, meanwhile, when I attended the NFL’s latest London game at Wembley Stadium, it was noticeable that there were almost as many social influencers in the press area as there were journalists. It has become a familiar sight at major sporting events, and Jamie King, social and digital content manager for NFL UK, told SportsPro earlier this year that the league's UK operation now engages 200 to 300 micro-influencers each year, with those creators having anywhere between 5,000 and 100,000 followers.
Even outside the in-stadium experience, rights holders are turning to internet personalities to help them build fandom among teenagers and young adults under 30 – a target audience that is generally expected to be more receptive to new sports. Formula One, for example, broadcast the recent Mexican Grand Prix on Amazon-owned platform Twitch in six European markets, with German gaming influencer PietSmiet providing his own alternative commentary for viewers in Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
And when even the world’s richest sports rights holders are turning to influencers to widen their net, it really should not come as a surprise that Manchester City are doing the same. Unfortunately for the Premier League champions, they will now become a case study for the risks of doing so.
People generally only tend to have nice things to say about Pep Guardiola’s maverick Manchester City side these days, but last week, via a different kind of pitch, the club were perceived to have put the ball in their own net.
An advert posted on Tribe, a platform that connects brands to people with large social media followings, claimed that City were on the hunt for Facebook and Instagram influencers to create content conveying the ‘electrifying atmosphere’ of a Uefa Champions League match at the Etihad Stadium. More specifically, the brief called for fan-centric content that would instill a sense of FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out, for those of you not down with the lingo – so that students, young professionals and Manchester newcomers might be stirred to attend City’s European home fixtures.
That’s right: the champions of English soccer supposedly wanted to pay people to come and watch their games and film themselves having a good time doing so. As bizarre as that might sound, it isn’t actually an unfamiliar marketing ploy in sport at the moment, but we’ll come back to that later.
More head in hands inducing was the fact that the ‘influencer requirements’ – more commonly known as a job specification – were only aimed at men between the ages of 18 and 55. The post also referred to the Premier League club’s group stage opponents – Italy’s Atalanta, Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb and Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine – as three ‘relatively unknown teams’. Perhaps most damaging was the fact that City appeared to be planning for the absence of their ‘core fans’ during their Champions League campaign.
For background, City’s supporters have a notoriously frosty relationship with Uefa. As a result, some fans choose to boo the famous Champions League anthem on matchdays; others go as far as to stay at home altogether. In that context, the Premier League club’s influencer recruit could have been seen as an attempt to combat a growing problem and offset some of the low attendances the club were anticipating by encouraging neutral fans to come to the games.
Only apparently it wasn’t. City were quick to distance themselves from the post, stating that it was created without their knowledge or permission. That, of course, was not before the post had been screenshotted, written about, tweeted and retweeted for all to see. Less than a week later, the club severed ties with PHD Media Manchester, the agency responsible for the blunder.
A statement later issued by Jon Kershaw, PHD Manchester’s managing director, read: ‘The brief we issued to a third-party supplier, Tribe, fell short of the high standards that PHD Manchester is committed to delivering for its clients and we regret any negative impact on Manchester City FC.’
But by that point the damage had been done. For City’s detractors, this was an easy stick to beat them with. The sight of unfilled seats at the ‘Emptyhad’ have long been the butt of easy to make jokes; the subdued atmosphere at the ground an excuse to criticise a club that has otherwise been defined by success in recent years. The fact that City, by essentially advertising for artificial fans, seemed to be openly acknowledging those problems was embarrassing press for both them and their supporters. If nothing else, it was an episode which demonstrated both the power and perils of social media.
Ignore the poor execution for a moment, though, and the end goal isn’t actually that far detached from what has now become the ordinary for soccer clubs and sports at large. Onlookers seemed to be getting a genuine kick out of the fact that City might be hiring influencers to promote the experience of their games, when in reality the sport industry is already beyond that point.
Indeed, according to a 2019 study from Cascade Influencers, which surveyed marketers from franchises in the NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB and CFL, 45 per cent of teams increased their influencer marketing budget last year, with nearly 25 per cent spending more than US$20,000 on influencer programs. Their reasons for doing so are clear: 42.3 per cent said they track follower growth more than any other metric to gauge the success of such programs.
Regardless of whether they are spending money on it, the proliferation of vlogging culture now means that most sports teams have their own merry band of micro-influencers whether they know it or not. The soccer-focused internet platform 90min, for example, has a vlogger assigned to each Premier League club. Those contributors then film their reactions to key moments during games from inside the stadium, which are then condensed into short videos that are posted on 90min’s YouTube channel.
As recently as Sunday, meanwhile, when I attended the NFL’s latest London game at Wembley Stadium, it was noticeable that there were almost as many social influencers in the press area as there were journalists. It has become a familiar sight at major sporting events, and Jamie King, social and digital content manager for NFL UK, told SportsPro earlier this year that the league now engages 200 to 300 micro-influencers each year, with those creators having anywhere between 5,000 and 100,000 followers.
Even outside the in-stadium experience, rights holders are turning to internet personalities to help them build fandom among teenagers and young adults under 30 – a target audience that is generally expected to be more receptive to new sports. Formula One, for example, broadcast the recent Mexican Grand Prix on Amazon-owned platform Twitch in six European markets, with German gaming influencer PietSmiet providing his own alternative commentary for viewers in Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
And when even the world’s richest sports rights holders are turning to influencers to widen their net, it really should not come as a surprise that Manchester City are doing the same. Unfortunately for the Premier League champions, they will now become a case study for the risks of doing so.
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