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.
January 31 – City Football Group, the holding company that owns Manchester City and New York City football clubs, has unveiled a new sponsor partnership with insurance group Hyperion that will cover both clubs, but not CFG’s other two clubs in Japan and Australia.
January 27 – Man City made another big jump on Facebook again this week with 123,900 new Facebook likes compared to Manchester United’s 89,000. City have fallen into a pattern of huge rises on alternate weeks suggesting the club is undertaking a Facebook marketing campaign to boost its figures.
January 26 – Australia’s Hyundai A-League is getting a new look that ties the Football Federation Australia (FFA) competition into a common branded identity with the Westfield W-League and Foxtel Y-League. The rebranding will be launched for the start of the 2017/18 season.
January 26 – Media rights to broadcast England’s national team matches from 2018 until 2022 have been split between subscription and free-to-air channels. No figure has been released for the deal which was done under the new rights selling regime that consolidates all national federation rights into a single UEFA-backed sales agency.