If ever there was a place to be a fly on the wall, inside of this season’s Manchester City locker room seems like the perfect place to be. Off to the best ever start of a Premier League campaign, Manchester City is entering the second week of November with 31 points out of a possible 33, and a goal differential of plus 31. Although this has been a season in the making, Manchester City seems to be cashing in on their investments at a perfect time for Amazon.
Manchester City and Amazon have confirmed a deal that will showcase the English club in a multi-episode series following the team throughout their 2017-18 season. This series is going to give fans the ultimate behind the scenes look at the day-to-day workings of the club. It is going to dive deep into everything from its footballing (soccer?) academy, to the lives of Pep Guardiola and his players. Also included in the series will be exclusive interviews with Pep as well as insights on executive meetings for the club.
This Manchester City series is going to join the likes of “Grand Tour” and “All or Nothing” in the list of Amazon Sports Originals. Amazon followed The Arizona Cardinals and The Los Angeles Rams on yearlong projects, which this series will likely draw inspiration from. Amazon is no stranger to sports shows, but up until October, they hadn’t ventured very far from American football. The announcement of this new series is evidence of a relatively quick international expansion, although, with competition stiff, it seems to only make sense.
Weeks after Netflix announced that they would be producing a mini-series on the Italian side Juventus, Amazon is trying to stake their claim in the generally untapped sports-show market that is European soccer. Amazon is going to be able to access the soccer fan base without having to spend massive amounts of money on the rights to matches. And for Manchester City, what better company to partner with, “We are delighted to begin this strategic relationship with Amazon, one of the world’s leading companies,” said City CEO, Ferran Soriano. Manchester City believes that Amazon’s current customer base is an ideal market to target in order to reach a broader audience.
As an unbiased soccer supporter, I am interested to see what Amazon is going to produce. This series seems to be coming together at exactly the right moment for both Manchester City (if their trend continues), and Amazon. My only disappointment is that I am going to have to wait until 2018 to finally watch it.
Read more about the deal here
Categories: Digital Content, EPL, Soccer Marketing, Technology