Football Media

As an Omnisport.tv affiliate, we received a notice via email today stating that “as of Dec 1st 2009, Omnisport.tv will be ceasing all affiliate marketing activity due to the imminent closure of www.omnisport.tv.”

This isn’t as big (or far-reaching) as Setanta going bust but it’s worth remembering that just two months ago Perform Group, Omnisport.tv’s parent company, partnered with Kentaro to bring the England-Ukraine World Cup qualifier live online to hundreds of thousands of England fans.

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Posted by: Ahmed Bilal Posted under: Football Business Comments: 3

Written by Chris Mann, a blogger at the Soccerlens football blog.

Make no mistake about it, social media is changing the way in which we interact with the internet and the way we interact with each other. Websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, amongst the great monoliths of cyberspace, are making our lives more closeted and yet more open to the world than ever before.

Social media does not only change and manipulate (both positively and negatively) the way in which we socialise on the individual and collective levels, it has also spilled over to influence communications between and amongst particular worldwide groups of people and organisations bound by common interests. The media has been radically democratised and football has been influenced to as great an extent as any other worldwide pastime or profession.

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Posted by: Guest Authors Posted under: Social Media Comments: 1

Written by Chris Nee, the editor of twofootedtackle Blog Network and a social media planner at Porter Novelli.

Many of you will have come across PR people in your football writing careers and may have developed positive or negative perceptions of the industry and its people based on those experiences. Here at Football Media we’d like to help you make the most of your relationship with PR.

Public relations is the marketing discipline which looks after a company, brand or individual’s contact with – and image in – the media. While the digital age has ignited a frantic landgrab between a number of disciplines, PR can be said to own many of the key areas including media relations and, increasingly, blogger relations. It is also making strides in search, social media and other growing areas of the new marketing mix.

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Posted by: Guest Authors Posted under: Football Business, Promotion Comments: 2

England play Ukraine in a World Cup Qualifier (they’re not going to stop just because England have qualified, you know) on October 10 (10/10).

The reason this is news for other than footballing reasons is because the match will not be shown live on TV – instead, it will be shown online as an exclusive Internet-only offering.

Why is this not on the telly, you ask?

The media rights to the game were sold to Kentaro (a sports rights company) by the Ukrainian FA. Kentaro in turn sold on the rights to Setanta, but after their collapse the rights reverted back to Kentaro. Instead of trying to sell the rights again to a TV channel, Kentaro decided to trial an online-only format for this game, and have partnered with Perform (who already have experience in selling premium video content online) to execute this idea.

Kentaro has had no offers from UK free to air or pay-TV broadcasters and has decided to seek the widest possible online audience.

Will it work? Kentaro believe that it will, and Perform have put their significant weight behind the idea of charging for streaming live matches online (as well as highlight packages) through their Omnisport.tv portal for quite some time.

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Posted by: Ahmed Bilal Posted under: Football Business Comments: 6

by Adrian Clarke

I’d always imagined FIFA’s Zurich headquarters to be vast and ever-so-slightly space-age in its design and it didn’t disappoint me on either count when my taxi pulled up with little over 15 minutes to spare before Coca-Cola’s official launch of their sponsorship of the 2010 World Cup.

Tucked away high in the hills that drape over the beautifully quaint Swiss city, the well guarded home of world football’s governing body is every bit as perfectly immaculate, tranquil and modern as I expected. A vast reception, the size of half a football pitch greets visitors and it is here that I perused a gleaming trophy cabinet holding ten of their 11 major international prizes (the World Cup was missing) before being whisked upstairs in an ultra modern lift to the spectacular second floor auditorium.

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Posted by: Guest Authors Posted under: Football Business Comments: 1

There’s a football bloggers / writers meetup happening in London next week, Wednesday (yes, the night of the England-Croatia game).

Kick off is at 7pm and those fine folk at Football3s are putting on some food and drink while we watch England qualify for the World Cup.

More details / register here: http://socratesmeetup.blogspot.com/.
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Posted by: Ahmed Bilal Posted under: Football Blogging Comments: 0

Championship Manager and IMScouting have signed a strategic partnership that will give Championship Manager access to IMScouting’s player data, which comprises detailed information on hundreds of thousands of different players from major professional football leagues in the world.

CM will use this information to ensure a much higher level of detail on players across the world, adding more depth to the CM playing experience.

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Posted by: Ahmed Bilal Posted under: Football Business Comments: 0

This competition is now closed.

The 09/10 Football Media Fantasy Football league is now open for business.

There are a host of prizes to win, it’s free to join and it’s based on the popular and very easy to use premier league fantasy football game.

How To Play

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Posted by: Ahmed Bilal Posted under: Fantasy Football Comments: 0

Shiny Media went into adminstration recently – and the fallout has been less than ideal.

There have been reports that Shiny Media had already been bought before this happened, but as things stand the jobs of many bloggers and freelancers are in limbo and access to MovableType, on which most SM sites were running on, was shut down as well.

What does this have to do with football? Shiny Media used to own Who Ate All The Pies – and still host the website despite having sold it to Anorak Media – and access to Pies has been lost along with access to other Shiny Media sites.

Chief blogger / founder Oliver Irish explains:

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Posted by: Ahmed Bilal Posted under: Football Business Comments: 3

Many of you already know that Football Media is more than just a blog about football business – we also provide consulting to other football businesses and on top of that we’re also a network of football blogs.

Apart from Soccerlens and Republik of Mancunia, our network also boasts of mainstream sites like Soccer News as well as team-specific blogs like Red Rants and Anfield Red.

We’ve added a few new sites to the network over the last few months and I’d like to extend a formal welcome to them – I hope you will visit their websites and add them to your RSS readers:

Gunner Central – Arsenal news blog written by Aidan – refreshingly honest and balanced for a football fan.
Arsenal FC Blog – The #1 Australian Arsenal blog – written by ‘Spanish Fry’, also boasts a podcast and a very active Facebook following.
The Chelsea Blog – TCB was voted the best new blog in 2008.
Aston Villa Blog – a collaborative effort by Aston Villa fans.

Bloggers – thank you for joining Football Media and as we’ve done with ROM and RR (and with NUFC Blog and FCB News before their departure), we’re going to make sure that your blogs are in the top 3 fan sites for your clubs in the next year.

We’re going to open the doors to the Blog Network next month and I’ll be putting up more details on what criteria we use to accept sites into the network and what the terms and responsibilities are for all sides. Stay tuned.

You can see all Football Media sites here.

Posted by: Ahmed Bilal Posted under: Site News Comments: 1