Football Manager & Football Manager Handheld to be on Watford shirts this season

[Miles Jacobson]

From www.watfordfc.com - http://www.watfordfc.com/page/NewsDe...865347,00.html

"WATFORD FC are delighted to announce a partnership with SEGA and Sports Interactive, producers of the world-wide hit computer game 'Football Manager'.The Hornets will have the 'Football Manager' and 'Football Manager Handheld' trademarks emblazoned across the club's home and away shirts respectively.

All three parties are excited by the partnership and the positive message it will send throughout the football industry.

"I'm very pleased with the partnership we've agreed with SEGA and Sports Interactive. It really is a perfect fit in many ways," said Hornets' Chief Executive Officer Scott Duxbury."Football Manager and SEGA's success in its field is unparalleled. Their global success is in no small part down to their attention to detail and expertise in their area - and that's something the club is delighted to be partnering with."

Amanda Farr, European Marketing Director of SEGA, said of the news: "We're delighted to join forces with Watford FC at such a pivotal moment in the club's history."

Miles Jacobson, MD of Sports Interactive, added: "The Pozzo family have shown at Granada and Udinese that success can be achieved by strong financial management and a dedication to talent development - a strategy which, coincidentally, also pays dividends in Football Manager. We're very much looking forward to achieving great things together.""

And a couple of extra notes to this.

Firstly, it's great for us to be able to extend our partnership with Watford. For the last couple of seasons we've been proud partners of the clubs academy. The opportunity came to us & SEGA to increase this relationship at a time when we were discussing our commercial plans for FM13 (which will be officially "announced" at the end of August) and our 20th anniversary of making games and it fitted the bill for exactly what we were looking for.

Secondly, just to allay any potential fears, this does not negatively impact our partnership with AFC Wimbledon in any way. We are incredibly proud to have been involved with Wimbledon since the second day of their inception and intend to be their partner for as long as they'll have us!

[Hershie]

I love you.

[Nadessico]

que Watford getting into the prem first seaon in fm13

[FMtillidie]

Well done SI.

[Only One Sean Dyche]

Was so excited when I heard this. As I said to Miles on twitter was really hoping it would be a good company that would look good on a shirt. I wasn't going to buy the shirt this years as it was supposed to be "Happy Eggs" a great company but not great as a shirt sponsor! So very pleased that its si/fm/sega! Congratulations guys would be nice to have the same shirt sponsor for a few years now too. Was it by any chance £1b deal to get sponsorship? Thought not! But very pleased, my two favourite things combining together!

[Flukey]

Woo Hoo!! Best news in ages!!

[Rikulec]

Great news, well done SI.

[markyosullivan]

Miles you must be a happy man now with SI sponsoring your favourite team

[Aljarov]

Colorado Rapids (MLS winners in 2010) and San Jose Earthquakes (currently tops in MLS) each currently without a shirt sponsor if you were looking to double-down in the US!! Sporting KC which is a strong team, in a great new stadium also without a jersey deal...

(might also be a cheaper, but possibly reasonably high profile opportunity to sponsor D2's NY Cosmos, though that would be rolling the dice!!

[spankie]

At least there's now a fair chance of FM2013 having Watford with accurate shirt sponsorship details

[soccer.joel]

Great for fm

[Alan A Wadge]

Care to sponsor a team in Malta?

[jayahr]

Would defo prefer that presumedly huge amount of money to go into the further development of the game

[Only One Sean Dyche]

Would defo prefer that presumedly huge amount of money to go into the further development of the game

But if you spend money on sponsorship then you should get money back in purchases.

[markyosullivan]

Tbh I think sponsoring a MLS team would be good, don't think FM has a great number of people from the US playing the game.

[rancer890]

Colorado Rapids (MLS winners in 2010) and San Jose Earthquakes (currently tops in MLS) each currently without a shirt sponsor if you were looking to double-down in the US!! Sporting KC which is a strong team, in a great new stadium also without a jersey deal...

(might also be a cheaper, but possibly reasonably high profile opportunity to sponsor D2's NY Cosmos, though that would be rolling the dice!!

This. Would love to see SI and the FM series involved in MLS.

[jayahr]

But if you spend money on sponsorship then you should get money back in purchases.

The economics obviously depend on the numbers of the deal. I'd expect a shirt sponsorship in the CCC to be worth around 1m. How many additional copies of the game would they have to sell in order ro break even on that, considering that Sega/SI only receive a fraction of the retail price? It may also as much have an adverse effect for all fans of Watford's rivals and sales in the UK are immensely strong already which leaves less room for improvement.

Whatever. It's their business decision. Just as a user I would prefer the product to improve, not the marketing in a country in which I don't live.

[spankie]

There's no way SI/Sega are paying £1M to be on Watford's shirts.
I'd be shocked if its a quarter of that and probably a lot less as I wouldn't be surprised if its a yearly rolling contract so that Watford and the Pozzos can get an even bigger sponsor if/when the EPL is achieved.

[Crispypaul]

Would defo prefer that presumedly huge amount of money to go into the further development of the game

I expect the marketing budget is extant from the development budget (and the former is probably wrapped up in Sega's overall marketing plan).

[spankie]

From an interview with the local paper

In the club statement two weeks ago, Watford said they wanted to pursue “potentially lucrative shirt partnership opportunities” and while we understand the new agreement is not worth much more than the happy egg deal, the switch has been welcomed by supporters.

From what I understand Happy Egg were paying peanuts. This sponsorship is more about having a recognisable name on the shirts that people would be willing to buy and it raises Watford profile and the added media interest in Watford raises SI's profile.

[SCIAG]

It may also as much have an adverse effect for all fans of Watford's rivals

The closest thing Watford has to a rival is Luton. Unless you count St Albans, and their only fan is Crouchaldinho. Suffice to say it's unlikely to put many people off buying the game, Watford aren't a club it is possible to dislike.

[jayahr]

The closest thing Watford has to a rival is Luton. Unless you count St Albans, and their only fan is Crouchaldinho.

LOL

Interesting. Isn't Watford based in the London area as well? Suspected they must for that reason alone have lots of rivals. But anyway, that wasn't supposed to be the main argument. I just had the feeling that the known soft spot for Watford of some SI people may have led to money spent there which I would have preferred to be invested in the game code.

[Neil Brock]

LOL

Interesting. Isn't Watford based in the London area as well? Suspected they must for that reason alone have lots of rivals. But anyway, that wasn't supposed to be the main argument. I just had the feeling that the known soft spot for Watford of some SI people may have led to money spent there which I would have preferred to be invested in the game code.

Money invested in shirt sponsorship in no way affects how much money is spent on game code.

[NathWFC]

LOL

Interesting. Isn't Watford based in the London area as well? Suspected they must for that reason alone have lots of rivals. But anyway, that wasn't supposed to be the main argument. I just had the feeling that the known soft spot for Watford of some SI people may have led to money spent there which I would have preferred to be invested in the game code.

We have a very small rivalry with Q.P.R. but our only proper and true rivals are Luton, who we very much ****ing hate with a fiery passion.

[wardog]

sponsor a Scottish division 3 side this year. Basically free tv time for a couple of games.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

Money invested in shirt sponsorship in no way affects how much money is spent on game code.

Why not?

xxx

[Wiggins' Young Boys]

"The Pozzo family have shown at Granada and Udinese that success can be achieved by strong financial management and a dedication to talent development - a strategy which, coincidentally, also pays dividends in Football Manager. We're very much looking forward to achieving great things together.""

Miles must have missed the part where watford scrapped their youth academy and downgraded it to a category 3

[spankie]

It's not been scrapped and so far there is no indication that they'll cut the funding to it nor stop running the link with Harefield Academy. Until that happens then there's really no difference between the Watford academy last season to this season.

They downgraded it because:

1) Cat3 clubs can recuit U9 to U12s just like the Cat1 and Cat2 clubs with the exact same restrictions - no change from the previous system
2) Cat3 clubs can recruit U12 to U15 just like Cat2 clubs (Cat1 can recruit nationally) - again no change from previous system for Cat2 and Cat3
3) The U21 won't be as good for players development as going out on loan to play real competative football
4) We'd have to sign more players to be able to have an U21 squad, playing the U18s regularly would not be a good idea.
5) The amount of money spent on the academy would have to double and we're trying to save money to cover a £10-12M debt and we lose £4M per season. The Pozzos will cover the shortfall, but not bankroll the club.
6) We'd have to double or possibly even treble the staff at academy level. 2 full-time performance analysts for U9 to U15 - someone is having a laugh there and don't ask about the Coach Developer.


Finally EPPP was a way for the bigger clubs to monopolise the talented youth without paying over the odds for them and the Pozzos are thumbing their nose at the system. By going Cat3 we are freeing us from some strict limitations whilst still giving the lads the same football and education system that they would receive at Cat1 level and we've been doing that for quite a few years now without having to overstaff the academy and pay too much money. Our system, a it stand now, is practically the same as a Cat1 is, we just don't have to pay as much money as the Cat1 clubs would have to by the guidelines and our system ahs been runnign for quite a few years. So we've already fixed all the small issues that the Cat1 and to a lesser extent Cat2 clubs will encounter.

The only downside is that our academy sides won't be regulary playing against the bigger clubs as any level, but we are free to arrange friendlies with them during free weeks. We are also free to arrange friendlies with international sides like Udinese or Granda or any of the clubs those 2 are associated with.
We will get less compensation if any of the boys moves to another club, but Cat1 clubs just can't cherrypick the lads at anytime without permission from the other club, they also can't pick up more then 2 lads from the same club a season without permission. The lads can seek new academy system during the summer, as long as they give written notice to the club and of course compensation would have to be paid by the new club - AFAIK that is the same as it was previously.
There is absolutely nothing in the rules that prevent big Cat1 clubs like Arsenal from signing lads from smaller Cat1 clubs like Southampton and pay the compensation for them.

Watford will rely on the visible route to the first team that is better then most of the other clubs in the top 2 leagues to convice the lads to stay, its worked more often then it failed.


So to sum that wall of text up, our academy would be Cat3 in name only it'll treat and coach the lads just like Cat1 clubs and do it much cheaper.

[Riise17]

hope we see football manager in fcb and real madrid kits in few years