Everton’s Angry Birds Partnership – will we see more of this in an independent A-League?

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After Barclays’ title sponsorship ended with the Premier League in 2016, a new opportunity presented itself for teams to sell lucrative advertising space on the sleeve of the club’s playing shirt.

In a competitive market at the time, Premier League club Everton signed a multi-year deal in 2017 with Finnish video game developer Rovio Entertainment, the creator of popular puzzle game Angry Birds.

Angry Birds was released in 2009 and since then has amassed over 3.7 billion game downloads.

By the beginning of the 2017/18 season only eleven of the Premier League clubs had secured a shirt sleeve sponsor.

“At the end of the Barclays deal with the Premier League it was a competitive market,” head of partnership management at Everton, Mark Rollings.

“Every club was going to market at the same time, but it was really important to find the right brand fit for us, one that we could work with and create a great partnership.”

Everton was one of the teams that started the season without a sponsor, however the Angry Birds logo finally debuted on the sleeve of their jersey in a mid-September clash against Manchester United.

Everton is a club that was established in 1878 and has a rich history, however there is an understanding to move with the times and enter innovative partnerships with companies such as Rovio.

“Throughout the process of securing our first sleeve partner we spoke with many brands. When we met with Rovio at their HQ in Espoo it quickly became apparent how exciting and mutually beneficial this opportunity was going to be,” Rollings stated.

“They’re great to work with. Whenever you partner with a brand from a business sector which is new to you, we take learnings from each other. The creative, flexible and can-do approach is definitely something we felt from day one of the partnership.”

Both sides initially faced a big challenge in launching the partnership.

“The leading character of the Angry Birds series is a red bird and it is ironic that this is both a colour and symbol commonly associated with the club’s city rivals.” Rolling explained.

“True to Rovio’s dynamic, bold nature, rather than skirt around it we decided to hit it head on so, in line with the trend around over exaggerated player signing content at the time, we announced the character Red as a Blue.

“Angry Birds created a great video of Red signing a contract with Everton and that gained positive traction for the launch. It was a fantastic way for a partner to tackle a potential issue and also immediately pledge their support to the club.”

Everton and Rovio continued to discuss more unique possibilities between the two organisations.

Eventually, these creative discussions would lead to Everton players Theo Walcott, Cenk Tosun and Gylfi Sigurdsson being re-imagined as playable Angry Bird’s characters.

This occurred at the start of the 2018/19 Premier League season, with the digitisation of these players into the Angry Birds Evolution game.

“It was a world first, there’d never been football talent in a non-football focused mobile game. And that gained a lot of attention with over one hundred pieces of coverage in newspapers and on back pages. It also achieved over five million views across related social media content.”

The integration of the playable Everton characters led to a 60% increase in downloads for the Angry Birds franchise over a two-week period.

It was also important for Everton that the partnership was well received by its fanbase.

Rollings claimed: “What you see with Angry Birds is if you create good activations that fans can see, enjoy and engage with, then you start to earn your place among the fanbase. Angry Birds’ approach was to bring the partnership to life through stories, content and activations that fans would enjoy. People will engage with quality partnership activation that adds value to their experience and the stats prove that.

“Our data and insights team run a regular partner tracking survey and that showed that in the first year of the partnership the opinion of Angry Birds improved by 22% among our fanbase. Angry Birds has been really received and people have understood the mutual value that it has driven for both brands.

“We also commissioned independent research which not only tracked Everton fans, but also Premier League fans, and in that survey awareness of Angry Birds as a partner of a Premier League club was between 60 and 70%, which for the length of deal they’ve had so far is pretty remarkable. So we’re seeing it’s not just Everton fans that are engaging with the partnership, Premier League fans are too.”

On a local front, will we see more of similar partnerships in the A-League now that rules look to be relaxing on a sponsorship front?

Time will tell.

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Netflix’s Women’s World Cup deal puts IMG’s technology in the spotlight

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

Netflix’s first exclusive football deal will see the next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup at the centre of it’s live-sport strategy. The US-streaming service company has appointed IMG as its production partner for all 64 matches in Brazil, as well as more than 100 hours of live studio programming. The deal includes English and Spanish coverage for viewers within the US, and English and French-language coverage for those in Canada. IMG will also support Netflix’s coverage of the tournament’s draw in December.

The 2027 Women’s World Cup runs from June 24 to July 25 across eight host cities, and will be the first edition to feature 32 teams. The scale of the tournament makes it an ambitious first foray into sports broadcasting for Netflix – which means IMG’s involvement will be of great significance.

IMG’s production engine

IMG has built its reputation on producing and distributing live sport at scale. It’s Stockley Park, London facility includes broadcast studios, production galleries, edit suites and facilities for radio, podcasting, dubbing and visual effects. The company has worked across major properties including the Premier League, Major League Soccer and other international sporting events.

For a World Cup, this infrastructure provides more than a place to make television; it creates a central point where production teams can manage feeds, graphics, replays, commentary, editing and distribution while events are taking place thousands of kilometres away.

Remote production is the key

The most important technology for a tournament spread across eight Brazilian cities is connectivity. IMG has invested in remote-production workflows that allow production teams to work across locations, rather than putting every specialist inside each stadium. Its wider production operation has used fibre, satellite, cloud and IP-based connectivity to move live signals between venues and production centres.

That model can reduce the amount of equipment and specialist staff required at every venue while allowing senior producers, directors, replay operators and graphics teams to work from centralised facilities. IMG has also demonstrated long-distance IP production, including a 20,000-kilometre link between Tokyo and London that carried uncompressed, low-latency video. For Netflix, those capabilities are particularly relevant. The platform is building a single viewing experience for audiences in two markets, but the raw ingredients will come from stadiums spread across Brazil. A resilient network becomes just as important as the cameras themselves.

From stadium to stream

The technology chain does not end when the pictures leave the venue. A modern sports production operation has to manage ingest, replay, media asset management, graphics, audio, quality control, archiving and transmission. IMG’s facilities have been built around those workflows, with master control and transmission capabilities alongside post-production and archive operations.

That infrastructure also gives IMG the ability to turn the live tournament into a wider stream of content. A goal can become a replay, a highlight, a social clip or part of a studio package without waiting for the match to finish. For Netflix, that fits a platform built around on-demand discovery as much as live viewing.

A new test for Netflix

Netflix has already made a significant investment in football through documentaries and other programming. The 2027 Women’s World Cup takes it up a level. FIFA describes the agreement as the first competition Netflix has acquired in full, making the tournament a major test of its live sports operation. IMG therefore has a job that goes beyond producing 64 matches; it must help Netflix build the technical backbone for a month-long, multi-venue broadcast, while maintaining consistent production standards across languages and locations.

The viewer may simply press play and see a World Cup match appear instantly. Behind that button will be a complex network of cameras, connectivity, control rooms, production systems, people and data. That is the real significance of Netflix’s IMG deal: the streamer is bringing the tournament to its platform, but IMG is providing much of the machinery that can make a global football event feel seamless.

The ball is no longer just being improved it is being connected

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The humble football is becoming one of the more technologically advanced objects on a football pitch.

Across the A-Leagues, Mitre’s new Ultimax Pro is focused on improving what happens when the ball is kicked, while LaLiga has taken the next step by turning the ball into a source of live match data.

The contrast shows how football technology is moving in two directions at once, improving the physical performance of equipment while increasingly connecting it to the digital systems surrounding the game.

Refining the Physical Object: Mitre’s Ultimax Pro

The Ultimax Pro, which will be used across the 2026/27 A-League Men and Ninja A-League Women seasons, incorporates Mitre’s HyperFlow, HyperFoam, HyperSeal and Delta Skin technologies.

Its debossed grooves are designed to reduce drag and improve stability in flight, while the cushioning, bonding and surface technologies are aimed at producing consistent rebound, durability and control. The ball carries FIFA Quality Pro certification, reflecting the testing standards required for professional match balls.

The technology is largely invisible to supporters. Its purpose is to make the ball behave more predictably for players, rather than fundamentally changing the football itself.

Connecting the Ball to the Digital Ecosystem: LaLiga’s Sensor-Driven Approach

LaLiga’s approach is different.

The Spanish competition has introduced a radio-frequency sensor developed by KINEXON into its PUMA match ball, with the technology being used across every LaLiga EA Sports fixture this season.

The sensor continuously transmits information about the ball’s position and the precise moment of contact. Around 12 antennas installed in each stadium capture the data and feed it into LaLiga’s wider technology infrastructure.

That gives the ball a role beyond simply being the object of play.

Knowing exactly when the ball is touched can help officials in a variety of situations. Offside, handballs, deflections and other decisions where a difference of milliseconds can affect the outcome could all benefit.

But the more interesting development may sit outside officiating.

LaLiga is using the connected ball to create xBALL, an official data layer that can feed broadcasts, digital products and future second-screen experiences. Data such as shot speed, ball spin and trajectory could all be incorporated into its media and digital products.

The ball is no longer just something that manufacturers compete to make faster, more durable or more responsive. It can also become a source of proprietary data that leagues can use to improve broadcasts, develop digital products and create new ways for supporters to understand the game.

The Ball as Part of Football’s Intelligence Layer

Mitre is refining the physical object. LaLiga is connecting that object to the digital ecosystem of the match.

Together, however, they point to the same direction of travel.

Football equipment is becoming increasingly intelligent.

The evolution is not necessarily about adding technology for its own sake. In the A-Leagues, the objective is consistency: predictable flight, touch and rebound. In LaLiga, the objective is precision and information: knowing exactly where the ball is and when it was touched.

The commercial opportunity comes from what can be built around those capabilities.

As stadiums become more connected, broadcasts become more data-rich and clubs and leagues collect increasingly detailed information about matches, the football itself can become another input into that infrastructure.

It also changes the relationship between equipment manufacturers and competitions.

A match ball used to be primarily a physical product supplied to a league. Connected technology creates the possibility of the ball becoming part of a broader technology stack involving officiating systems, broadcast platforms, analytics and fan-facing digital products.

The A-Leagues are starting with the physical performance of the ball. LaLiga is showing what can happen when that physical object becomes connected.

The next generation of football technology may not be something players wear or referees use.

It may be the ball itself.

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