Sports Interactive strikes deal to bring Premier League to Football Manager 2025 – SportsPro – SportsPro Media
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Football Manager publisher Sports Interactive has agreed a four-year licensing deal with the Premier League.
As the ‘official football management game’ of English soccer’s top flight, Football Manager 2025 will be the first edition of the series to include official logos, kits and player photos, with further integrations promised throughout the partnership.
While Premier League clubs and players have been included in the series for several decades, which was known as Championship Manager until 2004, Sports Interactive says the deal will add a further layer of immersion to the game.
“Since Football Manager’s inception, we have always wanted to work with the Premier League, and we’re delighted to announce that at last we are”, said Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive studio director.
“The partnership isn’t just about the huge in-game benefits it’ll give our fans, but also the opportunities it provides us to help with the incredible things that the Premier League and their clubs do off the pitch. That includes community and charitable work, two things we’re enormously passionate about, as well as the ability to work with some of their existing partners.
“We are very grateful to the Premier League and their other partners in our space for enabling us to be an officially licensed product of the world’s most commercially successful football league.”
“Football Manager has been a big part of the sporting landscape for decades, and is loved and enjoyed by millions of fans around the world,” added Will Brass, Premier League chief commercial officer. “We are thrilled that the Premier League will now feature even more prominently in the game, helping to deliver a deeper, more authentic experience for anybody who takes on the challenge of managing a Premier League club.”
Sports Interactive says Football Manager will be the most significant update in the series’ history, with women’s club and international soccer competitions included for the first time alongside a major overhaul to the in-game engine and a slew of other improvements.
This union between the world’s most high-profile domestic soccer competition and one of the most successful sports video game series is hugely significant.
For more than two decades, the Premier League has been exclusive to EA Sports and its FIFA (now EA FC) series as part of a wider strategy by the publisher to use official licences to beat the competition. Others, including Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer series, have been limited to signing individual deals with no more than two clubs from the competition.
The Premier League’s current six-year deal with EA Sports is believed to be worth almost UK£500 million (US$603 million), reflecting the importance of the intellectual property to EA Sports FC, which is by far and away the most dominant soccer game on the market.
However, Football Manager isn’t EA’s competition – especially given it stopped making management simulation games a long time ago. Football Manager attracts an entirely different audience, and the Premier League recognises the value of having a presence in such an influential platform that has millions of passionate players.
The top flight has therefore adjusted its licensing strategy, ensuring that it doesn’t just benefit financially, but can be across a more diversified gaming landscape. In addition to deals with EA Sports for simulation games and Sports Interactive for management titles, the Premier League has agreed a four-year partnership with Rezzil, which will create an official virtual reality (VR) video game.
With video games now one of the main ways younger fans interact with soccer, the balance of power has shifted so that rights holders and publishers are no longer engaged in purely transactional relationships. The Premier League, whose success is founded on marketing and commercial acumen, understands more than anyone that reach and engagement can be more important than a minor increase in direct revenue – although it seems to be doing just fine on that front.
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