Manchester City will unveil a wide-ranging partnership with the TV production company behind Big Brother tomorrow in an attempt to accelerate their ability to compete on a global basis with Manchester United and Real Madrid.

Endemol Sport, a division of the company launched last year when the Dutch media giant poached two senior executives from the sports marketing agency IMG, has signed a "multi-year" deal with City to relaunch its website and develop TV ideas and its brand throughout the world.

An obvious initial focus, given City's ownership, will be on the Middle East. The website, which is relaunched today, will be available in English and Arabic.

Gregg Oldfield, joint managing director at Endemol Sport, said it would be built around social media elements and focused at targeting under-25s who were fans of Premier League football but were yet to decide whom to support.

For all the column inches devoted to building global fan bases and the strides made by Manchester United and Real Madrid in recent years, revenues from overseas fans still account for a small percentage of the turnover of even the most popular clubs.

"The Middle East is very important for obvious reasons and we'll also target Asia and Latin America," said Oldfield.

The club is following a path marked out by Chelsea, which has sought to expand its global footprint in recent years. But Oldfield said that rather than launching a subscription channel and trying to make money from its content too soon, Manchester City would focus on building its brand.

He said that the company would use its presence in more than 25 countries around the world to help develop new television and new media formats for each market.

But David Pullen, brand and marketing director at Manchester City, admitted that its ambitious plans to position the club as a "leading media brand" would count for nothing without success on the pitch.

"At the top of the list is providing a positive experience to existing fans. The second priority is to create a point of entry into Manchester City and what it stands for. We want to target certain markets, first in Arabic and English and by the end of the year in three or four other languages.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009 ... emol-sport

Nice find mate

City and Big Brother???

Does that mean that they are going to put camera's in the showers and Vincent Kompany is going to shove a bottle up his arse live on TV?

LOL check it out now http://mcfc.co.uk/

Ooh I'm getting excited now :-)

Aren't we all Future is bright and BLUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every time we lose a match we could have 'Who goes? You decide'

We could vote the players or the manager out - like a real life Bluemoon forum - poor Hughesy wouldn't last 2 minutes.

You are the weakest link FUCK OFF!

So, K88, exactly what were you searching for?

;-P