Glory Glory Man United!

Manchester United Official Website www.manutd.com

"We're not just a sports club, we are an international brand ...

and building that brand is very important"[1]

Introduction

Manchester United has become, since its foundation in 1878, one of the world’s biggest football clubs, with one of the highest annual incomes. These incomes are based on commecial sales and business deals from all over the world. Simple items such as Man.Utd. shirts, training gear and footballs, but also mobile phones, loans, travel arrangements and Man.Utd television, they are all part of Manchester United. Besides having the name of being the pride of the north (in England) because of their achievements on the pitch, Manchester United has become more than that. Over the past couple of years the club and its followers have seen their passion, their club, evolve in so much more. With the coming of the millions in the world of football, no big club has seen these millions go by. From Real Madrid to Bayern Munich, from Juventus to Manchester United, players are being sold and traded as if they were masterpieces of say Van Gogh or Rembrandt. With these new options for the club, Manchester United has developed an even bigger group op fans with an even larger amount of money that seems to come with it. According to Deloitte & Touche’s annual research, Man Utd made £167.03 million in revenue in the 2002/03 season, putting them ahead of European rivals Juventus, AC Milan, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. Last season, United’s match day income alone came to a staggering £67 million, more than three times that of the Italian clubs[2] A major reason for this is the internet and all its possibilities. According to Reuters these incomes come mainly from money-spending Asians[3]

            Backing up this immense football club/company is the clubs’ official website www.manutd.com and it is exactly this media form that is of huge value to Manchester United. Football and media have staggeringly grown into an undisputable partnership. Being the most popular sport worldwide, football news fills thousands of newspaper pages worldwide each year. The recently entered age of new media has had a major influence on this partnership. Most important of all is the access it provides to anyone with a computer. The developments of the internet have included so much more participation over the past few years and major companies (which also includes Manchester United) immediately jumped into the new found world of fan culture, gaining millions of consumers and fans. Participation therefore, has become the key word for so many organisations. Quoting Henry Jenkins: “Now, fans may interact daily, if not hourly online. Geographically isolated fans can feel much more connected to the fan community and home-ridden fans enjoy a new level of acceptance”[4] Being a football club, Manchester United relies on its fans more than anything and therefore a system of well thought and structured options is now up for grabs for the millions of fans worldwide.

            In the following pages I will try to give a secure outline of how the website can contribute so much to this football club and moreover, how it adds up to the already existing sense of belonging to this ‘family’. In detail, this means a look at the forms of intermediality present on the site (television finds its place along forums, news and clips) Also, which types of advertising can be found on the website and how can these be placed within the context (why are certain concepts preferred over others etc) An important aspect is the impact that the site and its advertising has on other types of media. I already mentioned the mobile phones, the loans and television channel which, I believe, all have their place in the company (or brand) that Manchester United has developed into. Thirdly I will try to answer the question of the functionality of it all, is it merely entertainment that the site provides, do they want to inform you with news? Furthermore there is the fan culture. With having the largest amount of fans worldwide (From the US to Asia to Europe to Australia) they all share the same feeling for THEIR club. A quick look at the website already showed the number of fans worldwide that contribute to the site, the club, the tactics etc. Manchester United can be seen as the perfect mixture of corporate know-how and public appeal. Finally I will try to sketch a picture of the sense of identity the site offers and how this construction is built. All these aspects together will construct an answer to the question to what extend www.manutd.com attributes to the worldwide fan culture of the club as it exists nowadays.