Industry Shorts: Dazn, Kin Partners, Rangers

DAZN has announced a new multi-project development deal with Brazillian football legend Ronaldo who will headline its global original content slate for 2021.

The global sports platform will produce three original content series telling the ‘definitive story’ of O Fenomeno, launching on DAZN between 2021 and 2023. The first project is a six-part docu-series going behind the scenes of his current role as President of Real Valladolid. ‘El Presidente’ will launch on Thursday 20th May.

The deal marks the next stage of DAZN’s original content rollout, which will also feature a number of documentaries. One will include Oscar de la Hoya and Julio Cesar Chavez, directed by Eva Longoria and telling the story of two boxers on either side of a Mexican cultural divide. Others will feature lower league Italian football club Como, the ‘coolest club in the world’ UD Ibiza, and F1 driver Yuki Tsunoda.

Real Madrid have appointed UK-based independent sport and entertainment agency KIN Partners as a commercial sales partner.

The deal will see the full-service agency support the reigning Spanish Champions as its lead agency on a number of partnership opportunities, which Sport Industry Group understands will include training kit sponsorship. 

Real Madrid have also recently expanded its commercial offering with the launch of Real Madrid Next – a collaboration with high-performance technology-focused start-ups. 

Rangers and 32Red have announced a multi-year extension of their partnership, which includes front-of-shirt sponsorship.

The Scottish Premiership champions and the betting company currently have one of the longest-running shirt sponsorship deals in British football, which dates back to 2014.

The deal will see 32Red commit to continuing its support of its men’s mental health initiative, Team Talk, which the brand runs in partnership with the football clubs in its sponsorship roster, including English side Derby County.

The R&A has partnered with ZigZag Productions and Egoli Media to create a feature-length documentary film about European golfing legend Seve Ballesteros. 

‘Seve’ will explore Ballesteros’s life, and will feature contributions from his family and fellow golf legends including his friend and fellow major champion Jose Maria Olazabal, Scottish golfer Colin Montgomerie, South African legend Gary Player, and German Ryder Cup hero Bernhard Langer.

Slated to premiere in autumn 2021 to coincide with the Ryder Cup, the film is executive produced by ZigZag Productions, Danny Fenton and Matt Graff, alongside Caroline Rowland for Egoli Media and Malcolm Booth for The R&A, while David White and Joss Holmes of Northridge Films will produce and direct.

Sky Sports will screen the LV= County Championship match between Middlesex and Gloucestershire from on Thursday 6th May.

The move comes after the postponement of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which is broadcast by Sky Sports in the UK, and will see the County Championship game shown in a slot which would have been used for an IPL game.

The match will take place at Lord’s and will be played over four days. Gloucestershire are currently top of Group 2, while Middlesex lie in fifth, winning one of their four games so far this season and losing three.

UFC has partnered with blockchain provider Chiliz to launch a $UFC Fan Token on fan engagement and rewards mobile app Socios.com.

The $UFC Fan Token is scheduled for launch in June and will have a maximum lifetime supply of 20 million. The Fan Tokens are minted on the Chiliz blockchain and provide owners with access to exclusive content and opportunities, such as fan voting, VIP rewards, exclusive promotions, AR-enabled features, chat forums, games and competitions.

Chiliz will add UFC to a partnership portfolio which includes 26 major sports properties which have already launched Fan Tokens, including a number of football clubs including Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, and Barcelona.  

New data released by Swim England shows that more than two million youngsters missed out on the chance to go swimming due to the coronavirus pandemic – a figure the national governing body for swimming in England says has resulted in almost a quarter of a million fewer children being unable to swim the length of a standard swimming pool.

The statistics show that more than five million swimming sessions have been lost since March 2020, which Swim England says means some 240,000 children were unable to learn how to swim 25m. There are also 50,000 fewer children now able to perform a safe self-rescue, according to the NGB.

In response, Swim England has also announced partnerships with nine swimming pool operators around the country to launch a #LoveSwimming campaign urging parents and guardians to help children return to the pool after lockdown.

Swansea City have partnered with athlete mental health organisation Beyond The White Line (BTWL) which will see the latter deliver off the pitch support to the club’s senior squads, staff and academy.

The pair will initially work with academy players across areas such as dealing with abuse and discrimination, mental health, education, financial wellbeing and career pathways.

BTWL will provide access to information, individualised curation, and resources to players around the key areas.

All-female single-seater motor racing championship W Series has announced that Hankook will continue as its Global Tyre Partner for the 2021 season.

The tyre manufacturer supplied racing tyres for W Series’ inaugural season in 2019 and will continue for the 2021 season, which will see eight races staged in partnership with Formula 1, starting at Circuit Paul Ricard in France on 26th June.

Hankook will provide W Series with complete support across the season, with the W Series’ Tatuus T-318 F3 race cars fitted with the Ventus Race F200 slick tyres in dry conditions and the Z217 tyres in intermediate or wet conditions. In addition, Hankook’s engineers and mechanics will provide support to help W Series’ drivers extract more performance from the tyres.

Ascot Racecourse has announced a renewal of its long-standing partnership with Lavazza, which will see the coffee brand continue as the Official Coffee of Ascot.

The pair signed an initial deal in 2015, while the renewal will last for three years, taking the partnership up to the nine-year mark.

Retail outlets across the venue will continue to serve Lavazza coffee at Royal Ascot and all Ascot Racedays throughout the year when spectators return to the racecourse.