Manchester United Football Club is in the final stages of holding a
digital review for its global website.
The review, overseen by Manchester United's marketing director, Peter
Draper, originally concerned six new-media agencies. However, the list
has now been reduced to two.
The football club, which boasts the largest supporter base in the world
and is also the world's biggest club in terms of financial turnover, is
planning a redesign of the front-end of its website. The redesign is
scheduled to be launched next year.
The site is at present managed by TWI Interactive, a division of IMG,
which also handles the back-end of the web operation.
However, it is understood that TWII has made it through to the final
round of the review.
The website is a vital part of Manchester United's revenue stream but
the club also views it as a way of communicating with its global fan
base.
The official club website, www.manutd.com, was launched in September
1998 in conjunction with its technology partners, Sun Microsystems,
Lotus, UUNet and Informix. It receives 6.5 million page impressions on
average per month.
Manchester United has an estimated six million supporters in the UK
alone.
It also has the largest fan base of any football club globally.
In 1999, SportsLine Europe, the US-owned website operator, signed an
agreement to become the internet sports media partner for the football
club's website.
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