An insider look into Manchester City’s partnership with tech company VTEX.
Over the years, Manchester City’s strategy has moved well beyond matchdays. The focus is now on building a year-round, global engagement model which reaches fans across platforms and continents.
Insider Sport was given exclusive access to a pitchside conversation at the Etihad Stadium between Santiago Naranjo, Chief Revenue Officer at VTEX and Manchester City’s Chief Technology Officer Greg Swimer. Their discussion outlined how this approach is transforming the club’s commercial outlook.
“The business has become much more of a 365-day-a-year business. We are still revolving around match days, but the stadium is full of life even on non-match days. The industry is just becoming more of an always-on industry, serving fans in more places,” said Swimer.
Manchester City has partnered with VTEX as its official digital commerce orchestration platform, with the aim of simplifying and scaling the way fans interact with the club, particularly when it comes to merchandise and mobile commerce.
“One of the things that we really liked about VTEX when we were going through our selection process was exactly that, that you saw your success as linked to ours, you didn’t want to take away the sort of attention from our brand, you wanted to support our brand but help us make us better with commerce,” said Swimer.
It’s a global game
Like many successful Premier League clubs, City has garnered a significant global following.
International tournaments like the FIFA Club World Cup, where City recently competed in the US, and behind-the-scenes documentaries such as Together: Treble Winners on Netflix, have become vital touchpoints for building fan loyalty in foreign markets.
However, for many fans, especially those in Asia, North America or Africa, matchday remains out of reach. What they can access, however, is merchandise. Making that journey as frictionless as possible is a top priority.
VTEX’s platform is designed to centralise and power City’s full suite of commerce experiences, covering mobile, web and in-stadium purchases. The technology aims to allow fans to browse and buy official products with fewer barriers, wherever they are in the world.
“We have the context of a fan overseas who can’t necessarily come to the stadium and then we have the sort of stadium context. And what links all of that together is commerce and the idea of trying to engage with the club through buying products from us. It could be a shirt, it could be a match ticket, it could be something else,” said Swimer.
The VTEX partnership is just one component of a broader strategy at City to deepen its global roots. In March, the club announced a partnership with ticket marketplace Viagogo.
This deal looks to put these global fans in seats at the Etihad, benefitting both fans and the club commercially. By facilitating access for fans around the world, City can capitalise on the fact that international visitors often pay premium prices for tickets.
Furthermore, these global fans tend to spend more on merchandise and in-stadium purchases given their reduced access throughout the year, creating a valuable boost to the club’s overall revenue.
Manchester City’s financial results reflect the success of this multi-channel approach, with the club posting a record revenue of $953.23m (£715m) for the 2023/24 season, $2.93m (£2.2m) higher than last season.
Powering in-stadium experiences
While the partnership between the club and VTEX aims to connect international supporters with the club, the discussion between officials also hinted at in-stadium solutions.
When speaking about the importance of building an API that can deal with peak moments, Naranjo offered examples such as fans ordering food and drink to their seats and booking a hotel at the end of the match.
Though Swimer stated the priority is to ensure the app is responsive and works as intended before exploring these ideas, Naranjo’s point shared similarities with Insider Sport’s conversation with NTT DATA, Arsenal’s official digital transformation partner.
Speaking to Insider Sport at SportsPro Live in London earlier this year, Dominic Rowles, Head of Sport and Travel at NTT DATA, shared how technology can be used to improve fan experiences at games.
For Rowles, it was all about the fundamentals. He explained technology can assist by helping fans navigate stadiums more easily using digital apps that show “the quickest route” and identify “how busy certain areas are and where the toilets are”.
Interestingly, neither Arsenal’s nor City’s tech partners are looking to revolutionise fan experiences with complex initiatives, but create a smoother, more seamless experience in general.
This isn’t to say the clubs aren’t competing to outperform one another.
“Sport is by its very nature, it’s really competitive. It’s most obviously competitive on the pitch, but it’s a sort of very relentless performance culture in every aspect of the club,” said Swimer.
“In tech we have a number of big missions, we have everything to do with fans and fan technologies, we have everything to do with football and sporting technologies.”
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