Manchester United has had a steady hand running the team for the last 26 years as it built itself into what Forbes has called the world’s most valuable sports brand, worth billions of dollars. Now, Sir Alex Ferguson, who managed the team to 13 league championships and at least double that in other championship cups, is calling it quits at the end of this season and going off to get hip surgery. 

"Manchester United has been transformed as a football club under the management of Sir Alex Ferguson," Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, told CNN.

The club’s popularity has allowed it to rake in sponsorship dollars, as it recently signed deals with two financial service providers in Denmark and Vietnam, a social gaming company in Japan, Aon to sponsor its practice gear, and a slew of others.Continue reading...

Professional sports teams have such cachet with a certain block of the public that pretty much anything they do can find sponsorship. Aon and Manchester United just signed a sponsorship deal that has the British multinational risk-management, insurance and consulting company putting its name on the team’s training facilities for the next eight years.

Along with that, Aon’s name will also grace the training shirts of the ManU players and be attached to any of the team’s pre-season tours during the next eight seasons, such as “Tour 2013 presented by Aon in Asia Pacific.” If that weren’t enough, Manchester United’s business network will also use Aon for its “talent development, health, risk management, retirement and data & analytics.”Continue reading...

Soccer fans in China were recently dealt a nasty blow when news came out of just how rigged the system has been there. Close to 60 Chinese soccer officials, including two former heads of the Chinese Football Association and the nation’s most-respected referee were recently banned from the sport for anywhere from five years to life for fixing games.

In addition to the corruption scandal, Chinese football has also just lost two of its biggest stars—the Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba and France’s Nicolas Anelka—long before soccer fans in the country expected them to leave.

What’s the most-populated nation in the world to do? Hire the world’s most well-known soccer player under the age of 40 to help shift its image, of course. The 37-year-old David Beckham, who is now on the roster of Paris Saint-Germain Football Club in France’s Ligue 1, has signed on to be the brand ambassador for Chinese football, the BBC reports.Continue reading...

General Motors is sticking with its pledge not to advertise during this year's Super Bowl, interim CMO Alan Batey told brandchannel. But the automaker's VP of U.S. sales, service and global marketing declined to rule out an advertising kick-off of the Chevrolet brand's new tag line, "Find New Roads," during TV spots before or after the Big Game on February 3 on CBS.

And in the meantime, Batey and Chevrolet do have their own huge moment to share with the world: sponsorship of Sunday's football (as in soccer) match between the Manchester United team and Liverpool in the U.K., which Batey said would fetch a global TV audience that could be much larger than the worldwide draw for the Super Bowl.

"This platform is huge for us, and it's really only the beginning of our relationship" with Manchester United, Liverpool and the Barclays Premier League, Batey said. "It will be a huge part of creating awareness for Chevy around the world." And taking advantage of — as well as boosting — Chevy's increasingly global platform is one main reason for the new "Find New Roads" positioning, which is replacing the lackluster "Chevy Runs Deep."Continue reading...

US Eastern Seaboard braces for Hurricane Sandy, as NYSE (for first time since 9/11) and NASDAQ halt trading on Monday and thousands of flights are cancelled.

San Francisco Giants beat Detroit Tigers to win baseball's World Series.

GM tests magnesium to produce lighter cars.

NBC wins Premier League broadcast rights.

Toyota misfires with Chinese buyers.

Apple masters art of planned obsolescence, while Steve Jobs' yacht finally revealed.

EDF Energy in UK raising prices 10.8%.

IBM reports nanotube chip breakthrough.

McDonald's leans more on Dollar Menu.

News Corp. bids for Penguin books, owned by Pearson.

Univision to launch UVideos digital network spin-off.

Vodafone restructuring to result in "massive" job losses.

& British police arrest pop star Gary Glitter as more arrests are expected in Jimmy Savile scandal.

In 2002, Nike agreed to fork over £303 million ($485 million) and give a share of retail sales to Manchester United so its iconic swoosh could grace the home kit, away kit and related apparel of the world's most popular soccer team. But their 13-year agreement comes to an end in 2015, and the word from the Daily Mail is that the two sides are in the midst of negotiating a new deal that could pay the Red Devils a massive £1 billion ($1.6 billion).

If signed, it’ll be the largest sponsorship deal in all of sports. Not too shabby for a team that Forbes ranked as the top of its annual ranking of the world’s 50 most valuable sports teams. Forbes valued ManU at $2.23 billion, $350 million more than the second team on the list, Real Madrid. 

Nike will have a six-month window to negotiate, the Mail reports. Sure to be mentioned in the talks is the fact that GM's Chevrolet division agreed this summer to shell out $559 million over seven years so Manchester United would sport Chevy's logo on the front of the shirt — the terms of which contributed to the ouster of GM's former CMO, Joel Ewanick.Continue reading...

General Motors CMO Joel Ewanick didn't wait long to drop the other shoe after departing Facebook and Super Bowl advertising a couple of weeks ago.

In announcing Chevrolet's China-focused global sponsorship deal with the world's most popular soccer franchise — Manchester United — today, the GM marketing chief switched the focus to a bold step of commission rather than omission, accelerated Chevy's identification as a worldwide rather than a U.S. marque, and just may have changed one of America's most iconic brands forever.

"As Chevrolet continues to grow as a global brand, this is the right time to make a commitment and establish a presence in international football," Ewanick said in a press release about becoming the official vehicle of the Barclays Premier League giant. "Our ambition is to connect with football in a fashion that transcends traditional sponsorship."Continue reading...

Airlines have taken to sponsoring teams in England’s Premier League recently. Etihad Airlines signed on with Manchester City in July. Emirates Airlines has its name on Arsenal’s stadium. And Turkish Airlines has a deal with Manchester United.

Great promotion for the airlines, right? Well, there are a few that get turned off when a brand sign on with a team: the fans of that team’s rivals.Continue reading...