ManUtd.com takes season’s first trophy for top content
10 Aug 09 00:00
Haymarket Network’s work for Manchester United Football Club has been recognised in new awards that celebrate the best in international sports websites.
The Club’s official website at ManUtd.com, for which Haymarket Network supplies all content, took top honours for a club or team site in the Content category of the first Ultimate Sports Websites Award.
ManUtd.com also won in the Monetisation and Partnership Activation categories of the awards, which were designed by the trade publisher SportBusiness to highlight the role of effective websites in sport and commerce. However, Manchester United’s Premier League rival Chelsea took the overall title.
Mark Hargreaves, general manager of Manchester United Interactive, told Sport Business: “It’s all about content: content really is king. That’s a mantra that we have held dear to our hearts at Manchester United and still rings true.”
Adam Bostock, editor of ManUtd.com, agrees whole heartedly. “The key to website traffic is website content,” he said. “So we’re very much at the forefront of Manchester United’s online strategy.”
The award comes on top of a record-breaking month for traffic to ManUtd.com. The site network, which includes local Korean, Japanese and Chinese editions managed by Haymarket Network’s partners, drew more than eight million unique users in July 2009.
Bostock is one of seven Haymarket Network journalists based at Manchester United’s Old Trafford headquarters who work with an extended team at Haymarket’s Teddington Studios. Led by editor-in-chief Ian McLeish, they create content for ManUtd.com, as well as the Club’s official magazine, Inside United, and its matchday programme, United Review.
“We’re the guys that regularly travel the short distance from our office at Old Trafford to the training ground, almost every day in fact, to interview players, interview Sir Alex Ferguson, and attend his press conferences,” says Bostock.
“We’re very much at the heart of things at United, and that integration, I’m sure, helps us deliver award-winning content because we have that familiarity and trust as well.”
The high level of trust between the Club and Haymarket Network means that the team are generally left to “get on with the job” without the Club dictating or always approving content, according to Bostock. The news value of that content is clear from the constant flow of stories that are picked up from ManUtd.com by major news outlets.
“While there are certain stories that we wouldn’t run (stories about the players’ private lives that you might see splashed across a Sunday tabloid) I think that we still manage to create content that intrigues and appeals, first and foremost, to the supporters,” says Bostock. “They know that when they come to the site what they’ll see there is genuine – that those quotes have come directly from Wayne Rooney or Rio Ferdinand.”