Fantasy League appoints Aura Sports to sales role
Fantasy League has appointed specialist digital sports agency Aura Sports to handle third-party sales and sponsorship rights for all its online products.
Fantasy League launched its now-famous football management game in 1991, and has added versions covering Formula One, golf, tennis, rugby, cricket and horseracing, as well as share-dealing, music and celebrities. It has more than 1 million players worldwide, with 250,000 regular players in the UK.
In 1999, the company launched Schools Fantasy League, a Government-approved learning resource within Curriculum Online, which currently has over 75,000 players in 1,200 schools across the UK.
Aura Sports managing director Paul Wright points out that the Fantasy League concept is “a real phenomenon and a perfect fit for the internet”. Furthermore, players have to access the sites on a regular basis in order to keep an eye on how their teams are doing, optimise their player selection and trade players. This offers enormous potential for “appropriate brands to communicate with potential customers in a fun and interesting environment”, says Wright.
Fantasy League has deals with a number of leading companies and brands, including The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, BT Openworld, Barclaycard, Vodafone, the BBC, Granada Media Group and MSN.
Aura Sports handles rights for a number of football clubs, including Manchester United and Chelsea, and the Professional Footballers Association website. Earlier this year, BSkyB took a minority stake in the company, which expects significant growth in the run-up to the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
