Man U stars add bounce to app plans
DONACO International is joining with Ballr, a free gaming platform for fans to link up as they watch football matches, in organising a Thai tour by former Manchester United stars.
The old champions – Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and Phil Neville – have been brought out under a promotion that honours the “Class of ‘92”.
The tour will help raise the profile of Ballr amid its plans to set up an office in Thailand this year to cash in on the potential of online football games. Sam Jones, Ballr’s founder and CEO, said: “During a live game, we have a team of people that captures thousands of micro moments that take place in a single EPL game. We capture this in real-time from within the stadium.
“This data relates to every pass, tackle, shot, foul, assist, goal, save, seconds after the event happens.”
The Manchester United heroes took part in a friendly match against Pattaya United in Bangkok yesterday.
They will also headline a gala dinner hosted by Donaco at its Star Vegas casino-hotel in Poi Pet, Cambodia, today.
Ballr converts each discrete event into a point’s value. This forms the basis of a video game people can play on their smartphone against millions of other fans in real-time.
Game winners receive “epic experiences and prizes”, such as a football shirt or tickets to watch a EPL match and flights to get them there.
Around three billion people all over the world watch EPL matches, of which 600 million people watch the Liverpool or Man United football clubs.
“At Ballr, we are trying to build communities around live sport. We do this by tapping into the 82 per cent of the audience who are holding a mobile phone.
“We create a simple game that allows people to select a fantasy team in real-time, and have a chance to win epic prizes.”
As for its marketing strategy, Ballr has three ways to grow the community – forming partnerships with TV broadcasters of live football to promote Ballr during live games, using famous football clubs to promote the application and using social media to reach its target consumers.
Ballr has formed partnerships with leading EPL clubs, as well as LaLiga and Italian giant Juventus.
While Ballr intends to move into other sports, for now it is very focused on world football.
