SMG Broker Apprentice Asia Partnership



Sports Media Gaming are delighted to have brokered a high profile and unique agreement for leading broker IG Markets to become one of the main sponsors of The Apprentice Asia which airs on AXN across Asia from May 2013.


With Tony Fernandes as the Chairman of the Apprentice, IG will feature in an entire episode of the programme with the contestants trading on IG Markets software to try and win the challenge.

SMG Broker Instaforex Formula 1 Partnership

SMG are delighted to have brokered an agreement between Instaforex and Marussia F1 which was announced today as follows:


InstaForex, one of the world’s leading brokerage companies, has become an official supplier of the Marussia F1 team for the 2013 season.
Sports Media Gaming brokered the deal which will see the InstaForex visual identity appearing prominently on the Marussia F1 Team’s MR02 race car at this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix and also at the Singapore Grand Prix which takes place later in the season. 
InstaForex has an existing association with motorsport that began in 2011, when it partnered with the Loparis Team in the challenging Dakar Rally. An association with the Marussia F1 Team in the highly competitive environment of Formula 1 underpins one of the company’s core values of aspiring to the highest level of competition. InstaForex cites the Marussia F1 Team’s drive to challenge the more established teams as being key to its desire to partner the team.  

Andy Webb, CEO, Marussia F1 Team, said: “It is with great pleasure that we welcome InstaForex to the Marussia F1 Team - our second partnership with a major Russian company to be announced in as many weeks. As an Anglo-Russian team looking forward to the inaugural Russian Grand Prix in Sochi next season, we are thrilled that our clear progress over the winter and positive start to the new season are being met with such support and enthusiasm back ‘home’. This partnership and the access it affords to our Team is another way in which we can help to take Formula 1 to Russia and bring more of Russia to our sport.”




No Dream League in Qatar

Qatar football officials have denied categorically a report that they were planning a lucrative world club championship every second summer on the road to the 2022 World Cup.

The ‘Dream Football League’ was supposedly being launched next month, according to The Times. It would be backed by the Qatari royal family and elite clubs such as Manchester United and Barcelona could be offered as much as US$261m.

Not true, according to French spoof website which accused The Times of ‘lifting’ its fiction – quoted from a non-existent source balled Agence-Transe-Presse – and not true according to the Qatar Football Association and Qatar 2022.

A QFA statement said: “With regard to the story published in today’s edition of The Times newspaper . . . the Qatar Football Association and other Qatari football entities can confirm that we have no involvement in any such initiative and have heard nothing to suggest such a concept is genuine.”

Why Liverpool Should Apply the Man Utd Model

This week Liverpool announced further losses of £40.5m whilst Manchester United announced yet another commercial deal with a Danish credit card company.

More or less on a weekly basis Man Utd have been announcing high profile global and regional commercial deals. With over 40 staff dialling for dollars in a swanky Mayfair office, the commercial strategy is reaping huge rewards. Their new shirt sponsorship set to start in 2014/15 season with Chevrolet is worth over £40million per annum, more than double what Liverpool currently get from Standard Chartered Bank.

The reports suggest that Liverpool need to move into a new stadium to develop revenues from Naming Rights etc but the fact is Man Utd are hampered in that regard, impossible in many ways to change the name from Old Trafford without alienating their global fan base.

Liverpool's ownership by Fenway Sports was supposed to bring significant commercial advantage tapping into the huge American franchise and commercial contacts. Frankly this has not happened thus far. The £40million loss posted by Liverpool could be made up with two or three commercial sponsorships at Man Utd.

Liverpool should be taking the Man Utd model, copying it and replicating it. The 3 reds (Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal) have a large share of global football support particularly in markets like Asia. 

It's not rocket science, Man Utd have recognised that a combined global and regional sales strategy is the solution to generating maximum commercial revenue. Losses of £40 million should be a thing of the past !