IP: Manchester United and Vodafone

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>X-Sender: nbr@popin.newcastle.ac.uk
>Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 17:02:52 +0000
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk>
>
>
>  Dave:
>
>Recent big news here has been the (UK pound)30m (nearly $50 million)
>sponsorship deal between Manchester United and  Vodaphone, the UK mobile
>phone company. (Manchester United are perhaps the best soccer team in
>Europe - though they were beaten 3-0 by Newcastle United last Saturday! :-)
>
>What is interesting is the thinking behind this deal, as described in a
>full page set of articles in the Guardian newspaper on Saturday. I tried
>unsuccessfully to find these articles on the Guardian's website - here
>instead are some brief quotations from them.
>
>Cheers
>
>Brian
>
>=======
>
>Manchester United and Vodafone
>
>What the shirt deal is really about
>
>Manchester United and Vodafone yesterday gave the clearest indication yet
>of how technological changes are revolutionising the way the public
>consumes information and spend its money by announcing a pioneering
>sponsorship deal that will allow fans to watch live football matches and
>buy replica kits through their mobile phones. The world's largest mobile
>phone service provider has agreed a (UKP)30m four-year alliance that will see
>it become United's official shirt sponsor and provide wireless internet
>services to the club's 12m supporters worldwide.
>
>Although Vodafone believes it will be four years before fans can watch a
>game live on their mobile, from August fans with Wap (wireless application
>protocol) phones will be able to receive news and latest scores direct from
>their handsets.
>....
>The first Wap phones are already on the streets. Swedish giant Ericsson
>said yesterday there could be 600m mobile phones in use worldwide by 2002,
>and that may prove to be an underestimate.
>
>Already the new WAP phones can be used to send email, receive news clips,
>stock market prices or football results, book theatres or restaurants,
>place bets, check your bank account or to create a direct link to parts of
>your own website. You can even watch a live mini-map showing traffic jams
>on the ring road around Paris.
>...
>For once the digital action is not in the United States but Europe.
>Finland's Nokia, with 29% of the world mobile phone market, has just rolled
>out its 7110, to be closely followed by Ericsson, the world's second
>largest mobile manufacturer, Motorola of the US, and Siemens. Vodaphone is
>British, as is Psion, which is challenging Microsoft to provide the
>standard operating system for internet phones.
>...
>
>--
>Dept. of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
>NE1 7RU, UK
>EMAIL = Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
>FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/
>