Extension of Football Manager Agreement
Certain information contained within this Announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR"). Upon publication of this Announcement, this information is considered to be in the public domain.
26 September 2019
Bidstack Group PLC ("Bidstack or "the Group")
Extension of Football Manager Agreement
Three more years: Sports Interactive and Bidstack
Bidstack Group plc (AIM: BIDS.L), the in-game advertising group, is pleased to announce it has extended its multi-year partnership with Sports Interactive, Sega's world leading developer of football management simulations, by a further three years giving Bidstack exclusive rights to serve native in-game ads to the advertising inventory within Football Manager.
The extension follows the success of serving relevant native in-game ads in Sports Interactive's Football Manager 2018 and Football Manager 2019 titles in a non-intrusive, fully immersive way that does not break the gamer's experience.
Football Manager 2020 will release in November 2019 for PC, Mac and as a launch title on Google Stadia.
The collaboration will also see Sports Interactive releasing Football Manager 2020 with Bidstack's Software Development Kit ("SDK"). A SDK is a sophisticated set of software tools, libraries, code samples, processes and components built to incorporate features and drive user behaviours.
This is the first time Bidstack's SDK will be running live on any title. The SDK's functionality will span from added brand safety and security measures, (enhanced by the integration of Pubguard's ad verification software), to game publishers tracking the real-time health of their inventory in game, via Bidstack's AdConsole.
James Draper, Bidstack's CEO said, "We're extremely proud of the work we've done together with Sports Interactive and grateful for this three year extension, which demonstrates great advocacy for the service we provide. Building strong relationships with world leading video game publishers is incredibly important to the growth of our business and the scale of the gaming audience we bring to our advertisers. Signing another multi-year exclusive agreement with Sports Interactive shows how big an impact in-game advertising is making in both the gaming and advertising industries."
Dr. Tom Markham, Head of Strategic Business Development at Sports Interactive said, "We're delighted to put pen to paper on a new deal with Bidstack. Their cutting-edge technology allows us to serve impactful real-world ads in the form of realistic, perimeter pitchside advertising in Football Manager. This enables us to further monetise our titles, which we can invest in future games and events. It also helps to add to the immersive match experience for FM players."
Contacts
Bidstack Group PLC
James Draper, CEO +44 (0) 7850 341 885
SPARK Advisory Partners Limited
Mark Brady/Neil Baldwin/James Keeshan +44 (0) 203 368 3550
Stifel Nicholas Europe Limited (Broker)
Fred Walsh/Neil Shah +44 (0) 20 7710 7600
Notes to editors
About Bidstack
Bidstack is an advertising technology company which provides dynamic, targeted and automated native in-game advertising for the global video games industry across multiple platforms. Its proprietary API technology is capable of inserting adverts into natural advertising space within video games across multiple video games platforms (mobile, PC and console).
Bidstack's customers are games publishers and developers and advertising agencies, brands and programmatic advertising platforms. Bidstack contracts exclusive access to the native in-game advertising space within video games from their developers or publishers and sells that advertising space either direct to specific brands and their agencies or through programmatic advertising platforms.
About Sports Interactive Ltd.
Sports Interactive (SI) is one of the world's leading developers of football management simulations through its Football Manager series. Founded in 1994 and based at Here East in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, SI has a full-time staff of more than 100 and employs the services of roughly 1,300 part-time researchers across the globe (alongside more than 200 offsite Beta testers). SI has ongoing relationships with some of the biggest names in professional football, including the Bundesliga, the League Managers Association, EFL and many other leagues and national associations. Sports Interactive became a wholly owned subsidiary of SEGA in 2006.
About Football Manager
Football Manager is one of the most realistic, in-depth and immersive football management simulations in the world. Putting the video gamer in the hot seat of any club in more than 50 countries across the world, Football Manager allows the player to make all the decisions a real manager has to make: gamers are in total control of signings, tactics, team talks, substitutions and pitch-side instructions as they follow the action live with the acclaimed 3D match engine. It's the closest thing to doing the job for real.
In recent years Football Manager has become an integral part of football culture. The game's hugely loyal fan base includes celebrities and footballers and it has inspired books and comedy shows. There is even a full-length film, An Alternative Reality: The Football Manager Documentary (available on iTunes, Google Play and Steam) that highlights the game's enduring appeal and influence within the professional game.
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