How Cisco Webex Created Virtual Front Row Seats at Manchester City Games
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the English Premier League was suspended in March, Greg Swimer had two things to figure out. As the chief technology officer for City Football Group, which includes the Manchester City Football Club, his first thought was for the health and safety of the people in the organization. Once the discussion moved to returning back to play, Swimer had to address his second challenge: How would the Club engage die-hard fans in a socially distanced way when returning to the stadium wasn’t an option?
The solution came via the Club’s partnership with Cisco, which was first hatched in October 2019. Leveraging Cisco’s video-collaboration platform, Cisco Webex, Manchester City was able to bring its fans back into the mix—physically apart, but digitally connected.
“The number of different aspects of our business that can be digitally enabled, it’s been quite eye-opening,” Swimer says. “The flexibility and feature-rich nature of Webex was absolutely crucial. … Good, close partnerships are really important. Some of these things we only had seven to 10 days to deliver on. It’s as much about innovation as it is doing things in a high-trust way.”
One of the first things that the two organizations collaborated on were Watch Together Parties. Accessible on the official Man City app and through the “Cityzens” portal, these virtual parties are hosted via Webex and bring fans from around the world into a game day environment. They can congregate and watch games as if they were in a pub or in the stadium. “Fans really connected into that,” Swimer says. “It’s been really welcome.”
As for the actual Etihad Stadium: to boost its atmosphere without fans being there, the Club utilized the LED screens that had been installed behind the goals to create virtual front row seats. The Wonder Wall allows fans to cheer and celebrate as if they were at the game, but instead they’re doing it on Webex. The Club and Cisco also worked together to produce a digitally recorded version of fans singing the team’s anthem, Blue Moon, that played during the final game of the EPL season.
All of this tech was readily available in the Webex platform, says Chintan Patel, the chief technology officer of Cisco U.K. & Ireland. What was needed was a partner who wanted to utilize it in new and creative ways. “The culture of both organizations is to try new things, fail fast and look at new ways to engage fans and have an impact,” Patel says. “That’s been really powerful.”
In addition to helping the players conduct virtual training sessions and allowing people throughout the organization to collaborate, Cisco Webex allowed Patel and Swimer to find new ways to engage fans. “We wanted to place Webex to utilize the things that people missed by not having live sports and the physical experience,” Patel says. “Webex has a lot of capabilities. It was easy for our team to use the toolset to develop the integration for Man City. We didn’t give people something different. The app is something fans are familiar with. It’s just blending Webex in, making sure we could securely allow that and have fun.”
For Swimer and Man City, the collaboration has opened up new avenues of exploration, which will eventually extend into the post-COVID-19 era. “Some of the opportunities that have emerged can work in the longer term. We can engage with the game in a different way,” Swimer says. “These are beta programs and this time of rapid innovation from Cisco gives us things we can build on.” When COVID-19 restrictions end and fans can return to Etihad Stadium, there will still be plenty of “Cityzens” around the world who are looking for a collaborative experience—and that’s now easy to do through Webex.
While the partnership between the two organizations is relatively new, they share similar goals when it comes to customer focus and creating experiences. They also have a vision of helping others, which is why Cisco partnered with Man City to help host the Club’s annual Cityzens Giving Young Leaders Summit. The virtual event brought together more than 250 Young Leaders from 23 cities around the world to discuss how football can help in the community.
For Patel and Cisco, delivering high-value outcomes is ingrained in the company’s culture. “These are mission-critical things,” he says. “For City, getting back to live games was the most important thing, and making sure they have a flawless experience—when all eyes are on the return to playing, we can’t miss a beat.
“We do that for every customer, but especially when it’s on the world stage. It’s in the DNA for us to do that. And this is just the beginning. If we mobilized all this in a short time, imagine what we can do with more time. We can absolutely think of new things in the post-COVID world. We have a strong foundation to build whatever those new things are.”
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