Best Business Serving Football
WINNER
Little Kickers Group
Established in London in 2002, Little Kickers is the world’s largest pre-school football club, offering classes to the under 7’s through a network of over 330 franchisees in over 30 countries. In addition to providing the 70,000 participants with a fun, positive introduction to sport, the classes also teach valuable early learning skills such as colour and number recognition, sharing and taking turns.
The Little Kickers team are passionately committed to providing as many children as possible with football training, and currently send coaches to the Sparkle pre-school in Malawi every few months to deliver kit, equipment and training. This programme will be extended in 2020/21 with a focus on sustainability. Every child who attends Little Kickers classes receives a football strip – future plans involve moving to strips of fabric made from recycled ocean plastic. Once the UK-based Little Kickers have finished with their strips they will be given the option of sending them to orphanages in Africa where they will be re-used. The kits will be delivered together with balls and goals , by Little Kickers coaches who will train local teachers to deliver the Little Kickers programme.
SILVER
Other Media
Other Media are a long-established digital agency working with sports clients for over 20 years. Stoically following clubs spanning the English leagues, we know and love sport.
We have developed Clubcast, a fan engagement platform, to enable sports clubs to better manage their content workflows and power their websites, apps and smart speaker skills, vastly improving the efficiency of the media teams, especially on match days. Coordinating all the digital touch points that Clubcast powers ensures that clubs can keep fans engaged with up-to-the minute content and engaging functionality delivered through digital products that reflect and enhance their club’s identity.
Clubs are able to boost revenue through unified digital assets enabling sponsorship, advertising, and partnership agreements; boosting retail sales; and enabling a healthy bounceback of matchday and season ticket sales when gates re-open as well as hospitality sales. All while benefiting from improved workflows.
Clubcast enables clubs to benefit from a scalable and economic system (which most clubs opt to pay for on a monthly basis, avoiding hefty upfront costs).
Clubcast brings together the best in technology, produced by the best in the business, to bring clubs the best in class solution for digital fan engagement with plentiful revenue opportunities.
BRONZE
Ahead In Sport & The University of Salford Business School
Ahead In Sport have created a unique, innovative online BSc(Hons) Applied Football Studies in conjunction with the University of Salford Business School, providing a flexible HE option for those in football.
Designed specifically for anyone who is currently, or aspires to be, involved in the football industry it allows learners to combine studying with their existing football commitments.
The programme accurately reflects the nature of the modern game, providing content which combines learning in key areas such as leadership, talent development and psychology with practical business skills and an understanding of the interaction across various football departments.
Supported by professional insight, including guest webinars from those such as Steven Gerrard, Michael Johnson, Kevin Ellison and Dr Alex Culvin, learners also benefit from our unique Industry Mentor initiative, enabling them to seek advice and guidance from those that have experienced the transition from playing to education or employment.
In recognising the need for education to be a key component of the athlete-transition process, and through its innovative use of technology, we are proud to have developed a ground-breaking programme for those who wish to turn their passion for football into a sustainable career.
