On May 24, Manchester United will host hundreds of supporters in Shanghai for something called ILOVEUNITED. It will be a live screening of the club’s final Premier League match of the season, with former striker Dimitar Berbatov in attendance. There will be partner activations, exclusive content, and what the club describes as “an authentic matchday atmosphere.”
It sounds like a nice fan event. But read the press release more carefully and what you are actually looking at is a carefully constructed piece of corporate communications. Telling us a great deal about how Manchester United thinks about its relationship with its global audience.
United has one of the largest supporter bases in Asia, and China in particular has long been a commercial priority for the club. The ILOVEUNITED program has run events in Shanghai before, at River Mall and Yi Show. This year’s edition has been upgraded: a larger venue, a higher-profile club ambassador, and explicit mention of “partner activations” corporate language for giving sponsors visible presence inside a fan experience.
None of that is inherently cynical. Smart organizations use events to communicate their values and build genuine community. But the question worth asking is. What message does ILOVEUNITED actually send, and to whom?
To sponsors and commercial partners, the message is reach. United can put a former Champions League winner in a room with hundreds of engaged supporters in Shanghai on a Sunday night, and brand it as a premium experience. That is valuable.
To fans, the intended message is belonging. You are part of this. Even from Shanghai, even at 11:00 pm local time, you are connected to Old Trafford. The club sees you.
Whether fans actually receive that message, or whether they see through the commercial packaging, is a different question. And this is where United’s global communications strategy gets genuinely interesting. The club’s core fanbase in Manchester has, for years, felt that commercial growth has come at the expense of the match day experience, in particular ticket affordability, and competitive investment in players and managers. INEOS inherited that tension. Events like ILOVEUNITED Shanghai are aimed at an audience thousands of miles away, funded partly by revenues generated from fans at Old Trafford who have watched prices rise and the team struggle.
It is not a contradiction you can resolve with a press release. But it is the central communications challenge facing any global sports organization that is simultaneously a community institution and a commercial enterprise. Manchester United is both, and the ILOVEUNITED event is a useful window into which of those identities the club is investing in right now.
Do you think global fan events like ILOVEUNITED genuinely serve supporters, or are they primarily commercial exercises dressed up as community?
