Why we are partnering with BADU Sports to sponsor Norwich City FC for the 2020/21 EFL Championship season

Bidstack will once again be an official club partner and kit sponsor of Norwich City Football Club for the 2020/21 Championship season, after signing up to a new and exciting partnership with the club.

This time Bidstack will also be donating the back-of-shirt kit sponsorship space on the famous Canary yellow home kit and Norwich’s 3rd kit to Badu Sports, an organisation set up to mentor and inspire young people from underrepresented backgrounds, whilst Bidstack will appear on the club’s away shirt. 

We decided to approach a company that we have already undertaken some work with at our Plexal HQ to form a three-way collaboration that would serve the communities that have been important to our development as a business whilst creating opportunities and opening doors for young people.

Badu Sports are based at our London HQ, Plexal, and work tirelessly to serve the local community. The work that their team has put into the local community - to inspire, educate and support youngsters, using sport as the glue to create inclusive and inspiring initiatives is something that has really impressed all of us at Bidstack.

This collaboration with Norwich City will see Badu's youngsters visit Carrow Road and utilise the club's world-class 'Nest' facility - to learn from their expert coaches, participate in courses educating on careers in Football and create new opportunities for the communities that Badu Sports serve.

We see this as the start of our efforts as a business to create a positive impact and we are delighted the club will take some of Badu's coaches to the team's training camp in Finland - to learn from professional coaches who will pass on their knowledge, discipline and application.

As we grow as a business and begin to build our relationships with some of the world's biggest video gaming companies we feel it is important to learn from our partners and build a Corporate Social Responsibility policy that represents our ethos as a business. We believe in deep, enriching relationships where everyone wins from our existence and this is another step forward on that journey.

This collaboration will positively impact the lives of young people in two of the communities that have shaped Bidstack as a company and will bring our long association with Norwich City FC full circle. Bidstack first sponsored Norwich City’s kits in the 2016/17 season and the partnership created relationships that took the company to where it is today. Including our pivot into gaming, the move to our current home, Plexal and the decision to list on the AIM market.

The journey began with a punchy PR and marketing campaign that launched the business and included a canary-yellow-suited character that led our Crowdcube campaign. Our launch video caught the attention of Norwich City's commercial team, who approached the company when looking for a back of the shirt sponsor for that season.

After negotiations at Carrow Road, it became clear that the opportunity would be a powerful way to engage the advertising industry and demonstrate that Bidstack intended to enter the market and make a clear impact.

The tie-up drew attention from media owners from various industries across the world - but, crucially played an important role in where the company is today. It demonstrated to the team at Football Manager that not only did we fully appreciate the power of commercial association in Football but that we had ambitious plans. The pivot into Native In-Game Advertising was concluded when Bidstack signed an exclusive deal with Sega Europe's Sports Interactive in the winter of 2017 with Football Manager becoming our first gaming title.

As part of our tie-in with Norwich City, we were invited to a networking event by the London Supporters Club - the ‘Capital Canaries’. We were introduced at this meeting to a recently opened innovation centre in Stratford / Hackney called Plexal. On the recommendations of other trusted parties, we viewed the premises and when we realised Sports Interactive would be moving in next door we decided to make the move.

The move enabled both Bidstack and Sports Interactive to develop a strong relationship that is more than a traditional client relationship.  The close proximity and growing relationship between Bidstack and Football Manager led the Head of Commercial Partnerships at Sports Interactive to introduce us to a lawyer, who was working with an AIM-listed shell, KIN Group PLC.

Hosting the discussions within our Plexal office and having our neighbours give us a tour of their studio to our potential acquirers - gave comfort to all parties that Bidstack were in a growing industry and that we were approaching our launch into gaming in the right way.

To enhance our relationship with the Football Manager community and to demonstrate the level of respect we show towards the games we work with, we ran the world's first global esports event for the game. The prize? To manage Norwich City Legend's against Inter Milan's legend team, Inter Forever, at Carrow Road. The game took place to fund the Norwich City-backed Community Sports Foundation's 'Nest' centre - a world-class football facility, for the Norfolk community which will form part of our new partnership with Badu Sports.

Bidstack Ltd was acquired and became a PLC in 2019. Hackney / Stratford and Norwich have become established parts of the companies roots as we have grown and developed- so when the opportunity came up to sponsor Norwich City again next season, as they look to return to The Premier League, it was clear this was the chance for the company to do something truly impactful.

I would like to extend my thanks to our wonderful friends at Norwich City - and to Nana and his incredible team at Badu Sports - what an exciting year we all have ahead of us, together.

References:

Was our Norwich City shirt sponsorship worth it (2017) - https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/our-norwich-city-shirt-sponsorship-worth-james-draper/

First announcement - https://www.canaries.co.uk/News/2016/september/bidstack-gets-behind-the-canaries/

Second announcement: https://www.canaries.co.uk/News/2020/august/norwich-city-announces-three-way-partnership-with-bidstack-and-badu-sports/

Announcement video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-j0LTMvrSY

FM Esport Tournament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0f2SGJZOiQ

The Nest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMy-6aMoyQk

Badu: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRSOTv7bsCLBMNqJs2c5IWw / https://badusports.co.uk