Manchester United will guarantee online adspend on Lycos UK from a range of its sponsors, which include Vodafone, Nike, Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi and Budweiser. It will also provide Lycos UK with content, which may include web chats with players and exclusive editorial.
The parties will split revenue gained from online ad deals and Lycos UK will guarantee to reach a pre-set revenue target for the Manchester United site.
Lycos UK has also replaced Sports.com as the exclusive partner to sell advertising and sponsorship packages across the Manchester United web site (www.manutd.com).
A key element of the deal for Manchester United is to build its global fanbase through co-branded community products.
Lycos UK will initially add a co-branded 'deck' within its animated virtual chatroom. Plans are being developed for a co-branded stand-alone chatroom facility that would be hosted by Lycos, and a Manchester United template for Lycos UK's home page- building service to allow fans to build branded sites.
As part of the deal, Lycos UK will become a platinum sponsor of the team, which will see it receive perimeter hoarding advertising at the club's ground, Old Trafford, and media space in matchday programmes.
The UK partnership is part of a four-year global deal between Terra Lycos, which has a 30 per cent stake in Lycos UK's parent, Lycos Europe, and Manchester United FC. The global deal will see Lycos Asia develop a Chinese language site for the football giant and Terra Lycos become the online partner to help the club develop content for non-English-speaking fans.
Manchester United business development director Ben Hatton said: "We chose Lycos as we were looking to connect and build communities around our fanbase on a global scale.
Lycos has the footprint for that. Lycos UK is now doing our ad sales as a by-product of the global deal.
"The shift is no reflection on Sports.com's performance and we are exploring how to continue our relationship in areas such as games and content."
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