City Football Group and Sony to partner on content

City Football Group (CFG) and Sony Pictures Television (SPT) have announced a strategic collaboration, which will see the companies co-develop and produce new original scripted, nonfiction, and kids’ television projects for worldwide audiences.

The initiative will combine CFG’s global network, expertise in sport and access to football talent, facilities and the group’s own media creative production unit, City Studios with SPT’s production teams.

Projects developed as part of the collaboration will include stories related directly to CFG and its clubs and players, as well as the creation of projects inspired by football, or where football is the central theme or plotline.

As well as scripted and unscripted series, projects can also include one-off documentaries, animated projects, or children’s programming.

City Studios produces the Manchester City docuseries Together. It was the first Premier League club to produce an in-house documentary and conclude a distribution deal with Netflix earlier this year, with Together: Treble Winners (pictured above).

The creative alignment will see both organisations further invest in content production, from concept ideation, development funding, through to production and distribution.

SPT’s global production footprint includes the U.S. scripted studio; the SPT Nonfiction and SPT Kids television divisions; and the SPT International Production group, which spans scripted companies across the UK, Latin America, and Australia, including Left Bank Pictures, Bad Wolf, Eleven, and Eleventh Hour Films.

City Football Group Chief Executive Officer, Ferran Soriano, said: “We are incredibly excited to be collaborating with Sony Pictures Television in this joint initiative.

“City Football Group is already a global entertainment company, and this initiative builds on our long-standing track record of innovation in the content space and the growth of City Studios in the last years. We will now take an even more dynamic approach to content production, and we are already developing several scripted and nonfiction series that will delight audiences globally.

“Bringing together the expertise of both CFG and SPT will enable us to create brilliant shows and remain at the forefront of football-led content production”.

Wayne Garvie, president, international production, Sony Pictures Television, added: “Football is the great global game, no other sport produces so many heroes, tears and laughter, joy and heartbreak as football. The basics are always the same: 22 players, two goals, one ball, but the game always evolves and over the last decade City Football Group have become an unprecedented innovator and global leader.

“Our aim is to be part of the next evolution of the game, creating a new generation of innovative football-based entertainment to thrill the world.”