Sony Pictures Television, Manchester City owner CFG strike coproduction deal

City Football Group’s Ferran Soriano and Sony Pictures Television’s Wayne Garvie

Sony Pictures Television (SPT) has linked with City Football Group (CFG), owners of UK soccer team Manchester City FC, to co-develop and coproduce scripted and non-fiction series together.

Projects developed as part of the collaboration are set to 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 and children’s programming.

The deal will combine CFG’s access to footballing talent and expertise in sport with The Crown producer SPT’s production pedigree. Projects co-developed by the two will be led by film and music industry executive Ged Doherty and supported by a bespoke team.

As well as Manchester City FC, who have been the Premier League champions for the past four seasons, CFG owns stakes in 12 other clubs worldwide including New York City FC in the US, Melbourne City FC in Australia, Mumbai City FC in India and Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan. It also operates its own media creative production unit, City Studios.

SPT’s international production footprint includes its own US scripted studio plus the SPT non-fiction and SPT Kids television divisions as well as the SPT International Production group.

This spans scripted companies across the UK, Latin America, and Australia, including Left Bank Pictures, Bad Wolf, Eleven and Eleventh Hour Films.

Manchester City were the first football club to feature on Amazon’s All or Nothing documentary series in 2018, and were the first Premier League football club to produce an in-house documentary and conclude a distribution deal with Netflix earlier this year, with Together: Treble Winners.

CFG is majority owned by Newton Investment and Development LLC, wholly owned by Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed, with a significant minority shareholding held by US-based global technology investment firm, Silver Lake (18.16%).

CFG CEO Ferran Soriano said: “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 non-fiction 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 of international production at SPT, said: “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.”

The deal comes hot on the heels of another soccer-related agreement after LaLiga Studios, the joint venture between Banijay Iberia and Spain’s top soccer league, announced a drama set in the footballing world.