KOMI Group – the Manchester headquartered social media, marketing & licensing company – has invested in The Football Faithful which is one of the UK and Ireland’s leading sports publishers. Its focus is on delivering the latest news, opinions, topical features, tactical analysis and nostalgia. It averages five million views per month.
The value of the deal has not been disclosed, but the partnership will see The Football Faithfull fall under the KOMI group umbrella. It is the latest addition to the growing number of KOMI’s social media brands which include: It’s Gone Viral, Go Fetch, Ultimate, Happiest as well as various sporting and gaming brands.
Andrew Trotman – MD of KOMI – said: “KOMI is a publisher, marketing and licensing agency – and The Football Faithful is one of the leading football communities and publishers – so we saw this as a natural opportunity to bring our skills and complementary audiences together. It will also add to KOMI’s strong family of in-house brands and accounts, give us another home for premium sport content and the opportunity to offer our clients access to a new platform which is commercially really exciting.”
Peter Henry – MD at The Football Faithful – said: “KOMI has a proven track record of building some of the most popular football accounts on social media so was an obvious fit for us. By focusing on producing high quality content that caters to the needs of football fans of all interests, The Football Faithful has quickly become one of the UK’s fastest growing Premier League publishers and I’m confident this new relationship with KOMI will help us to continue to go from strength to strength.”
The firm is a three divisional agency business consisting of dedicated social media, marketing and licensing teams. It was founded in 2016 and is led by Andrew Trotman and Ryan Williams. Over the past four years, its team of content creators, analysts and video producers have made and then distributed video content and viral campaign adverts for international brands such as BBC Films, O2, Universal, Bud Light and Disney.
Content has been shared across its Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts including It’s Gone Viral, which is dedicated to relatable, informative and educational content; as well as Go Fetch, a platform for dog lovers to connect with one another; Happiest, which focusses on bringing the most entertaining and uplifting content and real life stories; and Ultimate which is all about sharing fascinating and clever DIY, crafts and hacks followers can do at home.
The last year has seen the company reach other various milestones including launching Ark Media – its new licensing arm, delivering over six billion views across its portfolio of pages, relocating its HQ to Beehive Mill in Ancoats, reporting its highest ever NewsWhip results, acquiring social media brand Happiest Media Ltd and appointing Urban Splash’s Sam Lenehan as its new non-exec director.
In December 2020, the company delivered two Facebook Lives which ranked number one and number two in the most viewed Live videos for that week. One was for the website gofetchstuff.com, which achieved 1.3m views on It’s Gone Viral, and the other was a live Santa’s grotto which saw children speaking to Father Christmas about their Christmas lists – it gathered 1.5m views.
