BENGALURU: HCL Technologies will now power the Red Devils. India’s fourth-largest IT services company has signed a three-year deal with iconic English football club Manchester United to set up a state-of-art digital infrastructure to enable the club to connect with its 659 million fans globally.

The United Experience Lab, as it is called, will come up at the Old Trafford stadium, Man Utd’s home ground. The club, which has had a legend like David Beckham, has a 137-year heritage. It holds the record for most top-division titles and the record for the most Premier League titles.

Currently, some 100 million fans interact with the club through various digital platforms; the new efforts are directed towards significantly expanding that reach.”This partnership for us is strategic and hugely important part of the business. We are 659 million fans around the world. The passion that Manchester United fans have for our content is huge,” Richard Arnold, group managing director of Man Utd, told TOI from London.

The closer the connect that the club can establish with its fans, the greater the opportunity for it to draw them into revenue earning areas like live games in stadiums, purchase of merchandise, and sponsorships.

Arnold said what would change were the techniques, platforms and processes that enable the club to deliver more relevant and timely content and in a way that is convenient for fans to consume. The platform will also enable fans to provide feedback to the club.

HCL Technologies CEO Anant Gupta said the platform would manage content related to the club and players, as also distribution. Enterprises are facing an explosion of digital content and there is a growing need for a partner who can create a scalable digital platform.

“We will focus on creating a united experience for fans both online and offline,” Gupta said, noting that 67% of sports fans watching TV use a second device (like a mobile device) during the event to interact, and 76% of fans who come to a stadium use a mobile device to similarly interact. For CL, this will be the seventh such lab across the world that it has co-created with its clients.

The boardroom in Old Trafford will be converted into an experience lab. “The boardroom is a symbolic part of our infrastructure that dates back to over a 100 years when the stadium was built. The fact that we are putting the lab here is reflective of how important we regard the digital connection with fans to be,” Arnold said. The lab will allow fans to access black and white photographs that are as old as 100 years, and high definition videos.