You'll Never Walk Alone: How Fanatical and Creators Combined to Sell Football Manager 26 at Record Numbers

In February 2025, after a 5-month delay, Football Manager 25 (created by Sports Interactive, published by SEGA) was cancelled because it wasn’t ready for release. In addition to impacting Fanatical’s performance, the cancellation left our content creator partners across a range of social platforms unable to earn commission; partners either pivoted, promoting the previous edition, Football Manager 24, or went on hiatus. This was a unique and difficult situation for a game of this size and calibre, impacting KPI performance and brand trust in Football Manager, Sports Interactive, SEGA, and Fanatical.

Football Manager 2026’s anticipated release was against a backdrop of worry around delays, high expectations, and ambitious targets, with Fanatical being one of three stores where customers could pre-order the game due to the strength of our relationship with our affiliates and SEGA. For context, Football Manager titles are released in three stages: pre-order, early access, and general release. The need to beat the previous editions’ performance at each stage, and instil trust and legitimacy in Football Manager at Fanatical, resulted in the creation of a larger-scale campaign that included work with over 300 content creators, new ways of using campaign links, and the first-ever Fanatical PR giftbox.