How Burger King put Stevenage on football’s global map

In 2018, global fast-food giant Burger King made what seemed a curious decision to become the front-of-shirt sponsor for English League Two side Stevenage. At the time, nobody quite knew what on earth it was doing.

Did it have some kind of ulterior motive? Was this part of a grand plan that remained as yet undivulged? Well, as it turned out it knew EXACTLY what it was doing. But we’ll get to that part later. First of all, what even is Stevenage? A town in the county of Hertfordshire, and situated about 20 miles (45 kilometers) north of central London, it was the first of the “New Towns” built immediately after the Second World War to prevent over-urbanization of existing large cities.

And it has a fast-rising population of around 90,000 people.

Stevenage: An eternally mediocre club

Oh, and it has a football club too. A football club that tends to languish in mid-table or lower of League Two, some three tiers below the Premier League. Stevenage FC is a professional football club. But barely so.

Its status is good enough, however, to give it a listing in the wildly popular video game FIFA, the monster that helps EA Sports post tidy profits year after year after year. Now let’s get back to Burger King. Marketing gurus at the home of the Whopper knew that they could get their logo on Stevenage’s jersey relatively cheaply. And if it was on the real players’ jerseys it would be on the virtual players’ jerseys on FIFA too.

From there, they created “The Stevenage Challenge” — a process that encouraged gamers to choose the Hertfordshire minnows as their team of choice, sign big-name players and share notable goals on social media. Goals scored from a free-kick, by chipping the goalkeeper, or from beyond the halfway line were posted on Twitter with Burger King tagged in.

Free Whoppers for a year for the best goals posted

The brand dished out various rewards in return, including free delivery, free Whopper meals, and even the chance to win free Whoppers for a whole year. The result? More than 25,000 goals scored by Stevenage were posted online and the team quickly became the most used in FIFA’s career mode. Global sensations like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Mohamed Salah have all been “signed” by players taking part in The Stevenage Challenge.

According to Burger King, Stevenage’s jerseys sold out for the first time in their history as a result of the ingenious marketing ploy. Back in the real world, the club is lucky to still be in League Two after finishing 23rd out of 24 teams last season. It only avoided relegation after Bury’s expulsion from League One meant Macclesfield Town was the only team to drop down to the National League.

Here at SuperOne, we’re all about big brand advertising, football, and gaming — and that’s why we loved this story so much. We also believe we have something at our fingertips that will have as much viral potential as Burger King’s tie-up with Stevenage. And that’s the point — it was not just British football teams getting involved. It was a truly global sensation, quite brilliantly orchestrated.

All that remains is to ponder the next big question: Who will be the first football team to be sponsored by SuperOne? Let us know your predictions or suggestions!