AS Roma Launches Arabic-Language Website Based on Fan Feedback

Club Used Social Media to Survey Fans on Their Choice For Language of New Official Website

ROME & NEW YORK--()--Italian Serie A club AS Roma today unveiled its first-ever Arabic-language website: asroma.com/ar. The website launch follows a poll on social media that invited fans to vote in favor of the language they believed was best suited for the Club’s new official website.

On November 16, 2016, Roma opened polling on Twitter – asking fans to vote in favor of either Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese or Spanish as the language of its next official website. In just four days, over 44,000 votes were cast, with an overwhelming majority – 84% of the votes – requesting an Arabic-language website.

Commenting on the website launch, Paul Rogers, head of digital at AS Roma, said, “We are thrilled to unveil our new Arabic-language website – created in this language to give our fans what they want. Our decision to allow fans to choose the language of the site aligns with our strategy to engage with them at every level of our digital development. This particular voter campaign proved to be one of our most successful on social media to date, and the fact that 84% of fans voted in favor of an Arabic-language website is a testament to the huge appetite for Roma content amongst those in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Roma’s expanding popularity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is supported by social media metrics, which identify Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Iraq as the Club’s fastest-growing countries on Facebook. In fact, since launching an Arabic-language Facebook page in September 2015, Egypt has overtaken Italy as the No.1 country in the world for AS Roma on the social media platform with 2.6 million followers. Notably, Egypt has also been identified as the country that drives the most traffic to the Club’s English-language website.

To develop its Arabic-language website, AS Roma once again turned to OMNIGON, digital partners with many of the most important global brands in the sports, media and entertainment industries.

Igor Ulis, Chief Executive Officer, OMNIGON, said, “We are thrilled to again collaborate with AS Roma on the design and development of this new Arabic website. Since the beginning of our partnership, we’ve worked in close collaboration with Roma’s digital team to create an immersive experience that would resonate with Roma fans and supporters around the world. We are excited to roll out this new, customised experience for Arabic fans to further drive engagement and bring Roma fans closer to the Club than ever before.”

This is not the first time Roma have invited supporters to play an active role in shaping the Club’s digital direction. Twelve months ago the Club became the first sports team in the world to launch a crowdsourced official website, having engaged with fans on Reddit, the social network news site, and independent fan forums to invite feedback on everything from site navigation, design and content.

About AS Roma

Founded in 1927, the legendary AS Roma plays in the world-renowned Italian Serie A football league. The Rome based professional team – which is competing in the 2016-17 UEFA Europa League – has won three Serie A titles, nine Coppa Italia title and two Supercoppa Italiana titles. AS Roma’s youth academy regularly produce more Serie A players than any other in Italy. Roma is the only Italian League team to be owned and managed by a United States-based group. The group, based out of Boston, is led by owner James Pallotta, Chairman of Raptor Group, who is President of AS Roma. Off the pitch, AS Roma is planning a new 52,000-seat stadium and surrounding entertainment development – Stadio della Roma – that will serve the club and city of Rome as the pre-eminent sports and entertainment district in the world. More information is available at www.stadiodellaroma.com.

About OMNIGON

OMNIGON is a team of digital strategists, artists and technologists working exclusively in digital content delivery in the sports, media and entertainment industries. Since its founding in 2008, OMNIGON has established itself as a market leader, focused on helping clients achieve returns on the strategic, creative and technical investments they’ve made. OMNIGON, headquartered in New York and with offices in Los Angeles, London, Toronto, Kiev and St. Petersburg, works with celebrated, global brands including PGA Tour, AS Roma, IRONMAN, the German Football Association (DFB), NASCAR, World Rugby, the United States Golf Association (USGA), FOX Sports, Miami Heat and countless others.

Contacts

AS Roma
Luca Pietrafesa, +39 06 50191 1
Luca.Pietrafesa@asroma.it
or
OMNIGON
Joanna Solowey, +646.480.2348
Joanna.Solowey@omnigon.com

Contacts

AS Roma
Luca Pietrafesa, +39 06 50191 1
Luca.Pietrafesa@asroma.it
or
OMNIGON
Joanna Solowey, +646.480.2348
Joanna.Solowey@omnigon.com