THE SWITCH
The 2016 European Championship is well underway and U.S sports giant Nike have continued their tradition of trying to steal the limelight from official sponsor and rival Adidas.

Their latest advertising and content campaign, The Switch, focuses on Portugal captain, Cristiano Ronaldo, who body swaps with an unsuspecting ball boy. The six-minute video features a host of other footballing talent including Manchester United’s Anthony Martial and Tottenham Hotspurs’ Harry Kane. HERE.

YouTube views currently sit at 37 million on Nike’s channel, Ronaldo has also posted the video to his own Facebook which has received almost 10 million views and 530,000 likes. The video has only been live for a week and with Euro 2016 still with 3 more weeks to run, ‘The Switch’ is on track to overtake Nike’s 2014 World Cup video ‘The Last Game’ which has achieved 96 million views.

INDEPENDENCE DAY
In February Manchester United entered a global partnership with American film production and distribution company 20th Century Fox. The deal with the Old Trafford club includes promotion of the firm’s latest blockbuster films on LED perimeter boards and interview backdrops.

However the deal also includes unique content creation using United’s elite players, as they appear in several viral videos advertising upcoming releases. The latest video features England trio Wayne Rooney, Chris Smalling and Ashley Young alongside the cast of ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’, click here. The video has currently received over 3.7 million views on the Manchester United Facebook page and over 5,000 retweets on Twitter in three days.

United players have also help promote the new Deadpool and X-Men films this year, the three videos combined have received over 20 million views and 500,000 likes on Facebook alone.

ESPN SIGN KSI
ESPN have enlisted the help of YouTube megastar Olajide "JJ" Olatunji, better known by his screen name KSI, to help promote their marketing campaign during Euro 2016. The YouTube sensation who boasts over 13 million subscribers will be joined throughout the series by fellow YouTuber’s Calfreezy (2.5m subscribers) and Manny (850k subscribers).

The campaign that takes place in the ‘ESPN Inn’, a specially branded clubhouse, features guest appearances from ex-pros, interviews with Euro 2016 players and challenges between the three YouTubers such as the ‘Mesut Ozil Chubby Bunny Challenge’ which has already received over 1 million views on KSI’s channel, click here.

ESPN’s decision to avoid using ex-pros or TV personalities highlights the celebrity status that these YouTubers have reached, from producing videos in their bedrooms to becoming multi-millionaires driving around in Lamborghinis.

EURO SOCIAL
International social feeds only benefit from a boost in followers every two years, due to the structure of international football. Euro 2016 has already had a massive impact on social media growth for competing nations, after matchday 1 England, France, Germany and Turkey all saw a rise in social media followers of over 130k users.

Italy saw the biggest growth in social media followers, capitalising on their 2-0 win over Belgium, with 260,097 people flocking to the Azzurri’s channels.

Facebook and Twitter have seen huge spikes in activity since Euro 2016 got underway. The tournament opener between France and Romania saw 89k tweets per minute sent when Dimitri Payet scored the hosts’ late winner. Eric Dier’s free-kick for England also saw increased activity on Twitter, with 42k tweets per minute being sent out by England fans.

BAYERN'S CHINA OFFICE
German champions Bayern Munich announced this week that they would be opening an international office in Shanghai, on the back of Bayern’s tour of China last summer. This will become the club’s second overseas office after New York. The Chinese team currently consists of six members of staff and will be headed up by Rouven Kasper, current Senior Director at Lagardére Sports Germany.

Kasper said “We will invest great energy in building up a network in China, supporting FC Bayern to the best possible extent in achieving the club’s targets.” Bayern know the value that lies within the Chinese football market and the new office has been developed to spearhead the “clubs internationalisation in Asia”.

Bayern’s rivals Borussia Dortmund set up a regional office in Singapore in late 2014, and are the only other Bundesliga club with an office outside of Germany.