EA Games wanted their FIFA 06 video game to be seen as the "must have" football game and as a brand that's synonymous with entertaining football. The primary target market for FIFA 06 was football fans aged 16-34. The Match on Sky One was the perfect fit - offering compelling programming and an engaged and loyal audience. Sky Media was not only able to offer broadcast & interactive sponsorship, but also extend the venture onto permimeter boards at the live event. The Match followed a group of celebrities as they trained for a match at St James Park against "Legends"

To raise awareness of the new FIFA 06 game from EA Sports; To drive propensity to purchase; Make FIFA 06 the number one game and the must-have football gaming brand; Cement EA as a core football brand.

The Match achieved 7.1 million viewers across the week guaranteeing EA a huge audience. The EA creative idea put the player at the heart of the action and the credits included the tagline "YOU PLAY, THEY OBEY". It was also important to EA that they were able to showcase their gaming functions. Being part of the interactive elements of the programme meant that this goal was acheived. By pressing the red button, viewers were able to enter an enhanced environment where they could view programme highlights and find out more about the FIFA 06 game, among other things.

Research showed that spontaneous and prompted awareness were very high - and even higher among interactors. 61% said they were likely to purchase the game in the near future with 34% of those being "very likely" to. This compares to only 11% of non-viewers who said they be "very likely" to purchase the game. A third of viewers pressed the red button. Of those interactors, 94% would interact with The Match again next year and 90% agreed that "the interactive section enhanced their viewing when watching The Match.

FIFA 06's week one sales were nearly double that of 2004, showing a 68% rise year-on-year. "EA Sports were delighted by the performance of their sponsorship with Sky's The Match. This was a corner stone of our overall marketing campaign which delivered the biggest selling video game in the UK last year". Don Holman, Brand Manager, EA Sports. This was the biggest ever launch for EA UK and it became the best selling game of 2005. As a result of this unprecendented success, EA has renewed the sponsorship for 2006.