Man of the Match Limited has revealed that the phrase Man of the Match has achieved Registered Trademark status. The company is licensing the trademark, for which it was granted full Registered status in October 2006, throughout the EU and numerous other countries in the world, including its use for competitions and voting games.
The company has launched a Man of the Match website which hosts an SMS and Internet voting game for the English Premier League. Having registered, for a one-off charge of 5, football fans can vote free via the Internet for their Man of the Match for any English Premier League match, or via WAP-linked voting. Here, the consumer receives a WAP-linked text on each day that there is a game being played for the remaining fixtures in the English Premier League Season 2007/08. The message enables the consumer to vote for their chosen Man of the Match once, for all games played that day. While voting is free, data charges apply, and there is a charge of 1 per week for the WAP-linked texts. Whichever way the consumer votes, there are cash prizes available to voters, drawn from those voters who picked the right player.
The company is seeking a sponsor for the site, either one sponsor to work with on a  global basis, or multiple sponsors to partner with different football properties, such as the Premier League, the Championship, and the Scottish Premier League.
Additionally, brands can licence the Man of the Match trademark to use in their own promotions, mobile or otherwise. During the recent Rugby World Cup, for example, United Biscuits ran a promotion in conjunction with Mirror Group Newspapers, where a shortcode was included on 50 million packs of KP Nuts, Jaffa Cakes and McCoys crisps. When the consumer texted in, they were sent back a text with a game, a team and squad number and a cash value. If a Mirror journalist selected the same player as the Man of the Match for the game in question, the consumer won the cash prize.
Man of the Match says it will always share with partners the net profit of sponsorship, MMS, WAP link messaging, online advertising income and permissionable marketing. The company says it already has over 1,000 votes each weekend on the man of the Match voting website. In addition to the voting game, the site also includes social networking opportunities such as fan interaction forums and user profiles which enable fans to become a pundit. The site includes video match reports and match statistics as well as a Footballers Hall of Fame showing the race for the Man of the Match of the season.