Cristiano Ronaldo,the world’s leading athlete announced his partnership today with Graphic India, a leading graphic novel and animation producer focused on creating global superheroes, and VMS Communications, a mobile digital marketing and content management company, to create and launch a new character entertainment property, STRIKER FORCE 7, across animation, comics, publishing, gaming and digital content. The deal was put together by leading sports agency Polaris Sports.
“Cristiano Ronaldo has inspired millions of people around the world with his dedication, work-ethic and all-around epic game playing. CR7 is a real-life superhero to a generation and Striker Force 7 will bring together a global team of characters from our world (and others), that are representative of the diversity and coolness of his millions of fans,” added Sharad Devarajan, co-creator and producer of the new series and CEO of Graphic India. "We have been working with Cristiano & Polaris Sports for over five years and we can’t ask for better partners. Cristiano’s name is synonymous with professionalism, dedication and success. That’s the reason that he inspires millions of people around the globe. He didn’t become the most followed athlete on social media by chance; so developing an animated series of a true icon like Cristiano was a no-brainer for us,” commented Diego Guarderas, COO of VMS Communications.
The animated series was created by Cristiano and Devarajan, who will be Executive Producers on the series along with Vidal Cadena and Diego Guarderas of VMS Communications, Polaris Sports team and Jeevan J. Kang, Graphic’s EVP Creative and also the lead character designer.
Cristiano Ronaldo is considered the best footballer in the world, having won more individual trophies than any other player, including five “Ballon d'Or”, two FIFA "the "Best player of the year" awards and four European Golden Shoes for the best scorer in Europe. Ronaldo has won more than 25 trophies in his career, including league titles in England and Spain, four UEFA Champions Leagues and one UEFA European Championship with Portugal. He’s the most followed sportsman in the world with more than 300M fans across his social media accounts. www.cristianoronaldo.com
Polaris Sports is a leading company on athlete’s image rights, representing some of the most successful sport personalities in the world, offering services for players, brands and other sport properties. Polaris Sports provides different services that goes from endorsements, branding, licensing, talent representation, sport consultancy, digital, new media and social media. www.polarissports.pt
VMS COMMUNICATIONS, headquartered in Miami, Florida is a digital marketing and content delivery technology company focused on providing targeted, multi-channel communication and messaging for media agencies, brands, celebrities, governments and NGO’s. LinkShot, VMS' multi-tenant / multi-client flagship product, enables automatic multi-channel content delivery (Web, SMS, smartphones and feature phones) through API's and integrated device-resolver components. Content are delivered to channels using tags, custom fields, id, or generated short link. LinkShot also features easy-to-use modules for SMS channel and subscription management, customized Microsite generation, Ad network integration, online Ad campaign generation and management, VMAP/VAST generation and editing and, finally, reporting on all aspects and at all levels of the platform. www.vmscommunications.com
GRAPHIC INDIA is a character entertainment company focused on creating leading characters, comics and stories through mobile and digital platforms. Led by media entrepreneur Sharad Devarajan, Graphic India is owned by U.S. comic book Company, Liquid Comics, CA Media LP, the Asian investment arm of The Chernin Group, LLC (TCG) and Start Media LLC. The company’s partners and investors bring together decades of experience in building businesses in character entertainment and media. Through their award winning creative animation studio in India, Graphic’s mission is to create enduring stories and heroes that foster the imaginations and fuel the inspirations of a new globalized generation of youth around the world. www.graphicindia.com