sport as a cultural rxperience

If you’ve ever attended a live sports match, even once, you’ll probably agree with this: it’s far more than just watching a game.

 

So what makes it so special?

 

It’s the fans.
The emotion.
The shared hunger for victory.

 

Inside the stadium, it no longer matters who you are, what your views are, or where you come from. Thousands of people are united by one single thing: love for their team.

 

This is a space where complete strangers come together around a shared purpose — to support the sporting heroes running on the field.

 

Matchday is not just a date marked on the calendar.

It’s an experience.
It’s an emotion.
It’s the day you wake up counting the minutes until kickoff.

matchday: turning emotion into a brand

This very experience is what inspired the creation of a new Georgian sports brand — MATCHDAY, a new product by Setanta. And this is not just about talking sports.

MATCHDAY is about authentically capturing and delivering matchday culture: the anticipation, the atmosphere, the emotion — and bringing it straight to the fan.

At its core, MATCHDAY is an organized sports journey that brings together:

• A match ticket

• Hotel accommodation

• A guide / host

• Full immersion into the matchday atmosphere

MATCHDAY gives fans the opportunity not just to watch a match, but to live the matchday — to feel the city’s sports pulse, the pre-game anticipation, and the unique energy that only a stadium can generate.

To explore the brand more deeply, the minds&marketing team spoke with MATCHDAY’s marketing and branding co-creators: Salome Kalichava, Community Impact Head at Setanta Sports, and Natia Nozadze, Brand Lead at Setanta Sports.

brand formation: from strategy to visual identity

Work on the brand began last summer within the Setanta Sports team. While there was already demand, the true meaning and depth of the matchday experience was not yet fully understood by a wider audience.

Natia Nozadze, Brand Lead at Setanta Sports:

“This is the kind of product that once you experience it, you get hooked — you want to go again and relive it. When Georgia qualified for the Euros, many Georgians experienced a true European matchday for the first time. Matchday is born from the fusion of sport, culture, and travel. The adventure doesn’t end with watching the game in the stadium — it includes discovering new cities, feeling local culture, and sharing emotions with other fans.

At this stage, our products include club football tours and tickets with rich histories, and very soon we’ll be offering a much wider selection of sports leagues.”

The brand-building process started with marketing strategy: how MATCHDAY should be perceived as a brand, not just a service. Only after that did the team move on to visual identity, developed together with Sandro Aleksidze (Sashishi) from Berlin, in close collaboration with the Setanta team.

The process felt natural — the teams’ visions aligned effortlessly. A shared understanding of sport, culture, and design created a common language and made collaboration seamless.

communication strategy: why a magazine?

The brand’s initial communication format was chosen to be magazine-style, with a strong focus on sports culture and its proximity to fashion.

From the very beginning, visual language played a critical role. MATCHDAY was never meant to be just another media platform that reposts or translates foreign content.

“MATCHDAY is a complex product, and communicating it correctly was a challenge. A lot of work went into the website as well, which we developed together with phase.design. We launched in December and are currently in a soft-launch phase. That was always the plan — to start in test mode, without an aggressive launch, and closely observe both the market and the consumer.”

 

market perception and the key barrier

Before launch, both market and pricing research were conducted, as the product sits in a relatively premium price category.

One key barrier emerged in conversations with sports fans: many felt they could organize a similar experience on their own.

However, MATCHDAY offers far more than guidance — it provides access to unique activities and experiences that were previously unavailable. Changing this perception is one of the brand’s core challenges.

a product as culture, not just a service

MATCHDAY’s marketing approach goes beyond the traditional product-selling model. The Setanta team presents it through the aesthetics and narrative of media and magazine culture.

While similar experiences are already an established part of cultural life abroad, this direction is still in its formative stage in Georgia. That’s why the brand’s initial goal is not sales, but awareness and education.

Although the project is still in a test phase, one of the most valuable signals for the team comes from direct user messages. Many marketers underestimate their inbox — yet this is where real insights live: how people understand the product, what excites them, and what questions they have.

Salome Kalichava, Community Impact Head at Setanta Sports:

 

“Our genuine goal is to grow and shape a culture together — where people talk about sports, posters, fashion; integrate sportswear into everyday style; wear sports accessories proudly and with confidence.”

 

future plans and brand evolution

Globally, sports and fashion are already deeply intertwined. We’ve seen countless collaborations between sports and fashion brands. The idea is clear: sportswear and attributes should no longer be limited to stadiums — they should become part of everyday style and a form of self-expression.

Travel plays a crucial role in this ecosystem as well — one of the key components of modern lifestyle culture. People move from city to city, country to country, carrying their style, sports identity, and team symbols with them.

Salome Kalichava, Community Impact Head at Setanta Sports:

“The most natural evolution of MATCHDAY is sports fashion. We have many ideas in this direction. We want the brand to become an organic part of people’s everyday lives. Wherever there is a sports fan — on the street, in a wardrobe, at a sporting event, or in an Instagram feed — we want to be there too.”

Natia Nozadze, Brand Lead at Setanta Sports:

“The feedback from people who’ve already experienced MATCHDAY has been incredibly positive and only strengthened our belief in the product. We want MATCHDAY to be the brand that unites people who love sports, culture, and travel — opening doors to unique experiences and giving them a platform to share those stories.”

 

after rkena, another successful brand in the making?

After the successful debut of Rkena, MATCHDAY followed soon after — though the two are fundamentally different products with different strategies.

 

Rkena aimed for an immediate, explosive launch. MATCHDAY’s strategy, on the other hand, is slow growth and careful observation.

All that’s left is to watch, reflect, and enjoy the fact that new sports brands are actively emerging in the Georgian market — with clear strategies, purpose, and action plans.

Sport, culture, and fashion are no longer just trendy whims. They are steadily becoming a lifestyle, a form of self-expression, and a powerful mechanism for uniting communities.

If this trend continues, the Georgian sports ecosystem will gradually enter a new phase — where sport is not just a spectacle, but an experience, an identity, and an integral part of culture.