Fictional Brand from ‘The Office PL’ Becomes Shirt Sponsor of Second-Division Polish Club.

Roger Hampel

Image: Pogon Siedlce

Pogon Siedlce (Polish Second-Division) has become the centre of one of the most unconventional sponsorship stories, after announcing that Kropliczanka, the fictional mineral-water company from the Polish adaptation of The Office, will serve as the club’s shirt sponsor for its 6 December league match against Wieczysta Krakow. The agreement, initiated by Canal+, represents a deliberate blurring of the line between scripted entertainment and real-world sport — a crossover rarely seen in European football, particularly at the second-tier level.

In The Office PL, Kropliczanka is the company around which the entire narrative revolves, headquartered in Siedlce, the same city where Pogon competes. That geographic overlap has now been transformed into a tangible commercial activation.

Image: HolcMichal/X

One Match, National Attention

The partnership is intentionally short-term, covering only a single match, yet its visibility far exceeds the scale of conventional sponsorships in the second division. A press conference introduced the collaboration, featuring Pogon director Lukasz Firus and actor Piotr Polak, who plays fictional CEO Michal Holc. Canal+ has confirmed full media coverage of the event, including a visit by Holc to the club’s dressing room, positioning the sponsorship as both a marketing moment and a narrative extension of the series.

For Pogon, this creates a rare opportunity to enter national conversation, drawing attention beyond typical matchday audiences and regional fanbases.

The Business Logic Behind a Fictional Sponsor The Office PL

While comedic in tone, the activation reflects broader shifts in entertainment marketing. Media companies increasingly use football as a high-visibility distribution channel, leveraging the sport’s emotional reach and social relevance to promote streaming content in crowded digital markets.

The value for Canal+ lies in integrating a known fictional property into a real sports context, generating organic reach across social media and creating a PR moment that cuts through traditional advertising. For Pogon, the benefit is reputational rather than financial: increased exposure, media coverage and heightened interest in a routine league fixture.

This type of partnership illustrates how storytelling IP is becoming a standalone commercial asset — one capable of generating meaningful engagement when strategically deployed in live sport.

Lower-League Football as a Platform for Creative Sponsorship

Smaller clubs often operate with limited marketing budgets and modest sponsorship portfolios, making them more willing to embrace unconventional collaborations. Pogon Siedlce’s agreement with Kropliczanka demonstrates the flexibility of second-tier football as a testing ground for experimental marketing initiatives that would be more difficult to execute in top-division environments characterised by stricter commercial structures.

Moreover, the activation underscores how local identity can be leveraged effectively. Because the fictional company is based in Siedlce within the narrative of The Office PL, the collaboration feels contextually coherent — a factor that strengthens credibility despite its fictional nature.