Model Management: Man Utd, the Yankees and successfully scoring strategic partnerships

At first sight the marketing and promotional deal signed by UK football club Manchester United and US baseball team the New York Yankees looks like a strategic partnership signed in heaven.

Apart from neither side knowing much about the other (the UK and US are more divided by their approach to team sports than almost any other cultural gulf), both teams are global 'brands' with strong fan bases outside their countries, and both are highly successful and lucrative.

The Yankees currently hold the World Series - they have won three out of the last four and a record 26 in all. In 1999, Manchester United achieved the treble, winning the English Premiership and FA Cup as well as becoming Champions of Europe by winning the UEFA Champions League the same season. They are the current Premiership champions and look set to finish on top again this season.

Worth in excess of £1bn, Manchester United is the richest football club in the world and far wealthier than its new partner the Yankees - which at around £400m is the richest US baseball team.

The deal between the Manchester club and the Yankees' parent group YankeeNets, which owns other teams including US ice hockey champions the New Jersey Devils and basketball outfit the New Jersey Nets is initially limited to little more than cross-selling souvenirs (though this is a lucrative business in its own right). However, the eventual aim is for the two teams to sell joint deals to sponsors and TV broadcasters. Ultimately, the other YankeeNet teams might also be involved.

However, the deal has created surprisingly little excitement and the general consensus is that the Yankees will be the winners, at least at first, with Manchester United fans around the world more prepared to fork out cash for Yankee memorabilia than vice versa. Despite huge attempts to promote soccer in the US, including staging the World Cup there in 1994, success has been limited. At grass roots level in the US, soccer is seen mainly as a women's game, a branch unfairly ignored in most soccer-mad nations.

There are also concerns about whether, for Manchester at least, the fat years can continue. Though the club is a solid business with pre-tax profits of nearly £17m last year (many other comparable European clubs are in debt) these were 25 per cent down on the previous year.

The main reason is the soaring costs of players' wages. The deal with the Yankees is only likely to make things worse. Manchester United's top-earning player, captain Roy Keane, collects a reported $50,000 a week. Yankee's top earner, Derek Jeter, is set to take home $17m a year (the equivalent of £220,000 per week) when he signs a new contract. Matching those sorts of wages could stretch even United's resilient purse strings.

But the real test will be whether the strategic partnership works in business terms. In coming together, Manchester United and YankeeNets are following a trend that is growing rapidly in other, more traditional, businesses. Strategic partnerships are seen as a cheaper and more flexible way of achieving global scale than mergers or acquisitions. One estimate puts the rate of growth in alliances at around 20 per cent per year.

Strategic partnerships are driven by a desire to share specialised knowledge, to develop products and services at a faster speed, to foster learning, and to further internationalisation. Many companies now have a number of such relationships in networks that allow them to respond to, and anticipate, the demands of the global economy.

The Manchester United/Yankee deal meets most of these criteria but, as observers have pointed out, selecting appropriate partners in such deals is as much an art as a science. Deals between giants don't work just because they are both giants.

And making strategic partnerships work can be tough. Lack of clearly stated aims or objectives that are not properly aligned can make them flounder. Limited commitment on either side or unwillingness of top management to get really involved - or simply lack of time to do so - can also cause problems.

We all know that Manchester United and the New York Yankees excel on the field. Now it's time to see if their respective managements can do the same off it.