Brazilian soccer star Neymar has licensed his image to FlareFlow, the international micro-drama platform owned by Chinese digital publisher COL Group. The company said Neymar will star in a series of 16 AI-powered titles, timed to coincide with the FIFA Men’s World Cup.
COL announced the partnership on Tuesday at APOS, the Asia-Pacific media industry conference in Bali, calling it the first major example of a globally recognized sports star collaborating extensively with AI-driven vertical storytelling. The first six titles will premiere worldwide on FlareFlow between June 19 and 22, with the remaining ten being rolled out throughout the rest of the football season. main title, The road back to glorydebuts June 19.
The series relies on the stark style that characterizes much of the mini-drama scene, portraying Neymar as a hero through a series of fantasies of revenge and redemption. Include titles Fake Neymar, the real God, The limp doorman is the true king of world football and Hijack a soccer star to the Galaxy Cup: Score or Die!the last of which places the player in an intergalactic tournament where “victory is humanity’s only chance of survival.”
COL describes the franchise as “premium” content produced through an “AI-powered” live workflow, though it did not detail how much of Neymar’s on-screen presence was filmed versus produced.
COL is no doubt rooting for its franchise star to make a quick return to the field of play at the World Cup. Neymar, 34, was named in Brazil’s 26-man squad, but is currently injured and missed Brazil’s opening match on June 13 against Morocco. It is unclear when he will return to the field.
The deal is a clear effort by one of the leading small drama platforms to expand the scope of the usual model. The genre’s heavy users skew female, and COL’s own data cited women ages 20 to 35 as its primary users. The company expects that a male sports icon with more than 220 million social media followers will open up more male viewers. One series sends Neymar on a supernatural mission to win five powerful women or lose his football talent.
FlareFlow chief marketing officer Timothy Oh, who is scheduled to appear on the APOS mini-drama panel on June 18, described the launch as “the true dawn of our Vertical 2.0 strategy,” a major push to attract male audiences.
COL Group is a Beijing-based digital publishing company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that moved into small dramas in 2021. Its most significant investment in the sector is a 49 percent stake in California-based Crazy Maple Studio, maker of ReelShort — the app credited with bringing vertical small dramas to the US market. FlareFlow is COL’s international platform, which launched in April 2025. The company says it now carries around 5,200 series in 14 languages and has 33 million registered users, having climbed the entertainment app charts in the US, Germany, Australia and Canada over the past year.
Like dozens of mini-drama apps launched around the world in the past few years, most of them with Chinese support, COL has been spending money as it seeks to attract lucrative North American users and market share. COL’s net loss for the first half of 2025 widened by almost half to CNY226 million (US$31 million), due to the cost of overseas marketing and content creation. ReelShort, despite having revenue of about $400 million in 2024, is also still in the red, according to research by Media Partners Asia, APOS’s regulator.
The road back to glory Premiering on FlareFlow on June 19 – the same day Brazil takes on Haiti. If Neymar makes his debut in the tournament, the company may have bought into a viral moment.
