Brazilian soccer star Neymar has licensed his likeness to FlareFlow, the international microdrama platform owned by Chinese digital publisher COL Group. Neymar will star in a 16-title franchise of AI-assisted vertical series timed to coincide with the FIFA Mens World Cup, the company said.
COL announced the partnership Tuesday at APOS, the Asia-Pacific media industry conference in Bali, billing it as the first major instance of a globally recognized sports star collaborating at scale with AI-driven vertical storytelling. The first six titles premiere worldwide on FlareFlow between June 19 and 22, with the remaining 10 rolling out across the rest of the football season. The lead title, The Way Back to Glory, debuts June 19.
The series lean into the lurid, hook-driven style that defines much of the microdrama landscape, casting Neymar as a hero across a range of revenge-and-redemption fantasies. Titles include Fake Neymar, Real God, The Limping Janitor Is the True World Football King and Soccer Star Kidnapped Into the Galaxy Cup: Score or Die!, the last of which places the player in an intergalactic tournament where “victory is humanity’s only chance for survival.”
COL describes the franchise as “premium” content produced through “AI-powered” live-action workflows, though it has not detailed how much of Neymar’s on-screen presence is filmed versus generated.
COL is undoubtedly rooting for its franchise star to make a swift return to the World Cup’s field of play. Neymar, 34, was named to Brazil’s 26-man squad, but he’s currently injured and sat out Brazil’s opening game on June 13 against Morocco. It’s unclear when he will return to the field.
The deal is a clear effort by one of the leading microdrama platforms to broaden the form’s usual reach. The genre’s heavy users skew female, and COL’s own data has pointed to women aged 20 to 35 as its core bingers. The company is banking that a male sports icon with 220 million-plus social media followers will unlock more male viewers. One series sends Neymar on a supernatural quest to win over five powerful women or forfeit his soccer talent.
FlareFlow chief marketing officer Timothy Oh, who is set to appear on an APOS microdrama panel on June 18, called the launch “the true dawn of our Vertical 2.0 strategy,” a major push to lure in male audiences.
COL Group is a Beijing-based digital publisher listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange that moved into microdramas 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 microdramas into the U.S. market. FlareFlow is COL’s own international platform, launched in April 2025. The company says it now carries some 5,200 series in 14 languages and has 33 million registered users, having climbed the entertainment app charts in the U.S., Germany, Australia and Canada over the past year.
Like the scores of microdrama apps launched worldwide in the past few years, most with Chinese backing, COL has been burning cash in its pursuit of lucrative North American users and market share. COL’s net loss for the first half of 2025 widened by roughly half to 226 million RMB ($31 million), due to the cost of overseas marketing and content creation. ReelShort, despite revenue of around $400 million in 2024, also remains in the red, according to research from Media Partners Asia, the organizer of APOS.
The Way Back to Glory premieres on FlareFlow on June 19 — the same day Brazil faces Haiti. Should Neymar make his first appearance of the tournament, the company may have bought a viral moment.
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