[Archived] Club Shop ?

[waggy]

a friend off mine approached the club ,asking about the possibility off opening a joint venture [A CLUB SHOP IN THE TOWN CENTRE OFFERING MERCHANDISE/TICKETS ETC] here is the reply

Dear

I am sorry we have not responded earlier to your e-mail dated 4 February enquiring about the possibility of opening a small club shop within the town centre.

As you say in the past the club did have a town centre presence although is was generally an unsatisfactory arrangement being part of another retail outlet. We had as a club decided to seriously investigate a town centre unit but then outsourced our retail and merchandising operation to Sportsworld International. Sportsworld continue to run this side of the business and in that respect we would not be in a position to offer merchandise ourselves. This would be conflict to the contract we have with SWI who already have a Sports Soccer unit in Blackburn

We are aware of supporters' frustrations with the current merchandising arrangements and are endeavouring to find a solution with SWI that will result in a greater range of club branded products. This is ongoing.

With regard to ticketing, we are currently exploring potential joint ventures with such as the Mall and King Georges Hall who operate retail ticket selling outlets in the town centre to assess the feasibility of them selling tickets for our home games. We are, at the same time, investing in upgrading our internet ticketing systems to make it easier for fans to book tickets online, thus avoiding the need for a separate journey either to the town centre or to Ewood Park.

Given the above we are unable to consider your joint venture idea at this time but thank you for your interest in the club.

Yours sincerely

T.M. Finn

Managing Director

Lynsey Talbot

PA to the Chairman/ Managing Director

BRFC | Ewood Park | Blackburn | Lancashire | BB2 4JF

Tel: 01254 296270 | Fax: 01254 671042 | Visit: http://www.rovers.co.uk

seems to me the club are as peeved off with the situation as us

[Jan]

  waggy said:

:

seems to me the club are as peeved off with the situation as us

Yes, but given the choice of a few hundred people wanting mini-kits and £X million for doing nothing, they'd choose the latter. As, I suggest, would any of us who know anything about money (or even those who just spend it).

[American]

  Jan said:

Maybe income has fallen, but costs have probably fallen to zero. Therefore profit on merchandising will have risen many times over.

Are there expense line items in the annual reports to back this up? Not having a go, I just create financial reports for a living, so don't like to read them if I don't have to.

[BiggusLaddus]

Just to put 'our' shop in perspective:

Stoke City have three club shops. One at the ground, their old one they've had for years in the town centre, and a new one in the shopping centre. All three better than we have at the moment.

Thats Stoke City; a club with one single League Cup win to its name, based in an area that is even less affluent that Blackburn, that has not seen top flight football for donkey's years.

[Ozz]

  BiggusLaddus said:

Just to put 'our' shop in perspective:

Stoke City have three club shops. One at the ground, their old one they've had for years in the town centre, and a new one in the shopping centre. All three better than we have at the moment.

Thats Stoke City; a club with one single League Cup win to its name, based in an area that is even less affluent that Blackburn, that has not seen top flight football for donkey's years.

But...I bet all three don't make as much money as our deal with SWI does. It brings up the point again, that is Blackburn Rovers FC now all about money, or should there be certain aspects about the club that exist regardless ( to a point) of the financial ramifications. A bit like Nationalized organization.

[Guest fernhurstblue]

  waggy said:

a friend off mine approached the club ,asking about the possibility off opening a joint venture [A CLUB SHOP IN THE TOWN CENTRE OFFERING MERCHANDISE/TICKETS ETC] here is the reply

Dear

I am sorry we have not responded earlier to your e-mail dated 4 February enquiring about the possibility of opening a small club shop within the town centre.

As you say in the past the club did have a town centre presence although is was generally an unsatisfactory arrangement being part of another retail outlet. We had as a club decided to seriously investigate a town centre unit but then outsourced our retail and merchandising operation to Sportsworld International. Sportsworld continue to run this side of the business and in that respect we would not be in a position to offer merchandise ourselves. This would be conflict to the contract we have with SWI who already have a Sports Soccer unit in Blackburn

We are aware of supporters' frustrations with the current merchandising arrangements and are endeavouring to find a solution with SWI that will result in a greater range of club branded products. This is ongoing.

With regard to ticketing, we are currently exploring potential joint ventures with such as the Mall and King Georges Hall who operate retail ticket selling outlets in the town centre to assess the feasibility of them selling tickets for our home games. We are, at the same time, investing in upgrading our internet ticketing systems to make it easier for fans to book tickets online, thus avoiding the need for a separate journey either to the town centre or to Ewood Park.

Given the above we are unable to consider your joint venture idea at this time but thank you for your interest in the club.

Yours sincerely

T.M. Finn

Managing Director

Lynsey Talbot

PA to the Chairman/ Managing Director

BRFC | Ewood Park | Blackburn | Lancashire | BB2 4JF

Tel: 01254 296270 | Fax: 01254 671042 | Visit: http://www.rovers.co.uk

seems to me the club are as peeved off with the situation as us

i have sent you a pm about this - cheers

[FourLaneBlue]

edit....my mistake.

[BiggusLaddus]

  FourLaneBlue said:

To be fair...they do have one League Cup win to their name I believe...although they won it back in the days of Gordon Banks.

Yes, I was aware of that, Which is why I wrote it in my post (in almost exactly the same wording as you did)

[FourLaneBlue]

  BiggusLaddus said:

Yes, I was aware of that, Which is why I wrote it in my post (in almost exactly the same wording as you did)

Yes I become aware of that once I posted...but not quickly enough to edit it before your response...were you sat at the computer waiting or something?

[BiggusLaddus]

No, must have just got lucky. I'd only just logged back onto the site.

[FourLaneBlue]

Haven't, as American pointed out, our commercial earnings been falling since the SWI deal...is it related or are there other reasons for the decline?

[Presty On Tour]

I bought a blackburn car air freshener off ebay the other day, around 4 bucks i paid for "presty on tour" and number 10 on the back of the rovers kit. On the other side it has a picture of ewood park. Also you can choose for a variety of scents, i went for bubblegum flavor!

Arrived the next day too, nice job

[bob fleming]

  Jan said:

Yes, but given the choice of a few hundred people wanting mini-kits and £X million for doing nothing, they'd choose the latter. As, I suggest, would any of us who know anything about money (or even those who just spend it).

Tedious Jan. As ever. ""X" million?"

Does no one give a damn anymore? Are we turning into a town of Jan's?

Jan, have you read OJ's review of the 84/85 season? (same website, diferent clicks) Does it mean ANYTHING to you? More to the point does it mean anything to the Chairman, the Board, the club shop owner, the Trustees, my next door neighbour, ANYONE?

Probably not.

[CAPT KAYOS]

  bob fleming said:

Tedious Jan. As ever. ""X" million?"

Does no one give a damn anymore? Are we turning into a town of Jan's?

Jan, have you read OJ's review of the 84/85 season? (same website, diferent clicks) Does it mean ANYTHING to you? More to the point does it mean anything to the Chairman, the Board, the club shop owner, the Trustees, my next door neighbour, ANYONE?

Probably not.

Excellent Bobski and for alot uf us, yes it does matter.

As you are full aware some of us are definitely not Jan's of this world.

[Jan]

  bob fleming said:

Tedious Jan. As ever. ""X" million?"

Does no one give a damn anymore? Are we turning into a town of Jan's?

Jan, have you read OJ's review of the 84/85 season? (same website, diferent clicks) Does it mean ANYTHING to you? More to the point does it mean anything to the Chairman, the Board, the club shop owner, the Trustees, my next door neighbour, ANYONE?

Probably not.

Let's try to clarify. Currently the shop costs the club nothing to run (I'm making the radical assumption that the company running pays all the costs of running it including heat, light, wages) and for that we get a sum of some number of £million per year. We don't have enough Rovers merchandising, but that's really the only problem (from the club's point of view).

OR

We take back the shop, and its attendant costs. Have to source all of our own merchandise; hope that it sells (which given the stuff that went into sales in previous years is far from a sound assumption); pay staff, heat, light. So we would have (POSSIBLY) increased revenue, but also vastly increased costs. Given that the club is trying to run on an even keel and is pedalling furiously just to keep up, why would they take a potentially ruinous decision? I know it's full of tat, but it's a loss-maker off our hands, much like the catering side of the business.

I used to run my students union. We had a canteen. No matter WHAT we tried, we couldn't get it to break even. So we outsourced. The food was awful, less people used it, but we didn't care, we made money, which could be ploughed back into the union in the form of repainting, improving seating, better bands etc. All of which improved revenue. Sometimes you have to make business decisions. This is simply one of them.

[CAPT KAYOS]

  Jan said:

Sometimes you have to make business decisions. This is simply one of them.

And this is the crux of the problem.

To be fair Jan, I think people are full aware as I mentioned people understanding why the deal was first struck.

The issue is that Football is becoming (has already) too much business rather than sport, and is driving people away from the game. Those that are remaining are getting to the point of enoughs enough of the attitude that they must accept the money driven side of the game or get out.

To some, Football means more to them than that

[AggyBlue]

  CAPT KAYOS said:

To some, Football means more to them than that

Victory Park last weekend for me, crap game but the honest endeavour of the players was refreshing to see.

[LeChuck]

  Jan said:

Sometimes you have to make business decisions. This is simply one of them.

Why is commercial revenue significantly down in the last two years then compared to the two years before that? We were making in excess of £12 million a season for those seasons, whereas the last two have been just over £10 million. That's £3-4 million lost over the two years.

I'm not saying the club shop must be to blame, but the figures just don't support this theory that Rovers are making significant money from selling a part of their soul to SWI.

[stuwilky]

  AggyBlue said:

Victory Park last weekend for me, crap game but the honest endeavour of the players was refreshing to see.

And rather refreshing under Tony Hesketh I believe.

I'll be at Irongate tomorrow.

[Ozz]

  bob fleming said:

Jan, have you read OJ's review of the 84/85 season? (same website, diferent clicks)

Whahey free advertising, cheers Bob! Just put the Leeds at home game reports up, nearly half way through now!

It's really Great man!

[cletus]

I`m looking into getting some car window stickers made. I`ve started making enquiries. I`ve sent the design away & am just awaiting prices. If i get any further down the road, i`ll let folk know. Will probably sell them on Ebay to keep overheads down.

Just out of curiosity (& cheap market research ) would anybody be interested in buying this line of 'tat' ??

[RevidgeBlue]

  LeChuck said:

Why is commercial revenue significantly down in the last two years then compared to the two years before that? We were making in excess of £12 million a season for those seasons, whereas the last two have been just over £10 million. That's £3-4 million lost over the two years.

I'm not saying the club shop must be to blame, but the figures just don't support this theory that Rovers are making significant money from selling a part of their soul to SWI.

I can only presume that the Club's commercial side under the auspices of Beamo hasn't been performing as well and that without the SWI deal those figures would be even worse in comparison.

[only2garners]

Some small progress to report from last night's Fans' Forum. There is now a dialogue between the club and SWI, although little constructive has yet happened. The club's resolve to reach a satisfactory conclusion to meet fans' concerns is as firm as ever.

[Wild Irish Rover]

  cletus said:

I`m looking into getting some car window stickers made. I`ve started making enquiries. I`ve sent the design away & am just awaiting prices. If i get any further down the road, i`ll let folk know. Will probably sell them on Ebay to keep overheads down.

Just out of curiosity (& cheap market research ) would anybody be interested in buying this line of 'tat' ??

Count me in

[deryck guyler's spoon]

  Wild Irish Rover said:

Count me in

...and me.