[Archived] Rovers Might Have Been Sold?

[sleepyjack]

Surely if branding and marketing is about anything then surely it's about creating a need for a product.

You say that asking what the club could do to (re)brand itself is missing the point, but it isn't. How, other than with better results, could Blackburn Rovers manage to create a greater need for their product? What marketing potential does a football team outside the Champions League have? I'm not having a go, I'm asking. I know faff all about marketing. I don't even know what Chelsea or United do to attract more fans. Except win big shiny trophies over and over and over.

Do we differentiate our product by emphasising that we're a small-town team beating the big city boys at their own game? We could get Dunny on local TV narrating William Woodruff to the Hovis theme.

[philipl]

This one is specially for my devoted fans.

Foreign owners in potentially massive markets are nothing new to the PL. There are genuine nine figure millionaires sqatting at the Mancs and Liverpool screwing up the numbers of the UK's two biggest clubs. Not forgetting the Egyptian at Fulham, another American at Villa and now one at Sunderland, a Thai politician at Citeh replaced by UAE Royalty, HK at Brum, God knows who at Pompey, an Icelandic liquidator at West Ham etc etc.

I am sure we can agree that the Mancs are the world's biggest footballing brand (their raw "supporter" numbers are bigger than Real Madrid's and if you factor in spending power per supporter probably blast the Madrid City Council out of sight- their followers are SERIOUS about philanthropicly chipping in £1.25 billion to rescue the club from the Glazer mess).

Yet how many of these PL clubs have really cracked global branding in terms of building a profitable CLUB income stream? Has Mr bullshit Nike Gary Cooke turned Citeh into a global council tenant yet?- how many years has he been at it and did his Kaka ruse either succeed or been replicated at Real Madrid? (Answers: 3 years+, no and no)

The realities are:

- creating a global or international brand requires serious marketing investment; for Rovers probably at least £100m over 5 years just in marketing spend and you have to keep spending on building brand equity regardless of short term results.

- other smaller clubs have tried this sort of thing; ENIC at Spurs, Sheff U in Argentina (remember they were offered Maradona as a 17 year old for £1m) and now in China but nobody has cracked it yet. DW et al had great ideas but how is their execution? How are the property deals? Any law suits started for suggesting Plainfield could go bust yet?

- as my annual commentary has repeatedly mentioned, Rovers' marketing income although a modest 20% of turnover has held up remarkably well irrespective of the club being Inced and the local economy plunged into recession.

- by any yardstick (and certainly compared with Plainfield and DW), the Trustees are extremely succesful hard-headed business people (just look at what they have achieved with Flybe if you doubt me). They have had the benefit of the Williams/Hubert plan presented to them and you can be absolutely certain that they were:

1) listening, and

2) well capable of putting even more cash than DW/Plainfield into a Rovers marketing project had they been convinced there were decent and reasonably certain returns to be earned. Again, look at the size of the investment being made in Flybe if anybody thinks the Trust are not willing to take an aggressive business judgement and remember Flybe were offered for sale after they had turned it round and before they took-over BA Connect.

I am sure the Trust would be ecstatic if they could see Rovers turning a sustained branding profit- all problems solved!!!

My belief is that much as we would wish there were a magic switch to turn Rovers into a global brand, it doesn't exist.

The original Glazer business plan must have included included a multiple-times bigger marketing return on the Man U brand and certainly no neck-saving absolute necessity to flog off Ronaldo to meet interest payments. More in the public domain than the secretive Glazers, how far are Chelsea short of Peter Kenyon's planned marketing income? Answer- by £200m+ cumulatively by now.

Changing gear, this is the sad reality that faces PL club owners of any nationality. Wee Barry coming over all shop steward off to see the Brum owner for an extortionate pay rise for himself and all his footballer chums.

[Hughesy]

Changing gear, this is the sad reality that faces PL club owners of any nationality. Wee Barry coming over all shop steward off to see the Brum owner for an extortionate pay rise for himself and all his footballer chums.

Let be realistic here though Phil.

Birmingham have now become a safe Premier league team - and if you look at certain wages, then they are not even championship standard. 20k is probably below the average for the average wage in the prem! Cant blame the players for asking for what they are worth - if not, both will move onto other clubs and probably attract more than 20k a week.

Taken from above:

Midfielder Sebastian Larsson, 24, is also out of contract in the summer and trying to finalise a lucrative new four-year deal like Ridgewell.

Both Ridgewell and Larsson are looking for around £20,000-a-week as they currently earn £12,000 and £8,000-a-week respectively

[Eddie]

Agreed, to be paying starters that amount of money is well under what you would expect, so it's hardly surprising to see them asking for more. Shouldn't be getting into public, but it's not like they are asking for ridiculous sums. I don't exactly feel sorry for them and I'll switch pay cheques with them whenever they want, but I'm sure that they could get a bigger contract at other clubs quite easily.

[TimmyJimmy]

This one is specially for my devoted fans.

Foreign owners in potentially massive markets are nothing new to the PL. There are genuine nine figure millionaires sqatting at the Mancs and Liverpool screwing up the numbers of the UK's two biggest clubs. Not forgetting the Egyptian at Fulham, another American at Villa and now one at Sunderland, a Thai politician at Citeh replaced by UAE Royalty, HK at Brum, God knows who at Pompey, an Icelandic liquidator at West Ham etc etc.

I am sure we can agree that the Mancs are the world's biggest footballing brand (their raw "supporter" numbers are bigger than Real Madrid's and if you factor in spending power per supporter probably blast the Madrid City Council out of sight- their followers are SERIOUS about philanthropicly chipping in £1.25 billion to rescue the club from the Glazer mess).

Yet how many of these PL clubs have really cracked global branding in terms of building a profitable CLUB income stream? Has Mr bullshit Nike Gary Cooke turned Citeh into a global council tenant yet?- how many years has he been at it and did his Kaka ruse either succeed or been replicated at Real Madrid? (Answers: 3 years+, no and no)

The realities are:

- creating a global or international brand requires serious marketing investment; for Rovers probably at least £100m over 5 years just in marketing spend and you have to keep spending on building brand equity regardless of short term results.

- other smaller clubs have tried this sort of thing; ENIC at Spurs, Sheff U in Argentina (remember they were offered Maradona as a 17 year old for £1m) and now in China but nobody has cracked it yet. DW et al had great ideas but how is their execution? How are the property deals? Any law suits started for suggesting Plainfield could go bust yet?

- as my annual commentary has repeatedly mentioned, Rovers' marketing income although a modest 20% of turnover has held up remarkably well irrespective of the club being Inced and the local economy plunged into recession.

- by any yardstick (and certainly compared with Plainfield and DW), the Trustees are extremely succesful hard-headed business people (just look at what they have achieved with Flybe if you doubt me). They have had the benefit of the Williams/Hubert plan presented to them and you can be absolutely certain that they were:

1) listening, and

2) well capable of putting even more cash than DW/Plainfield into a Rovers marketing project had they been convinced there were decent and reasonably certain returns to be earned. Again, look at the size of the investment being made in Flybe if anybody thinks the Trust are not willing to take an aggressive business judgement and remember Flybe were offered for sale after they had turned it round and before they took-over BA Connect.

I am sure the Trust would be ecstatic if they could see Rovers turning a sustained branding profit- all problems solved!!!

My belief is that much as we would wish there were a magic switch to turn Rovers into a global brand, it doesn't exist.

The original Glazer business plan must have included included a multiple-times bigger marketing return on the Man U brand and certainly no neck-saving absolute necessity to flog off Ronaldo to meet interest payments. More in the public domain than the secretive Glazers, how far are Chelsea short of Peter Kenyon's planned marketing income? Answer- by £200m+ cumulatively by now.

Changing gear, this is the sad reality that faces PL club owners of any nationality. Wee Barry coming over all shop steward off to see the Brum owner for an extortionate pay rise for himself and all his footballer chums.

Don't want to argue against any of this philip. My only comments would be :

On the issue of branding ...

a] I don't know what the alternative is, do you suggest we throw our hands up in the air or do a collective gallic shrug and rely on local gate receipts

b] To my understanding 'branding' runs at many levels one of which is simple name recognition, how many kids in China, India, the USA etc have even heard of us, if they haven't they can't buy the shirt

c] 'Global Brand' is confusing as many interpret that as 'the biggest' or 'the best' or 'the number one club' but it isn't, it's just about getting on the radar in as many countries as possible

d] What percentage of the worlds population do we have to enrol in order for it to be worthwhile? Can't be that big a number so surely you'd agree that there must be some room for us on the world stage.

I think we're at the point of having said all we can on this subject and we're in danger of breathing in our own fumes so I'll draw a line under my contributions on this topic.

On the issue of ownership ...

I work at a very senior level inside one of the worlds largest investment banks and am networked into all the rest. I am of course bound by confidentiality rules so no names / no pack drill but I see at first hand the funding mechanisms of many of the biggest clubs, I know all the numbers by heart (some of which would make your eyes water), so I fully understand the dangers or otherwise of a transfer of ownership - yet I'm still in favour of our club being sold. There are definitely some well trodden paths that I suggest we wouldn't want to take but there are other good options out there. I don't think we should be scared of change, I really don't. The Trust and Rothschild (who are a bloody good firm by the way) won't let the club be flogged to a bunch of short term schisters. We should be patient and when the time comes get behind the new owner and stop all this self flagellation. I'm not disrespecting your point of view, I understand that you are/have been active in M&A yourself, it's just that I don't think it's quite as black as you think it is.

[tony gale's mic]

I think it was Abbey sometime last year who suggested a kind of a Millwall image ie 'nobody likes us and we don't care' to appeal to the non conformists of this world. Well why not, it's as good a brand as any other. I have no idea of what we could or should do in terms of an image and to some extent that also misses the point, to brand or not to brand is the question, we can leave the how's until later.

Last point, if you can persuade young males to buy Lynx and think that they're turned into babe magnets then you can persuade anyone of anything, have you smelt that stuff?

Sorry but neither of those two things make any sense. How on earth would a "nobody likes us" appeal make sense if we were to try and create a global brand? Disregarding for one minute the fact that it would get next to noone on board (everyone will want to support the team everyone likes), surely if by some strange alternate reality fictional world this did work and people did start liking us, that would immediately diminish the appeal of this image anyway.

And Lynx and a football club are two completely different things. Football clubs can have objective measures of how good they are - ie success. The smell of an aftershave or, indeed, the taste of a carbonated drink with vegetable extract are subjective and marketing can make a much bigger impact.

Should Rovers try and push their commercial interests abroad? Yes...I think the possibility of doing an overseas summer tour or two to try and pick up fans is worth looking into. However, should Rovers aggressively look to market themselves as a global brand and pour large sums of money into doing this? Absolutely not - unless we suddenly become much, much more successful on the football field it will never work, and that's why the biggest global brands are also the most successful ones on the pitch. Anyone who thinks otherwise should probably have a bit of a lie down, reassess things and realise what a ludicrous suggestion it is.

[philipl]

It is very clear Timmyjimmy that you know what you are posting about.

There are a few "good" football club takeovers which genuinely create value but the track record of clubs not in administration changing hands is probably 10% value creation and 90% value destruction.

There must be a formula for leveraging more value from a club's participation in the Premier League from overseas support. But 20 clubs x 18 seasons of the Premier League have yet to find it. Whether it comes from technological advance or affinity marketing signings (Koreans following Bolton v Mancs for instance) I don't know.

I would like Rovers to take over their website 100% and invest some serious money in that side because I think we could be pretty sure to cover our costs but even earning enough surplus from doing that to pay a few months of a first teamer's wages would be a significant achievement.

I just don't see where the untapped £millions never mind the el dorado of £10s millions is sitting- do you?

If you look at the roll call of people involved in football marketing these days, it is seriously impressive in quantity, quality and geographic scope. How many NFL, NBA and NHL owners are there/ have there been? For all the brickbats I have thrown Gary Cooke's direction, he was pretty well Mr Nike globally before Thaksin picked him up.

The idea that people with little to no sporting expertise could come in from real estate and hedge fund management to generate untold millions of new value for Rovers was always a highly improbable proposition. I have dealt with Ford at top levels and I could not see them buying the concept for the American market which was described in this thread. It would fail Ford's most basic marketing test.

Even rivercider in his more lucid first post conceded that investing in Rovers would have ended only one notch up from the Bahamas real estate play which they lost the entire $88m staked. Very reassuring...

[S15]

It is very clear Timmyjimmy that you know what you are posting about.

At least one of you do then...

[Steve Moss]

In truth, the matter has been discussed, but it seems the club are just not interested in promotiong the 'Rovers' brand. Comfort zone etc methinks ...

I think marketing alone isn't enough. If the team is a consistent success, such as the top 4, that would be all the marketing one would need. Teenagers flock to regular winners.

To be fair, the Rovers are known in the USA by those who watch PL football. And I think the reputation is pretty positive, in that we tend to like blue collar underdogs. But the perception is that there is more than one of those in the PL. So that won't translate into many shirt sales. The adults who have that knowledge are buying Liverpool and ManU shirts for their kids, as that is what the kids want. Of the 20 or so adults adults I drink with in the bar, none follow the Big 4 (boring), but support is split between Newcastle, Everton (interest is picking up with Donovan), Fulham, and Aston Villa. I'm the lone Rovers supporter in the group.

I'm selling the Rovers to my 7 year old daughter, quitely. And I am making progress as she likes the Red Rose emblem. Better, I saw her showing her friends (I placed a Rovers banner in her room). They seem impressed, in that they're used to football teams with more energetic emblems. One of many reasons I think the Rovers should move to a pink, or halved pink and white, away jersey. Forget nationality. Appeal to the ladies. Its 50% of the market. And real men wear pink.

Buy a couple of big named Indian star players (excluding Tendulkar and co.) and then the Rovers brand will be promoted to an audience of up to a billion and then we can take over the world

Again, I think it wouldn't be so much about the Rovers brand, as the "brand" of the players we purchased. When they moved on, so would their fans.

[philipl]

I agree that if we are serious about branding, every away shirt has to be halved even if that means pink and lilac next season.

[Steve Moss]

I agree that if we are serious about branding, every away shirt has to be halved even if that means pink and lilac next season.

Now your talking!

Seriously, the shirt scheme, or something similar, is a cost effective method of reaching a target market. Costs absolutely nothing above and beyond what we'd pay anyway. The only decision to be made is whether we are targetting women (pink or purple), Muslims (green), etc.

[Paul]

Global or even regional branding? I'm not sure how relevant this is to the club and especially how much income it truely generates. In my view it's easier to sell product to existing customers than to convert new ones. Since the club shop problems we've hardly spent anything on merchandise - just got out of the habit. On the odd occassion I do pop in the shop there is nothing to tempt me. I could do with a new sweatshirt and a couple of polos but there's nothing available, or at least this is how I perceive the situation. The most we spend at a match is 80p on a Kit Kat. I'd quite like to read the programme but guess it's full of the same old stuff, again got out of the habit. As Philip says the club need to get control of the website, there's a huge opportunity lost there at present. It's so formualaic and information can be difficult to find. I realise the website is not fully in the club's control but this does seem to have been the situation for many years? Surely the contract must be up soon?

I've just been on the online booking for the first time for a few weeks and was very impressed. This seems to have been altered radically recently? Usually there are no matches offered for me to buy, this morning I could have selected seats for both United and Everton which is excellent. On the other hand the ticket office phone number is still not featured on the tickets homepage.

Hands up those who really think Rovers would get a good return on money invested in overseas branding. The potential sale is what? Some shirts and a subscription to Roversworld. Much as I'd love to see Rovers more widely supported it's very difficult to see how this will be achieved.

[gumboots]

Why would women want a pink and white Rovers shirt? Give me blue over pink any day. When I went shopping with my girls it would always be "Oh, look, this one's nice " "Do they do it in blue mum?" The internet thing is ture though. We don't even have a well-organised facebook group that the club uses to pass on info. All tv shows now use facebook and twitter to interact with their fans. Someone at the club should set one up and reply to fan questions etc directly, even if it's that they can't tell you for whatever reason, as do many shows nowadays - look at the Late Kick off ones for example. It's a small thing but grows awareness of you.

[Craigman]

They could also make money by having an app for the iPhone. I am sure a lot of people would buy it. Up to date information etc.

[thenodrog]

Sheff U in Argentina (remember they were offered Maradona as a 17 year old for £1m)

You make it sound ludicrous that they missed out but they could never have afforded that much in 78! They could never have raised that much money. Maradona was a child prodigy OK but he wasn't in Argentina's WC winning team and rem by way of compariosn KMD had recently gone to European cup winners and 1st Div champions Liverpool for just over 400k, whilst Spurs bought both Ardilles and Villa for 700k.

Sorry but neither of those two things make any sense. How on earth would a "nobody likes us" appeal make sense if we were to try and create a global brand?

Murdoch's News Corp managed and nobody likes him much.

[tony gale's mic]

Murdoch's News Corp managed and nobody likes him much.

Again you're comparing apples and oranges...

[philipl]

They actually took a very good Argentine whose name I forget who cost them £250k. Sheff U directors seriously considered taking the plunge on Maradona but decided it was just too big a risk mortgaging everything on him.

You misinterpreted; I was not mocking it- just pointing out that Sheff U got first dibs on Maradona through their (Harry Haslam's) Argentine links.

[thenodrog]

You misinterpreted; I was not mocking it- just pointing out that Sheff U got first dibs on Maradona through their (Harry Haslam's) Argentine links.

I did not think you were mocking at all philip, but rather a touch misleading. A current comparision might be that Sunderland or Everton for example buying a 17 year old Argentinian prodigy who has never played for Argentina for £50m.

[Kelbo]

Global Marketing? I said this before, will say this again, one word, guaranteed success albeit short term, Beckham!!

He is the most Marketable player in world football!

[47er]

Global Marketing? I said this before, will say this again, one word, guaranteed success albeit short term, Beckham!!

He is the most Marketable player in world football!

For how long? With all those tattoos he looks more like a reptile than a human being.

[S15]

For how long? With all those tattoos he looks more like a reptile than a human being.

Yeah I can't believe how many tattoos reptiles have nowadays.

Needless to say, your post is ridiculous, and pretty prejudice in many ways. Well, one big fat way.

[TimmyJimmy]

... should Rovers aggressively look to market themselves as a global brand and pour large sums of money into doing this? Absolutely not ... Anyone who thinks otherwise should probably have a bit of a lie down, reassess things and realise what a ludicrous suggestion it is.

Standing on a soap box and preaching radical ideas is not my style, I don't feel all that comfortable with the level of attention and heat generated by this topic. Time for some perspective. Branding was just ONE idea mentioned in the context of a prospective takeover business case. The background was me sticking up for rivercider who was getting pummelled at the time when discussing the DW business case for the takeover bid three years ago.

I'm not beating a drum for this but whether you agree or not this will be considered by anyone entering into a future bid, they'd be mad not to consider any possible future cashflow (positive or negative). The Trust will never consider this type of investment as it's too expensive, long term etc etc etc and they want out. It's just a simple comment, branding is important and shouldn't be tossed down the pan because it's a difficult problem to solve.

I think marketing alone isn't enough ... Teenagers flock to regular winners.

Liked the rest of your post smoss but this bit leapt out at me for a comment. The teenagers I know usually go in exactly the opposite direction to that advocated to them. If enough people follow the big 4/5 then that will become the established view/position and they will rebel and walk in the opposite direction looking for some rebel cause to nail their colours to. Being told that classical music is technically far superior to hip hop will not result in the Royal Albert Hall being filled with teenagers.

---

Anyway like I say I feel like I'm being dragged into being the spokesperson for a topic that whilst interesting is not worth the time taken to bat for it anymore. This will definitely be my last post on this. If tony gale's mic or anyone else feels branding is a ludicrous suggestion then so be it, I respect your opinion.

[47er]

Yeah I can't believe how many tattoos reptiles have nowadays.

Needless to say, your post is ridiculous, and pretty prejudice in many ways. Well, one big fat way.

All a matter of taste. And he hasn't got any.

[S15]

All a matter of taste. And he hasn't got any.

Tattoos are, however suggesting somebody couldn't be an ambassador because they have some is prejudice.

[47er]

Tattoos are, however suggesting somebody couldn't be an ambassador because they have some is prejudice.

"Some"? There's hardly any room left for anymore despite Beckham stating that he is"addicted to the pain'. Some ambassador---complete freak. Anyway, my last post on him, not really relevant to Rovers is he?