What do football clubs really sell?
At a glance, the answer appears to be anything they can for as much as they can. Across the sport fans are being wrung dry: Replica kits now cost 3 figures. TV Subscriptions keep climbing and multiplying. Concession tickets are being removed. The logos of illegal gambling firms are being printed on the front of shirts.
But despite all of that, the big money flowing into the Premier League comes from TV, and the reason the league commands so much interest around the world, and so much money from TV companies, is the stories they have to sell.
Football clubs are folk stories, passed on and given meaning over generations. Stories are what contextualises success and failure and means stadiums are full for meaningless games between mid-table no-hopers in the pouring rain.
These stories, and the depth of the relationship between supporters and clubs, are what the league sold, and continues to sell, around the world. The defendable moat in an era of European Super Leagues and Saudi Pro Leagues.
Clubs are forgetting this, and risk killing the golden goose. Supporters are the product, not the customer.
It takes a smart marketing team to recognise this, and understand how it changes the role for comms, when everyone else is focused on selling shirts. Newcastle United and Adidas clearly have one.
The real role for comms at a football club is to bring the fans and the team closer together, to celebrate fans, and remember that they own the story of your club, not you.
Newcastle will sell loads of shirts regardless of what they do, which makes a new kit launch a chance to do something different, to think a level up. It’s an opportunity to perpetuate and embellish the folk story of the club and its supporters, to make fans feel a part of things. In this instance, to recognise the dedication of following the most isolated team in the league across the country all season.
In this context, merchandise stops being stuff you’re pushing fans to buy, and becomes a way to buy in. It also means your comms support the club’s real revenue drivers, more points and a higher league position on the back of a loyal and loud supporter base, and a more marketable, defendably product to sell to global TV companies.
It’s also loads more fun.
More thoughts on this here: UpThereForThinking Substack
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