Good point Shaelumstash but in football there's only a limited number of entities that get the exposure that a large sponsor would be interested in. Primarily that's the shirt and the stadium of course. The rags managed to expand that to the training kit and training ground of course but very few others would get away with that. We'll no doubt do something for the CFA but there's little else we could stick a sponsor name on for decent money.
Plus we're hardly likely to play Etihad off against Qatar Airways are we?
Haha! You're quite right about the Etihad deal! It's a difficult one that, because it's not exactly a standard deal.
I suppose the point I was making is more applicable to the Nike deal than anything else. I appreciate we are not yet on the commercial level of the 4 financial powerhouse clubs. On a world scale we are probably not even in the next tier down with clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, possibly the Milan clubs etc. Before people throw our commercial income relative to those teams at me, look at our Nike deal in comparison with these other clubs kit deals. We've been very clever with a lot of our sponsorship deals, like Etihad, Nissan and Citi Bank in exerting our owners influence to get great deals, but with kit manufacturers we can't do that. All we can achieve is market rate, and the market suggests the exposure our brand gives to Nike is worth £12m a year to them. In comparison, adidas are paying the shite £75m. We've got a long way to go.
Now you look at the dozen or so sponsors we have singed up over the last 2 years. Think of the time, money and effort that has gone in to securing all of those deals. Think of the ongoing relationship management with those clients. Think of the time our players have to spend shaking hands and posing for pictures with those 10 companies. Let's say those 10 companies bring in £15m in sponsorship revenue between them. For all of the management time it has taken to secure that £15m, The Shite increased their kit deal by £40m a season! That's one client, one negotiation.
Put it another way - we could have just not bought the hapless Fernando for £15m and got Alex Song on loan who's a better player. While every little helps, the £15m we have brought in with 10 deals is not a great deal in the overall scheme of things. As I said, the £12m from Nike is the market value as that's what the market is currently willing to pay. But I can't help thinking it's undervalued by some considerable distance.
On a slightly separate note, sportswear brands pay for the media exposure you are able to give to their brand. I can't help thinking that having such a dull, drab manager, and such a closed shop media policy, has led to us having an increasingly restricted media exposure in the UK. 5 years ago we were the biggest story in town, nowadays our league title wins aren't even lead stories in the national sports press! As opposed to blaming the "nasty, biased media" maybe we should engage with them more? I'm sure our sponsors, and potential sponsors would take note!
