Special sponsors…

West Brom feature Haiti appeal on their shirts

 

Only a quick one as I am mulling over how best to compose a proper entry – surely against the point of blogs where everything should be spontaneous and bitesized.  So for now…here is a short one.

Tonight, West Brom play Newcastle in a match up between arguably the two strongest teams in the Coca Cola Championship.  West Brom; the generous club that they are have donated the sponsorship space on their match shirts to the Disasters Emergency Committe for Haiti appeal. This is without doubt a generous gesture from the club and the DEC appeal will benefit from an increased footfall thanks to the awareness in this desperate time.

Without attempting to sully the attempt of West Brom to raise awareness and funds for the appeal, we should perhaps delve a little deeper:

• West Brom currently ‘negotiate their shirt sponsorship’ match-by-match.  So…they don’t have a long-term sponsorship deal as they over-valued themselves last year and this year. For the record they were the first and only team to go a full season without a shirt sponsor. 
• They are not actually donating any money out of their own pocket. They are auctioning off shirts and have ‘donated sponsorship space on their shirt.
• The match is being covered live on Sky TV which will generate extra coverage.  This helps their cause although it does mean they would have been able to command a greater one off figure for the shirt sponsor.
• It is very fashionable and without doubt good press to engage in such practice.  Some clubs have taken to doing this so not to spoil their shirts.  This is often done for two reasons: they do not require the revenue generated and so can forfeit the revenue by portraying the club to the world as noble. See Barcelona and Aston Villa.  The other type is the club who cannot attract a lucrative deal so forfeit the sponsorship to engage their fanbase, hoping to attract passers-by.

I can safely say which camp I think West Brom fall into.  They will not lose out from the deal in monetary terms and by doing so will generate lots of favourable coverage for the club.  They will also generate revenue for the DEC Haiti appeal which can only be good. Well done to them for the opportunistic idea and I hope it benefits the fundraising in the way that it will help them.

Sponsors’ football fling over?

So having watched a reasonable amount of football including my team held at home to Doncaster…a new pinnacle i think not, i surmised that despite our shabby sounding new range of sponsors…{Evolution HDTV & Joma], perhaps we are not losing out at all compared to some of our competitors…

WBA (West Bromwich Albion) had the ‘opportunity’ to have England 2018 blazed across their chests as their only ‘sponsor’ for this and even last season, while the likes of Cardiff and Leicester have chosen not to have a sponsor on their kit.  This is a worrying trend in English football – aside from the likes of Barcelona and Aston Villa who do not rely on this as their primary source of funding. Obviously neither Cardiff or WBA rely on this as a revenue source, however it traditionally has been…

This points to the undeniable growth of TV revenue as sole contributor to a TV club’s operations.  I am by no means a traditionalist or by any stretch of the imagination angry by this not-recent trend.  However it can surely only serve the purpose of allowing the TV company [ies?] greater influence of ‘our sport’…i will touch on this a bit later.  Obviously ‘in this current economic climate’, the incentive for companies to be drawn into long-term expensive contracts with seemingly immeasurable return has diminished.  The very nature of the companies involved with football sponsorship has also altered radically even within the past five years.  In the ’04-05′ season, out of the 44 clubs in the top two tiers, one was an online betting company [888.com – Middlesbrough].  The outlook is radically different now; seven in the Premiership, two in the Championship]. Indeed it was this reason that Randy Lerner decided to opt for the Acorns charity rather than online company Bet32.com.

So onto that influence that TV/media conglomerates will soon exert over the whole of sport.  It has been known as the ‘golden triangle’ of sport; the Sports Event, TV/Media and Sponsor all relying on each other equally.  Obviously if the sponsor is removed and/or the media hold all the shots, there is a dichotomous relationship in which the media hold the best cards.  I am not young or naive enough [just] to imagine this is all a new phenomena or that this will happen, however it is undeniable the influence of cash in the game, and also irrefutable where the smaller clubs receive the majority of their cash.

A very doom and gloom article it may seem; perhaps just a hint of life outside of the Premiership that goes unnoticed.  As long as Man Utd and Arsenal are financially ok, alls well!  Outside of this story, it is always sad to see any sport tarnished/disrupted by outside influences and obviously this covers the England Badminton team withdrawing from the World Championships for a specific terrorist-related threat to the players.  Sorry news which will certainly overshadow but perversely give the spectacle much more coverage than it perhaps merits.

To try and finish on a light-hearted note…if you have access… check this out: [5:20 in]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_3/default.stm

The Crewe equaliser was accompanied by a shout of ‘Shotttt’ from the crowd…a good call and a good goal.