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Posts from the ‘Football misc’ Category

Dec 17

Vavavoom!

It looks like we will continue our support to a pioneering technology business from Media City in 2015.  Forget, the QR code, in fact don’t even refer to it in the same breath, the V-Code from VST Enterprises is destined to become a household name with blue chip early adopters to this application in fan engagement.

Brainchild, of Louis James Davis, the most endorsed drummer in the music industry and local lad – just take a peek at this video and then start to think how this gets translated into a sports and leisure setting.

It’s fascinating and exciting and only limited by a marketers creativity.  Picture this storyboard:

“Fan with scarf around neck on double decker holds mobile to building as approaching ground and V provides latest info on today’s match – Get off bus and mingle amongst fans approach gate to Club and V gives team line ups – See burger vans and catering V shows today’s special offer Buy One Get One Free shares with mate – Enters ground with V code instead of season ticket – Scan V near steward and get matchday programme – Scan V and half time couple of pints awaiting avoiding queue; Good first half – must buy ticket for FA Cup Match hold up V code in away end one click purchase – Flash latest discount offers for today in Club Shop only – Read programme and V on players kit gives all stats for that player and availability of related merchandise to that player – Half time pint browse affinity offers for supporters from associated companies and latest events in stadium (non-football) – Sponsors messages  shown via V – collect data for them; Final whistle – V-code shows all highlights on bus journey  home.  Inside ground, FD reads V-code analytics”.

Benefits to clubs and supporters:

FAN

  • the complete FAN EXPERIENCE
  • mobile and accessible
  • up to date at all times.

CLUB

  • interaction UP
  • engagement UP
  • cross selling UP
  • matchday sales UP
  • on-selling UP
  • better analytics R.O.I sponsors.

Watch out for the first club to make waves with the vavavoom of V-Code.

Dec 1

It’s County!

Liking this story when an eBay, Charity auction was instigated with full expectation that one of the Manchester Giants might be highest bidder.  The deal, one that the winner could nominate this little person’s choice of football team to follow.  The actual top amount was from a County fan and we now have another supporter.  See earlier video below.

Some great publicity for the Club and a clear message portrayed that there is life outside the EPL!

Mirror

ITV

BBC

Caught Offside

Parent Dish 

Oct 30

Media Debates

There was the usual anti-SKY TV rhetoric that has surrounded lower league football this Weekend – including the one in which my team now plays.  I recall one along the lines to a chorus of “you can stick your SKY remote up………….”.  Naiive to blame for County’s downfall but good humoured fans’ banter amongst this direction of abuse.

The political football is out again with Labour acting out a vision for supporter engagement and ownership.  Lip service or manifesto we’ll have to wait and see.  When all demise is discussed, ITV Digital is the butt of all ridicule.  Without defending them, the demise of that programming forced many a club into unforseen cashflow crises, but the ownership and management of clubs must share some joint-responsibilities.  The latter remain challenges in many a football enterprise – and don’t get me going on the Fit and Proper Person Test.  There cannot be many a net with more holes in!

Debate on media in Europe has recently been in the limelight and I introduce a debate from our European counterparts so you can all have a view on whether models are more suited elsewhere?

Sportel Monaco 2014 | European Football: Winning Media Strategies

The Guardian has said: “At the height of concern over financial meltdown at Portsmouth, Liverpool and elsewhere in 2010, the coalition talked about empowering fans. Fourteen clubs – including Portsmouth and Swansea – have become wholly or partly fan-owned, but despite the promises Whitehall has done little to encourage the trend. Labour insists this time will be different, vowing to legislate early in a new parliament.”

The overriding messages appear to share the common belief that ‘Football is more than a business, and fans are more than customers’.  If progress is to be made on this stance, which can only be correct – surely media must become more under the microscope.  I never forget the statement that for many, after religion, football and loyalty to a team’s brand is often the second strongest bond in a person’s life, outside the family. New media models should be investigated.

Oct 10

1 Comment

To Sack or not to Sack that is the question

Again, we are pleased to have a blog post kindly scribed by guest and colleague at FC Sports Marketing, the great Steven Seggie.  He titles it: “Don’t Change Manager During the Season”.

“We are only a few weeks into the new English Premier League season and already we hear rumblings about managers whose jobs are on the line if the results don’t go right soon etc. During the 2013-2014 season, the number of sackings was in double figures (if you include the departure of Ian Holloway from Crystal Palace by mutual consent) and I am sure this year will be no different. Yet these mid-season sackings make little or no sense to me.

I have always wondered whether or not replacing your manager mid-season has any impact on the performance of the team. I would hazard the guess that the primary driver for most of these sackings is the hope that performances will improve yet we rarely see any analysis or discussion in the media or elsewhere as to whether or not performances improved. This may well be a function of the fact that most sports journalists do not have the ability to conduct such analysis, nevertheless that’s not really an excuse. Luckily some academics have analysed these mid-season changes and the results make for interesting reading. There are 3 major studies that I will discuss briefly here and they all demonstrate that changing manager mid-season is an exercise in futility.

The first study that I looked at was conducted by Allard Bruinshoofd and Bas ter Weel . These authors examined all the mid-season managerial sackings/changes in the Dutch league between 1988 and 2000. A little bit of analysis led them to the conclusion that you shouldn’t sack your manager mid-season. In fact, they find that if the manager had stayed his team would have performed better than the team with the new manager.

Similar results are found in a study  of Italy’s Serie A between the 2003-2004 season and the 2007-2008 season. The authors of this study, Maria de Paola and Vincenzo Scoppa found that changing the manager during the season was essentially a wasted exercise as it made no difference to subsequent performance.

Finally, Andreas Heuer, Christian Müller, Oliver Rubner, Norbert Hagemann and Bernd Strauss , in a study of the Bundesliga from the 1963-64 season to the 2008-2009 season (a total of 14,018 matches)  found no impact on performance of changing the manager mid-season.

So there we have it. The results are fairly clear cut. Changing manager mid-season has no positive effect on performance and may even lead to worse results than if the incumbent had continued. While performance may not be the only reason clubs change manager, I would guess it is the most often cited reason. So for all the supporters baying for the blood of the manager after some bad results and all the club directors thinking that changing the manager mid-season will improve performance, I have some bad news. It won’t. So you may want to think twice!”

Bruinshoofd, A. and B. ter Weel. 2004. Manager to go? Performance dips reconsidered with evidence from Dutch football. European Journal of Operations Research 148:233-246.
De Paola, M. and Scoppa,V. (2008) The effects of managerial turnover: evidence from coach dismissals in Italian soccer teams, Journal of Sports Economics, 13(2), 152–168.
Heuer A, Müller C, Rubner O, Hagemann N, Strauss B (2011) Usefulness of dismissing and changing the coach in professional soccer. PLoS ONE 6/3: e17664. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017664

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