Now in its 15th year, Soccerex continues to be the leading event provider for the global football industry, renowned for delivering unique networking opportunities for the football industry around the world.

The Soccerex events calendar includes exclusive Soccerex forums around the world - with the showcase Soccerex Forum London at the iconic Wembley Stadium, London that attracts over 900 delegates from around the world.

Soccerex attracts over 900 delegates from across the global football community - senior football industry executives, representing 200 football clubs, federations, leagues and key sponsors drawn from 62 different countries.

Peter Gandolfi, Group Managing Director, Soccerex approached Guru in a Bottle CEO Ardi Kolah to create and moderate a special 1.5 hours open session at Soccrex 09 that would address the knowledge and training issues of how football clubs should respond to a downturn in fans' spending as a result of the global credit crunch.

This was to be the dominant theme of the event and the panel debate would be the most important on the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design of training

Guru in a Bottle advised that an expert panel format would be the most suitable for the day but that in order to achieve engagement with delegates prior to the session in the Main Hall at Wembley Stadium, a questionnaire needed to be sent out not to just those who were to attend Soccerex but the whole football community - clubs and non-clubs. The questionnaire needed to be concise and focus on the key issues that the expert panel were then to discuss before a live audience at Soccerex.

Design of questionnaire

Guru in a Bottle designed a questionnaire that was sent out via Skopos Market Research to every football club in Europe plus key people in the football industry in order to get input into key areas of commercial practices amongst football clubs as well as understanding how the global economic crisis will affect lucrative football sponsorship deals over the next few years. The questionnaire was a multiple choice format, with all responses segmented between club and non-club respondents so that comparisons and observations could be drawn and commented on by the panel:

Q1: How Important are the following commercial challenges facing football clubs in the current economic environment?

• Attracting investment
• Providing a return on objectives / return on investment for sponsors
• Maintaining attendance & gate receipts
• Understanding & monetising fan behaviour
• Exploiting licensing & merchandising
• Player salaries
• Effect on transfer values due to weak pound

Q2: To what extent do you agree with the following statements?

• To tackle declining revenues, football clubs need to be more creative in their sales & marketing
• Football clubs are overly reliant on traditional revenue streams such as broadcast rights and gate receipts
• Football clubs should be penalised for building success off debt
• Football clubs have yet to fully exploit the licensing & merchandising opportunities available to them
• Due to the current economic climate, football clubs are likely to see a higher turnover of sponsors in the next five years
• Football clubs and their sponsors actively engage with families, communities and grass roots projects
• Football clubs listen to their fans and understand their needs and requirements

Q3: Which of the following do you think are likely to happen as a result of the credit crunch?

• Reduction in match attendance/season ticket renewals
• Wealthy owners/investors pulling out of football
• Player salaries will be reduced
• A flight flight European league club going into administration
• More clubs will be forced to take to the field without a main shirt sponsor
• English clubs being priced out of transfer deals by their European counterparts due to the strength of the Euro against the pound

Q4: Has the football industry yet to feel the full force of the recession?

• Yes
• No
• Don't know/Not sure

Q5: Are you confident that football clubs will beat the recession?

• Yes
• No
• Don't know/Not sure

Findings

The results of the research concluded that fans need to be treated more like paying consumers and that their continued loyalty should not be taken for granted. One respondent that asked to remain anonymous said: “Today’s fans are already more like traditional consumers than ‘supporters’. If the price isn’t right or the product not good enough, they’ll walk.” A key driver for the re-thinking in the way clubs treat their fans is rooted in the level of uncertainty they feel about the security of sponsorship revenues over the next five years. Seventy one percent of clubs surveyed said they expected to experience a high turnover of sponsors although the view from non-club respondents was slightly less pessimistic with 66% predicting a high turnover of sponsors over the same period as a result of the current economic climate.

The findings - which suggest that clubs need to work harder at delivering better value to their customers rather than just focusing on servicing the needs of their sponsors - came on the heels of a critical report by the All Party Parliamentary Football Group that’s urged clubs to break free from the legacy of debt-leveraging in order to secure their long-term future on a more financially sustainable basis. Commenting on the research findings, Peter Gandolfi, Group Managing Director, Soccerex, said: “As the football world continues to evolve in response to new commercial challenges, the importance of treating fans as consumers is now at the top of their agenda. And it is interesting the industry recognises the need for clubs to be more creative in marketing to their fan bases in the current economic climate.”

The nature of fans’ purchasing behaviour and their loyalty to clubs is changing and much more value is expected to be delivered to them in return for their loyalty. In the past, clubs could get away with hikes in the price of an annual season ticket or replica kit but now they can’t afford to alienate or lose these highly valuable customer segments. Paul Barber, Executive Director, Tottenham Hotspur FC, commented:  “Fans are the life blood of any club and their loyalty should never be taken for granted. Although their commitment begins at an early age and is usually lifelong, fans must still be recognised as customers of the Club and should be treated as such. More than ever in this economic climate, we need to listen to our fans on a regular basis to ensure we continue to understand their expectations off the pitch as well as on it”.

Dr Geoff Walters from the Department of Management at Birbeck College concluded: “The Guru in a Bottle/Soccerex findings are a useful barometer of how the football industry sees itself at the moment. The tendency for the richest clubs in the Premier League to dominate the economics of football leads to difficulties in creating a sustainable business model for the future of the sport, particularly for clubs in the Football League. The good news is that clubs at all levels have a unique opportunity to focus their sales and marketing activities towards their fans and this provides the best way forward in securing future earnings on a long-term basis outside of the reliance on factors like broadcasting revenue that are outside their control.”

Soccerex Panel

It was extremely important that the panel reflected a cross-spectrum of interests and perspectives across the sport and they were provided with a full briefing of the results ahead of the session at Soccerex. On the day itself, Ardi Kolah ran through how the panel discussion would work as well as how the audience would be brought into the debate.

The panel consisted of:

• Ardi Kolah, CEO, Guru in a Bottle - Chairman
• Vijay Solanki, Director EMEA, Blackberry
• Gareth Roberts, Sponsorship Controller, Carlsberg UK
• Richard Brinkman, Head of TNS Sport (Wpp plc)
• Paul Barber, Commercial Director, Tottenham Hotspur FC
• Adolfo Bara, Marketing & Sales Director, Real Club Deportivo Espanyol

Feedback from delegates

The session on the commercial challenges facing football clubs was the most well attended of all the sessions at Soccerex 09 and was a stunning success, according to the feedback received from the delegates.

To view the video testimonial from Peter Gandolfi, Group Managing Director, Soccerex click here.

To discuss how we can work with you in empowering your team performance in sales, marketing, communication and presentation call us today on 0207 580 2819 or complete our feedback form

 

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