Gazza
Nick Barmby
Ofcourse there will always be someone else to replace someone that packs it in, but in any business it can't be a good thing.
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Daniel Levy - Chairman
- Thread starter Howard Webb
- Start date
Ofcourse there will always be someone else to replace someone that packs it in, but in any business it can't be a good thing.
Bedfordspurs
Arthur Rowe
Corrected for you
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
Hang on, are you saying that not even City and Chelsea fan pressure had anything to do with even those two clubs specifically pulling out? Why did they sign up in the first place?
United fans got the Liverpool game postponed and just had their first meeting with Joel Glazer, I think ever. He is now coming to the table, being held more accountable. And that’s because of fan pressure. I guess you might say ‘Glazer speaking to the fans is just PR’ but at what point for you does it stop becoming PR, and starts becoming something where the decisions that get made take more of the fan perspective in sooner?
When a business has as captive a customer base as football clubs do, it's not a problem.
What are we going to do, go and support Chelsea instead?
I'm not sure why they were ever involved at first, but their business models and what was being proposed were a terrible match. They're both far better off without it and that's why they stayed out.
Mobs managed to get a match delayed with their disgusting behaviour. United are now trying to stop that in order to avoid the fines and increased policing costs they were being threatened with if it continued.
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
Veeeeeeery interesting that Levy is doing this, attacking some of the criticism head on. If fans had no power he wouldn’t bother, but I think all owners are feeling the pinch a bit and he is trying to get out ahead of it.
metalgear
Nayim
Three types of power fans have:
1. Stadium attendance... This drives the spectacle
2. Revenue from non stadium viewership and merchandising... This drives sponsorship potential
3. Brand perception... This is of increasing importance with social media and tracking tools.... This drives sponsorship quality
Not surprised the PR machinery going into overdrive in the next few weeks, I judge that brand engagement is now at lowest in aong time.
Sent from my SM-T865 using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
1. Stadium attendance... This drives the spectacle
2. Revenue from non stadium viewership and merchandising... This drives sponsorship potential
3. Brand perception... This is of increasing importance with social media and tracking tools.... This drives sponsorship quality
Not surprised the PR machinery going into overdrive in the next few weeks, I judge that brand engagement is now at lowest in aong time.
Sent from my SM-T865 using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
Agreed. And I would add that on the stadium attendance piece, it also probably impacts the level of favour in the terms of we get from the banks that finance our business. SaaS companies drive huge multiples on the public and private markets because of the recurring revenue model, and our ‘subscriber’ metric is probably a pretty important one to show continued health, support and engagement. If it starts trending downwards, the short term impact in terms of straight cash from ticket sales themselves might not be huge, but the interest rates we pay might increase.
If fans had power, football would be a very different game to the one it is.
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
Isn’t it that they were involved because they thought the train was leaving and they wanted to be on it, and then they quickly saw it was more trouble than it was worth, so pulled out? I’m sure they all expected some negative reaction, but the sheer level of it probably gave City and Chelsea the cover to pull themselves, knowing the rest would soon follow. Also City’s owners are conducting a sportswashing project, and anything that allowed them to be painted as not on the side of the fans would go against their objectives.
Fan pressure also comes to the fore in the politics of it. It was an issue that united every seat in parliament because it was easy votes - the strength of feeling was so obvious and easy for politicians to appeal to. So Boris offering to drop a bomb on the project helped kill it too, but that starts from fan pressure.
I don’t doubt that the 6 out of 20 factor played some part in the mechanics of the project failing, but to suggest that fan pressure had nothing to do with it is just completely disingenuous. I think it was a fascinating study in multi-stakeholder negotiations, incentives, globalisation, industry disruption, politics…it was a really complex thing with so many moving parts and so many people had their say. But fans were most certainly a huge part of that story.
K.D.D.D.D.Soc
Paul Walsh
I'm a f u c k I n g dinosaur, I loved playing and watching football with my dad and my mates. Dont give a s h I t about pr, merchandising, media presence and what toilet paper a player uses. This was once a beautiful game but we let the moneylenders into the temple.
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
But it’s relative though right? I think I’m just arguing that fans have more power than you think they do, not that fans are all powerful.
I think they are an important stakeholder group to consider when decisions are made, and will be heard if they come together and use their voice in smart ways. I’m not disagreeing that owners, politicians, media companies, regulators, banks, agents etc etc all have power in this game too. They all influence it. I’m just arguing that fans definitely can too.
There’s definitely a flavour of collective ‘uprising’ (trying to think of a better word, but couldn’t) happening in the world right now. We’ve had a good few years of Reagan, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron kind of consensus where I think the middle classes felt largely happy and the working classes felt less engaged. I think that is changing generally when you look at where Boris’ mandate comes from, even the rise of Corbyn, AOC, Trump. All over the world, people are rising up, fighting back, new social media are allowing groups of people to organise and be heard, and the traditional gatekeepers of old media don’t shape the narratives in quite the same ways anymore.
So I think the world is changing, and football is changing along with it. I think there’s some really interesting tension in that there is a global opportunity out there in emerging markets that clubs will want to exploit if they continue to grow, and new technologies will enable that too. But there is also a more engaged, organised and empowered fan base, who probably didn’t feel heard or like the had the power before, but now their voices are being listened to by the top people in the game. And I think it’s because of that tension, that there are opportunities for owners to pull the game in another direction, that people are going to be motivated to fight back.
And that’s about the ESL and the game overall. But for Spurs specifically I think the same things. I don’t think Levy is a clam or evil, I actually think he’s a good man who because he owns the club has the right to do whatever the hell he wants with it. And he’s done a lot of good. But in a complex and changing world I think it’s important that people feel confident and empowered enough to have their say, and hold him to account. There might be other decisions that can be made that are just as good. There might be other ways of doing things. There might be a better settlement for fans. Maybe we can charge less than £60 and the club will still probably be 5th or 6th for example?
All I’m saying that the world is changing, the game is changing, and fans opportunity to be heard and apply pressure is changing with it. And given we can’t just go and support other clubs, I think we have every right to try and be heard and influence things as much as we can. Given Levy is feeling the need to do some PR puff pieces, I think it’s good for us that he is feeling the pressure.
SpurMeUp
Jimmy Cantrell
Judging by posts here brand engagement seems higher than ever! The pandemic only focused the importance of Spurs to people.
Levy confirms what most had deduced. £200m of cash to spend, or £150m (as we’ve taken out loans), would be the kind of war chest we need to take on the elites. Who delivered this infrastructure to Spurs?
Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
We just lost £200m in revenue. We don't have £200m to spend, the loans covered our costs. Paying the £175m to the bank of england and £50m to hsbc.
Gazza
Nick Barmby
If fans had no power I'd agree
Gazza
Nick Barmby
I have a business and bank with HSBC, they have been very kind to me and 8m certain a lot more kinder with Spurs... believe it or not Spurs have some leverage over the bank at the moment. It pays for both to play nice at the moment.
Like hicks and gillet had leverage over the banks when they took liverpool off them? That was over £200m. We owe over a £billion?
SpurMeUp
Jimmy Cantrell
Obviously, we don't have 200m to spend. The point was, a year and a half of Spurs games at the stadium, NFL, Boxing, Rugby, concerts plus TV money would likely give us at least 150m of cleared cash. It's an approximation but you get the point.