News: FC Business Article "United We Stand"

United We Stand? By Jon Busk

This article on FFC by Jon Busk appears in this months edition of FC Business the trade magazine for the football industry in the UK and Republic of Ireland. FFC members can subscribe to the magazine at a special discounted rate, click here for more details.

While those in red are still mourning the loss of the Champions League Final to Barcelona, the same cannot be said of the wider footballing fraternity, according to a recent survey of football fans. The national survey, conducted on the day of the final by the Football Fans Census, reveals that, far from buoyed by a sense of national pride, the majority of non-United fans either wanted Barcelona to win, or simply didn’t care either way.

Whether fatigued by the recent trend of success in Europe for English clubs, or alienated by the success that United has had in the Champions league in particular, it seems fans were at best apathetic to the result and at worst backing Barcelona.

Tim Gentles, MD of the Football Fans Census commented “For English fans, it seems that the days of a kind of cosy non-partisanship in European finals is vanishing – the attitude seems increasingly to be ‘my club or no-one’”.

On the eve of the match, 44% of the fans in the survey were backing the Catalan giants, and a further 26% didn’t care which team won. As global as the Old Trafford brand has become, the days of United carrying the flag for English football seem to be well and truly over.
Less surprising was the attitude of fans of Ferguson’s nearest rivals. Of the top four clubs, 96% of Liverpool fans and 93% of Arsenal fans polled supported Barcelona, while closer to home, 96% of Man City fans backed Henry and Messi over Rooney and Neville.

The results do throw up an interesting conundrum for sponsors however. On the one hand, link-ups and deals with clubs offer obvious benefits to sponsors and brands, while on the other they can evoke the polar opposite effect on the fans of their rival clubs.

As Gentles explains “Very few big sides enjoy a neutral, ‘people’s club’ status, so the effects of a sponsorship can work in reverse on the fans of a rival club…the point is to try and weigh up the opportunity cost using the data available”

The Football Fans Index, a national survey of fans across all clubs in the UK by Football Fans Census and TGI, provides some interesting examples of the challenges that brands can face. Nike and Man United are no doubt more than happy with their association but the marriage is not universally admired.

While United fans surveyed are 10% more likely than the average fan to have bought Nike trainers in the last year, City fans are 35% less likely to have done so. And while United fans are 20% more likely to have bought an item of Nike clothing in the last twelve months, their City rivals are 40% less likely to have done so compared to the average fan in the survey.

The vast global community of United fans will obviously mitigate this downside, but, if the Champions League figures are anything to go by, their appeal in the UK is far from universal.

Drinking habits on the Mersey seem to also reflect the partisan perils of sponsoring big clubs. Liverpool fans are 60% more likely to drink Carlsberg most often, while Evertonians down the road are 40% less likely to drink it compared to the average fan in the survey.

One way round the problem is to “back both horses”, as Carling have done in sponsoring both Rangers and Celtic. While this does ensure that the brand transcends tribal loyalties in Glasgow, it is nevertheless an expensive solution.

The best policy, according to Gentles, is for both sides to enter any sponsorship with your eyes open “Clubs and brands need to ensure they’ve at least done some form of evaluation to weigh up the potential downsides. These will vary hugely from club to club but should form part of the criteria on which alliances can be judged.”

Ultimately though, it’s not just who brands sponsor, but how they do it that could mitigate against any backlash. Maybe brands should keep an eye on their rival fans a bit more – if, for example, Nike had put an ad in the Manchester Evening News after the Rome game, cheekily saying ‘nobody’s perfect’, it might have endeared them more to the blue side of Manchester!

That prospect seems unlikely but if the Champions League proved one thing it was that partisanship is as strong as ever and that clubs and brands should be aware of the potential effect on any sponsorship. That, and the fact that Messi can score with his head after all.