Everyone feels that the European leagues, as the core of world football, are the most commercialized, especially the Premier League.
But in fact, this is not entirely true.
It's like this Newcastle team that Leeds United just stepped on.
As a traditional giant in the Premier League, the Magpies are very ambitious after returning to the Premier League, but they are still very traditional in business operations. Traditionally, they basically wait for sponsors to come to their door.
What was Newcastle's commercial revenue last season?
17.1 million pounds, not even half of Leeds United's.
What about this season?
Newcastle is expected to reach 25 million pounds due to the signing of two major sponsors, wonga and Puma, for chest advertising.
what about others?
Gone!
This is actually a very typical business model of a Premier League team.
On the contrary, teams like Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and Leeds United are considered special.
Only Newcastle is like this?
No, in European football, most teams are like this.
Even the Bundesliga, which has the best commercial revenue, is the same.
For example, most of the income of Bundesliga teams comes from Germany.
Another type is like Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain. They don’t need much commercial development at all. Anyway, there will be bosses behind the scenes to arrange sponsors.
So how do the wealthy teams play now?
…
"position!"
After watching Leeds United's victory over Chelsea, Gao Shen returned to the office with Su Qing, Lucas and Borrell and talked about the lessons he learned from his recent meal with Real Madrid's business guru Jose Sanchez.
.
"What do you mean?" Borrell didn't quite understand.
Gao Shen did not answer directly, but looked at Lucas, "When you formulated Leeds United's annual business development plan, you must have found a correct position for yourself. What is it?"
Lucas looked at Su Qing and Borrell, slightly embarrassed, "Our original plan was to work hard to develop and become a leader in the global sports culture industry."
Borrell nodded, football, of course, is a sports and culture industry.
This leader is suspected of bragging.
But it’s normal. Who doesn’t brag when doing business promotion?
These days, can you get business without bragging?
"But later, we invited a third-party consulting company, and their opinion was that our positioning was not high enough and we should change it to become a leader in the global sports and entertainment culture industry."
Su Qing suddenly raised her eyebrows and noticed that there was an additional field of entertainment.
Soon, she nodded in relief.
Nowadays, the commercial promotion of world football really needs to create stars, and the media also needs to create stars. Clubs are no longer just providing sports content such as football matches, but are even mass-producing entertainment content, especially on the Internet.
To paraphrase what many people are saying, the current world football stars are becoming more and more fan-like.
This is not new, because in the United States, this is already a recognized fact.
Gao Shen nodded, it is actually quite good for Leeds United to reach this point.
Of course, this is somewhat bragging, but teams including AC Milan and Juventus basically have this positioning.
"But do you know where Real Madrid and Manchester United position themselves now?"
Su Qing, Lucas and Borrell all shook their heads.
"As early as 2009, after Florentino took over Real Madrid, he carried out a new round of reforms in the business system. Now Real Madrid has positioned itself as a global business platform, and Manchester United is now accelerating to adjust its own.
The sponsor system has transformed from the original hierarchical classification to the current regional industry division."
Both Android and Apple are available.】
Su Qing and Lucas, who majored in economics, were the first to react, and they both showed surprised expressions.
Because they easily captured the huge difference.
At present, the vast majority of European teams adopt the traditional classification method.
What does that mean?
It is to divide sponsors into multiple different levels. Leeds United is currently a level three sponsor, and Manchester United's sponsor is level five. Sponsors at different levels are given different permissions and treatment.
The principle of exclusivity is a necessary clause in football sponsorship contracts, which means that there can only be one sponsor in the same industry.
For example, this clause is included in the contract signed by Leeds United and AXA Insurance.
After signing with AXA Insurance, Leeds United will no longer be able to cooperate with other insurance companies.
But Manchester United's five-level sponsors are quite special, that is, different levels have different permissions, and the lowest level of regional sponsors can only be regional.
For example, if Manchester United signs a contract with Bahrain Telecom, it depends on the contract negotiations between the two parties. If it is in the Middle East, it means that Manchester United can only have Bahrain Telecom as a partner among the mobile communication sponsors in the Middle East.
But Manchester United can sign multiple sponsorship contracts like Bahrain Telecom in areas outside the Middle East, such as Asia, North America, South America and other places.
If one day, Bahrain Telecom is not satisfied with the status quo and wants to expand its "sphere of influence" to the entire Asia, then it will have to upgrade. To put it simply, it means to increase money and obtain authorization for the entire Asia region.
This is true for mobile communications, and there are many other industries.
At Manchester United, only the top two main sponsors are exclusive, the others are regional.
According to the original hierarchical classification method, there is only one sponsor for an industry, which is similar to everyone bidding in an auction, and the one with the highest price wins.
This seems good, but in fact, due to sponsors’ strength and other reasons, they are often unwilling to pay very high prices.
More importantly, according to this division method, the market is made smaller and smaller.
According to the regional industry division method, the entire market is segmented so that companies in different regions and industries can create opportunities for cooperation, which can make the market as large as possible.
This is just the division of the sponsor system, and it is specific to its own positioning.
Whether you position yourself as a sports culture industry or a sports and entertainment culture industry, in the final analysis you position yourself as a content creator.
But everyone knows that in the field of professional football, results and players themselves are full of uncertainty and fluidity.
In other words, when the results are good, everything is fine, but if the results are bad, the sponsors will stop.
This is actually the situation faced by most teams now.
But for companies like Real Madrid and Manchester United, positioning themselves as a platform is equivalent to building themselves into a channel.
Some people may wonder, what do they provide?
That's their influence and fan base around the world.
In theory, it doesn't matter how bad Real Madrid and Manchester United's results are. As long as their influence and fan base remain, sponsors will continue to do what they do.
This is a bit like traffic economy.
Therefore, Real Madrid has been using the eyeball effect over the years, and so has Manchester United.
Before Gao Shen traveled through his past life, Manchester United signed Ronaldo back, earning a lot of traffic. Gao Shen even thought that Ronaldo returned to Manchester United for the Champions League and World Cup. If by 2022, the competition in the Champions League is unfavorable, the league champion
Hopeless, will Ronaldo have a "quarrel" with Manchester United before the World Cup and walk away?
Why?
Because there is no greater traffic than the World Cup.
If you take this wave, it will be enough for a year or two.
Moreover, it is beneficial to both parties.
…
Su Qing, Lucas and Borrell were all a little surprised.
They really didn't expect that leading teams like Real Madrid and Manchester United would be so advanced.
If we really go by what they say, the impact of their performance on their commercial value will be minimized.
More importantly, this business model is the sponsor system most suitable for globalization.
"Jose Sanchez believes that our Leeds United's commercial value has been underestimated, especially the effect we have achieved on the Internet in the past two years. Even Real Madrid and Manchester United are extremely envious."
"But he also believes that our business model is wrong and has not been able to effectively convert our influence and number of fans into real business value. This conversion efficiency is really too low."
Lucas was very ashamed.
After all, Jose Sanchez is a veteran who has been involved in football for more than ten years. He hit the nail on the head. The key is that his eyesight is really extraordinary, and he found the crux of Leeds United's problem at once.
And he, the CEO, has an unshirkable responsibility.
"Don't be listless, Fernando, we are just getting started." Gao Shen comforted and encouraged with a smile.
No one is born with it, the most important thing is to keep learning.
Fernando Lucas has been in charge of Leeds United for two years and has actually done quite well. However, Leeds United's business development is in trouble and he failed to turn it around in time. This is normal.
Looking at the current world football, the only teams with this kind of platform business thinking are Real Madrid and Manchester United, not even Bayern, because Bayern still focuses more on the German local market.
The most typical data is that most of Bayern's revenue comes from Germany.
But Leeds United is different. With the help of the Internet, Leeds United can rapidly expand globally. At this time, as long as the team's business model can keep up in time, there will be great potential.
"I still say what I said, leave professional matters to professional people, find headhunters to poach people, and cooperate with third-party consulting companies to improve our business development system as soon as possible." Gao Shen instructed.
If we continue to take advantage of this wave of dividends, Leeds United can fly!
"In addition, our team's current league goals need to be adjusted. I think we should focus on the top half."
Although it is a traffic internet celebrity economy, it cannot be too bad. No one will be willing to pay attention to a weak team.
And if the target is locked in the top half, then many things in Leeds United will have to be adjusted accordingly. For example, the club should start to consider retaining players, which requires improving the team's salary structure.
All in all, this will be an all-round upgrade!
This will not be something that can be achieved overnight, but once the upgrade is successful, Leeds United's potential will be completely released.
"Five years!" Gao Shen pointed out the palm of his right hand.
This is also a relatively reliable number he came up with after having an in-depth chat with Jose Sanchez.
"We will use five years to build Leeds United into a strong Premier League team, and at the same time build a new stadium of our own."
