All 20 of England’s top-flight sides are leaving native shores
to help build their global profiles this summer, but why are they doing
so and what might be the pitfalls?
ANALYSIS By George Ankers
It
might be an even wetter British summer than usual, but it is still an
oddity to see not a single Premier League club miss the opportunity to
spend their pre-season away from home.
In 2011, 18 of England’s
top 20 sides used their preparation time to jet to all corners of the
world, and this year, Fulham’s announcement of a trip to Germany made it
a full house.
While the Cottagers join the likes of Norwich City
and Southampton in making the now-almost-dull-by-comparison move to play
two or three matches in central Europe, Manchester City, Manchester
United, who kick-off their tour of South Africa on Wednesday, and
Chelsea are leading the way with high-profile jaunts to “key markets” in
Asia and North America. But why do Premier League clubs spend their
summers this way?
The root of the answer, of course, is money. As
Barclays’ jaw-dropping £120 million three-year renewal of the division’s
naming rights and primary sponsorship – an astonishing rise of £13m per
year – proved, the English league is by some distance the biggest fish
in the financial pond, and the rewards are there for those who can grasp
them.
“Like any brand, they’re looking to access emerging markets
or markets, potentially, that they’re weak in,” explains Adam Raincock
of Synergy Sponsorship.
“They
will look at it purely tactically from a business-operation point of
view in terms of ‘what are the emerging markets?’ or ‘what market do we
want to go into?’ and then they’ll use the tour as their marketing tool
in order to access that particular market.
“Manchester United have
been everywhere from the Far East to the US – which they concentrated
on for a couple of years – and it’s not by chance. The tour is the best
way that they can launch or re-launch in a particular market into which
you’re taking the product, because people can see the brand in action.”
With
so many people in every corner of the globe glued to the television,
the prospect of providing face-to-face context for that fanatical
interest is lucrative.
Be it a Manchester United telecoms
partnership in Pakistan or a Steven Gerrard-themed hotel in Indonesia,
there is no industry that doesn’t want to be associated with the Premier
League.
So a trip to, for example, Kuala Lumpur, where Manchester
City will head at the end of July, is a great way for the club to
attract new local sponsors and use those sponsors to help gain exposure
and, therefore, long-term support.
There will also be some
influence from existing sponsors, as Raincock continues: “If you look at
Arsenal, they were going to go to Nigeria this year. Emirates are
obviously their principal sponsor and if you look at the Emirates chief
executive, last November he talked about China and Africa as being their
key markets that they’re looking to expand their route network into.
“I
think they’re key sponsors as well, so they’ll play a part in
determining where the tour goes, and obviously for Emirates, a tour to
Africa is very lucrative to them as well as Arsenal.
“I would
still say that the primary reason is to develop new sponsorships,
though. These big clubs, they split the globe up – so Man United will
have an official mobile phone supplier in Asia, one in Africa, one in
Europe and things like that, so they really carve the globe up and sell
different packages in different areas.”
For all the bean-counting
it is, of course, also an opportunity to give back directly to those
supporters, who watch every week at ungodly hours of the night and spend
so much on merchandise and TV subscriptions, by playing matches and
making public appearances to meet their heroes. The Premier League may
only listen to its heart when it can make money at the same time, but it
does at least have one.
That said, another reason why clubs are
so keen to play their pre-season games overseas is purely to get bums on
seats. With preparatory matches being what they are, and Britain being a
small enough country that most people can travel to see the big teams
play during a regular season, attendances are low at home.
If
Chelsea fly to USA, though, as they have done frequently in recent
years, they can attract 69,000 fans for a game in Seattle and afford to
charge essentially a regular-season ticket price in the process. A full,
thrilled crowd is a bank-balance boost – and probably inspires the
players to take the games more seriously, too.
Sometimes the
decision is not so much about breaking new ground as merely keeping up
with your rivals. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger had steadfastly ignored the
big summer tours for a long time before finally relenting and embarking
on a pre-season tour of Asia in 2011, and the Gunners are doing the
same this time around.
The Frenchman called it a “compromise” but,
when the north Londoners must compete domestically with the
ever-growing financial might of City, United and Chelsea, failure to
keep up out of season could mean failure to do so during it.
“If
you look at the Arsenal case – and I’m speculating here – I think that
was a battle between the commercial and playing sides of it,” says Mr
Raincock. “In terms of Arsene Wenger not wanting to take his squad
halfway around the world to play in games that, to him, don’t matter in
terms of development of his squad.
“On the other side, you’ve got
the commercial team going ‘look, we’re falling behind Man United’ and
things like that. I think for a couple of years there was a battle
between those two sides of it, but ultimately, I think what they did to
bring Wenger round, they needed to show the cold, hard commercials of
such a tour, and in the end the commercial won out.
“They did risk
falling behind the big clubs because this is where all the money’s
coming from, the emerging markets, and the top Premier League clubs are
in a great position to be able to capitalise on them.
“[The trip
to Nigeria] was cancelled more for operational reasons than commercial
so certainly, going forward, I think you’ll see Arsenal following suit
with the big clubs.”
So it is that Arsenal will face Roberto
Mancini’s side in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium on July 27, the first
day of the London Olympics. That in itself will be a fascinating test of
football’s pulling power, to see whether an essentially-meaningless
match will be able to hold its own in the ratings stakes or be drowned
under the Games’ pull. The Premier League’s rampant marketing drive
suggests that it should still draw in plenty of interest.
Indeed,
the sheer appeal of the league itself might create some openings for the
smaller clubs to get a piece of the pie. “Much like the action on the
field in the Premier League, there’s going to be the haves and the
have-nots,” Raincock adds.
“People talk about a two-speed Premier
League in terms of playing, but I also think that, in terms of
commercials, there’s a massive two-speed system where the big clubs are
securing these deals.
“It all comes down to ‘what’s your reach?’,
so Manchester United compared to Swansea City, the reach is clearly
massively different. What these smaller clubs can look to do is ride on
the coat-tails of the Premier League, because the Premier League itself
is a huge global brand.
“Swansea being part of that gives them
certain leverage in markets but it’s clearly not going to be on the same
scale as the bigger clubs. But it’s good that they’re trying to,
because they’re identifying the opportunity and trying to capitalise on
it.”
We may have yet to see the potential pitfalls of these big
tours at work. More frequent and extensive touring could bring concerns
over player burnout before the hard work even begins, with matches in
places like Abu Dhabi and Singapore often played in intense heat, not to
mention the many hours of relentless travelling to and fro.
If
the Community Shield is soon tempted to follow the Italian Supercoppa’s
lead and move abroad as well, such an effect could start to pile up.
For
now, though, the positives of the far-reaching pre-season tour are far
outweighing the negatives for England’s elite – which is why this
country’s training grounds will be 20 squads emptier for these next few
weeks.
