Mike Ashley’s big, fat, St James’ Park lie?
Posted on February 18th, 2012 | 91 Comments |
Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf.
The more the Sports Directification of St James’ Park continues, the more I am reminded of those words by that infamous Austrian troublemaker. It is now over two years and three months since the Stadium renaming project was announced, with Mike Ashley finally removing the last vestige of what was once St James’ Park last Thursday. Despite the ever expanding amount of tacky Sports Direct signage around the stadium, quite a few Geordies still beleive that Mike Ashley is trying desperately to sell the naming right’s of St James’ Park to, as Derek Llambias said in in his own classy and inimitable way, “bring a big chunk o’ money” into the club. They still find it hard to believe that his “showcase” idea is an elaborate Trojan horse, a charade in a naming rights offer which was designed to fail from the start, leaving Sports Direct with full naming rights for the stadium indefinitely with no appreciable financial gain for the club itself.
If anyone had taken the trouble to read the views of virtually everyone in the sponsorship industry on this ludicrous project, some of which I collected in this story, they may well think again. They are the people Ashley will have to impress with his ludicrous offer as they are the ones who advise corporations on potential sponsorship opportunities, but they find it to be risible. Perhaps the most risible of all is the idea that “showcasing” the the renaming of Newcastle United’s home with the name of Sports Direct will actually enhance the offer rather than debase it.
On this, sports marketing journal “Sports marketing & sponsorship intelligence” had this to say:
“Arguably the most bizarre decision made by the club, however, is to brand the stadium as the Sports Direct Arena (named after Mike Ashley’s sports goods company) for a year to showcase the opportunity. What it has showcased to date is the sheer naivety of the club’s board. First, naming rights deals work over a long-term. They are not used for short-term tactical marketing or generating brand awareness but for long-term relationships and brand building.
“Look at naming rights deals around the globe and it is very rare to find any that run for less than five years and most significant examples run for 10 years at minimum. It’s difficult to see how the Sports Direct Arena name can be activated to create a ‘showcase’. There is little time to do anything significant to bring the new name to life, especially with such universal derision among the football, media and marketing communities.
“So what can the board prove to potential sponsors?
“Surely had they wished to demonstrate levels of stadium name awareness and positive resonance, they would have been a lot better basing the marketing on the existing name. What they are inviting now is a comparison between awareness and positive feelings that surround St James’ Park with the results from the change. There is only one way this can go and it won’t be appealing to sponsors.
“The type of major sponsor that the club is targeting will be represented by sophisticated marketing professionals. They already understand how naming rights work and they know how to research the value and potential; they don’t need an irrelevant and counter-productive exercise to help make their decision.”
Mike Ashley has certainly has the means to produce an offering which is much better and more realistic than the one he has, yet he has chosen not to. Instead, he has chosen to break virtually every single rule in the sponsorship book, perhaps deliberately. As every day passes, it seems to become more and more apparent that he simply doesn’t care because he is very happy with things the way they are. After all, his whole raison d’etre in buying the club was to use it as a vehicle to promote Sports Direct. So doesn’t it seem a little nonsensical that he would invest over £130 million in the club, only to let someone else use it as a vehicle to promote their company for £3-5 million per annum? Going on other examples, this is all he could reasonably hope to achieve from such a sale. The £8-10 million figure given by Derek Llambias was pure piffle, and mentioning a figure at all in public before a deal has been agreed flouted yet another cardinal rule of sponsorship.
“They’re unwise to raise expectations of £10 million incremental revenue and creating linkage with new signings – there’s already antagonism amongst fans to the sale of naming rights and Derek Llambias is now preparing a frosty welcome for any sponsor buying in ‘on the cheap’.” Shaun Whatling – Red Mandarin.
For those who would cite the exanple of Manchester City’s deal with Etihad Airways, worth £400 million over 10 years for both stadium and shirt sponsorship, forget about that. That was a family arrangement, a flagrant attempt to flout UEFA’s recent “financial fair play” regulations. A more relevant example would be that of Arsenal’s deal with another middle eastern carrier, Emirates airlines, for which the North London club receive the much smaller sum of around £2.8 million per annum for the right to rename what is perhaps the finest stadium in the Premiership, for a club who have made regular appearences in the Champion’s League for many years now to boot. Of course, this was also a new stadium with none of the associated controversy of desecrating the history of a club, something which will be undoubtedly be a huge turn off for prosepective sponsors in the case of St James’ Park.
This brings us to another argument which seemed to spring up mysteriously out of nowhere, the one which says that Ashley is using his “Sports Direct” company to “take the flak” for a future sponsor. It says that Mike Ashley is initially using the Sports Direct name for the stadium to burn out the opprobrium of we fans, so that when a new, less “gauche” sponsor comes in it would be something we would welcome with open arms as some kind of merciful release, something which would make us forget the erasing of over 120 years of history. Make no mistake, Sports Direct is far more important to Mike Ashley than Newcastle United ever will be. With this in mind, isn’t the idea that he should use his main and most profitable business interest to take “flak” for his secondary one somewhat far fetched? Besides, the very idea that a company such as Nike, Adidas, Virgin or whatever would think that having Sports Direct’s leftovers would actually enhance this dubious project is also far fetched to say the least. Indeed, one of those examples, “Virgin Money,” understandably wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole, despite taking the option of shirt sponsorship for the club. In a sentence, any potential sponsors would want to be associated with the brand of Newcastle United 100%, and the brand of Sports Direct 0%, Ashley’s canard of “showcasing” the sponsorship opportunity with his own cheap and nasty Sports Direct brand is indubitably a hindrance to the project, not a help.
And so we come to the latest chapter in this saga, with Mike Ashley once again cynically taking advantage of the break in fixtures to remove the main St James’ sign and finally replace it with the new name. This is a small but nontheless highly symbolic act which makes takeover of Sports Direct complete. Bearing in mind eveything above and much more, it his highly doubtful that this will change any time soon. The stadium will remain as the “S_____ D_____ A____” for quite some time, the club will receive little or nothing for it, we fans will pipe down eventually, and this will embolden Ashley into telling us even bigger lies in the future.
I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.
Polls
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1095 articles on this blog.
I reckon he’ll keep it as the same shitty name for years (or at least until he sells up) because nobody is stupid enough to buy the naming rights.
Its a tax fiddle for company expenditure. Money , money, money, ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Couldn’t care less about it myself. I’m just trying to enjoy the football and forget about the fat ******* who pretends its his club.
What a shame we have such a cretin associated with OUR club.