Reuters has run this story quoting Fulham CEO Alistair Mackintosh on the club’s tie up with American sports marketing firm, Fenway Sports Group.
The deal has caused alarm with Fulham fans because of the consideration now placed on selling the naming rights to Craven Cottage.
We’re thrilled to work with Fenway Sports Group, a proven leader in the sports-marketing industry. FSG has an unparalleled list of corporate contacts, and we`re certain that their sports marketing experience, knowledge, and strategic thinking will give us the best opportunity to tell the Fulham story to our target audience of North American marketing executives.
Fenway Sports Group’s President Sam Kennedy’s talk of brands is depressingly predictable.
We saw a lot of similarities between Craven Cottage and Fenway Park when reviewing this opportunity and are excited to work with one of the top football clubs in London.
Fulham and the English Premier League are leading sports brands and we are eager to speak with potential corporate partners about how they can achieve their global marketing objectives by partnering with Fulham.
Richard Scudamore will be salivating at the prospect of his barmy 39th game scheme being back on the agenda too.
As a Red Sox fan (or, was until the whole Red Sox Nation crap took over) I think I am the only one who views this is a good move. The current ownership of the Sawks (as they’re pronounced in Boston) turned around the team from the ineptitude of the Yawkey Family.
Sure, they’ve marketed the HELL out of Fenway Park. But they transformed it from a revered but decrepit park into the best stadium in baseball, if not in American professional sports through countless innovative ways.
Some of the changes, per wikipedia: # Before the 2003 season, seats were added to the Green Monster.
# Before the 2004 season, seats were added to the right field roof, above the retired numbers, called the Budweiser Right Field Roof.
# Before the 2005 season, a new drainage system was installed on the field. The system, along with new sod, was installed to prevent the field from becoming too wet to play on during light to medium rains, and to reduce the time needed to dry the field adequately. Work on the field was completed only weeks prior to spring training.
# After the 2005 season, the Red Sox completed their plans for the .406 Club area, which became the EMC Club. The construction resulted in 852 pavilion club seats, 745 pavilion box seats, and approximately 200 pavilion standing-room seats along the left- and right-field lines, resulting in approximately 1300 additional seats.
# The winter of renovations focused on renovating the luxury boxes as well as adding a new food concourse area and renovated bathrooms behind the third base grandstands.
# Before the 2008 season, the temporary luxury boxes installed for the 1999 All-Star Game were removed and permanent ones were added to the State Street Pavilion level. Seats were also added down the left field line called the Coca-Cola Party-Deck. 100 standing-room tickets were also added to the pavilion increasing capacity to just under 40,000 people. The Coke bottles, installed in 1997, were also removed to return the light towers to their original state. All bleacher seats were replaced and the seating bowl water-proofed as well.
# Before the 2009 season, the right field roofbox seating area was renovated and expanded and the original 1912 seating bowl was water-proofed and seats replaced.
And this also goes beyond just Craven Cottage –it’s opening new alleys to market the club that I as a marketing simpleton can’t think of yet.
Timmy, I don’t think anyone has a problem with the business relationship. The issue is renaming Craven Cottage. I’ve only been a supporter since 2000, but I’ve done enough research on the club to make it feel like I’ve followed them my whole life. If I’m against a name change, you know our friends who HAVE followed the club their entire lives are against it.
Beyond the renaming of Craven Cottage, I’m sure this is a fantastic deal. And I’m all for a 39th game, why not? It beats giving up a home game DURING a 38 game season. If 39th isn’t possible, then bring Fulham over to play the New England Revolution as a pre-season friendly for Fulham. I’m sure nobody would be against that and it would give Fulham nice U.S. exposure, especially if ESPN televised it.
I’m not against the deal per se, because I think Fenway – judging by their portfolio and their success in marketing the Red Sox (although they’ve spawned an obnoxious type of fan I wouldn’t want visiting the Cottage) – could be very handy in trying to crack a growing US soccer market. That said, renaming Craven Cottage should not be an option. The board have tried to move us from Craven Cottage once and the fans rebelled and they had to shelve their non-sensical plans for playing in the middle of nowhere at White City. It’s for that reason – and that reason alone – why I don’t trust the board as far as I could throw them (and that’s not very far). All the key figures from the Fulham River Projects deal are still in place.
Add to that, the fact that naming rights for older stadiums are just not that lucrative. It works with a big club like Arsenal – but even they manage to get as much as they were expecting from the Emirates Stadium. Soulless bowls like the KC, JJB (or whatever it’s called now) and the Reebok are almost expected to have plastic names, not a ground with character and history like the Cottage.
I don’t agree with Jason on the 39th game. It’s a money-making exercise pure and simple – done with greed as the primary motivation and shows scant regard for the fans who follow their teams home and away in greater numbers than in any other country. There’s no logical reason for it – and playing local derbies in foreign cities, as Scudamore as suggested is just the ultimate kick in the teeth. I’m not against a pre-season friendly at all; indeed, I’m rather surprised Fulham have made more of an attempt to crack the American market this way, particularly with Americans in the key positions at the club.
Game 39: no, no, no, no, no. No. No. No.
Fenway link. Why not?
Renaming? I’m actually not that against it if it brings something tangible. We’d still call it Craven Cottage, after all. It’d be weird but we’d get used to it. But only if it brings in crazy money that’s needed.
Gonna post my comment here (same as another post here)
Why is everyone reading this all over the net and assuming they mean a 39th game? Has anyone thought that they may just want to move 1 home match from Craven Cottage to Fenway? 1 match…which would mean we still play a 38 game season and lose 1 home match.
I just find it funny how everyone just assume “39th game”
Because Rich, it’s the last tangible bit of heritage we’ve got and I’m loathe to let a marketing mogul ride roughshod over it. The club have rebranded our badge, tried to move us away from the Cottage and now want to sell the name of our ground to the highest bidder.
On the less emotive point, there’s a serious doubt as to whether the renaming would bring in the kind of ‘crazy money’ you are talking about. Arsenal didn’t get as much for the Emirates as they expected and we’re probably the lowest profile London club in the top flight so I can’t imagine us raking it in.
Jason – Because if we unilaterally decided to move a game to Boston it would be a breach of Premier League rules. The clubs have to take a decision as a collective to more matches overseas and the only scenario under which that would happen is in the guise of the ’39th game’.
Hi Dan
Yes, I get that, but it would still be Craven Cottage. I’m with you on balance anyway, but if you’re 99% opposed I’m probably 89%, that’s all.
Moving one of the 38 games to Boston is almost as bad as game 39, worse in some ways as we’d see a game less. People need to stop pissing around with these sorts of ideas, if it ain’t broke, etc. Feel free to do pre-season tours, tournaments, even perhaps League Cup games (there’s an idea!) but lay off the league.
Rich
Fair enough. I just think it would be the first step on a slippery slope.
I’d lay off all the competitions altogether. Moving League Cup games overseas will just devalue the competition even further and they’ll be even more incentive for managers to field teams of youngsters. Pre-season tours and tournaments are great but English comeptitive games should stay on these shores.
Rules can be changed Dan and if money is involved, the powers that be will give in, trust me.
I suggested moving a mid-week match to Fenway since we can’t seem to fill the Cottage during the week anyways. When we’re able to sell out the Cottage during the week, I’ll shut up. Otherwise, I’m open to the idea.
Oh, I’ve no doubt the powers-that-be would love to chase the dollar all over the world, and if they did I’d seriously have to contemplate whether it was worth me spending as much of my hard-earned cash following Fulham home and away.
We’re getting a lot closer to selling out the Cottage for midweek games. Ticket sales for Roma have really picked up this week I see as well. We’re in a much healthier position attendance wise than we were even a couple of years ago – and I don’t think moving games to Fenway is the answer.
But midweek games are what, 5,000 people off Saturday games? So that’s 5,000 people, many of whom are away fans (can’t travel a long way on a Tuesday), most of whom are occasional visitors, and for that the game is a candidate to move overseas? This doesn’t make sense to me. You’re still punishing the fans who go every week.
You raise a good point there Rich about the internationalising of domestic fixtures. The English clubs take fans away from home in great numbers than any other European (and maybe world) league so moving matches overseas won’t just punish the home fans it will mean that visiting supporters miss out on an away day. I’ve lost count of the number of visiting fans who have told me that coming to Craven Cottage is one of their favourite trips of the season.
Ah, that wasn’t quite my point – I was just responding to Jason’s point about not selling out – but your point is good too. The whole thing’s silly. As I said above, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Monday’s game was, for some time, one of those “Game 39? They’d love this in Abu Dhabi” encounters wasn’t it? In fact, if a game must be taken overseas, I have hit upon a solution. Take two far apart big sides – let’s say Chelsea and Manchester City – and play both league games (Chelsea home, City home) abroad on a Saturday and a Wednesday. This way overseas fans get a game that might be of more than passing interest, it’s h/a so nobody really loses out (apart from the Chelsea/City fans, but I’m sacrificing them for the greater good) and the rest of us can get on with things as we were. You can rotate the games every season, and because each club only goes once every 10 years or so you pay for x thousand fans to travel to the two matches, based on previous away games attended. I stress that the above is very much an “if you have to do this” plan, but perhaps this is workable.
Hopefully, in Rich’s workable scenario, the plane would leave Chelsea in Abu Dhabi.
Why is everyone afraid of Craven Cottage being renamed in this partnership. I don’t get that sense at all. If this were their intention, Fenway Park would have been renamed six years ago when Henry, Werner and Luccino took over the Red Sox organization. Trust me, they have abundant respect for tradition. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the New England area that disapproves of what the Red Sox have become as an organization. Yes, there are little things that people disagree with (too much advertising around the stadium now); but it could be just the price of succeeding.
I will continue to be perplexed over the partnership with Roush Racing, but that may just be because stock car racing isn’t nearly as popular in the top right corner of the US (apologies to all of those in New Hampshire).