OFFSET YOUR WORLD CUP TRAVEL WITH GREENERTRAVEL
Date: 14th July 2023
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
The happiest club in Scotland this weekend will be Cowdenbeath.
For undeclared reasons, to do with past and current friendships and decisions behind closed doors, they have squeaked above others with bigger, better and more open claims into our Scottish League Cup which opens tomorrow.
It will deliver over £20k minimum for the Blue Brazil, and yes that might not be enough for a good night out, according to wee Chick, but it’s a fortune to any Lowland League club and will augment crowd uplifts too.
I find it quite funny that this particular cup has also been declared as ‘sponsored by Viaplay’ the Scandi mob whose core used to be Setanta.
It is now the ‘Viaplay Cup’ according to the SPFL, who have obviously, maybe cleverly, or maybe sneakily, packaged it up as a makeweight in one of their media deals that we never get to see.
However the majority of reportage about the cup still calls it what it is and always has been.
The Scottish League Cup.
I’ll be at a game but don’t ask me or other fans how much of the ‘money’ attributed to the ‘Sponsorship’ deal finds its way to youth football in Inverness or to subsidising pitches in Stranraer.
I’d guess half of bugger all.
The revenue goes to the clubs and the biggest clubs trouser the most and it gets mostly wasted on mercenaries with minimal multiplier effects.
In a country with two major men’s cups our sponsorship performance on matching our male competitions with suitable wholesome sponsors and providing game changing sums into the system is proving a delivery too far.
If you were an outsider looking at not just the underperformance financially but also where the paltry sums end up you’d start by asking simple questions.
Simple Questions Mostly beginning with Why?
You’d soon find the reasons are less than simple.
We all know our men’s cups potentially deliver significant multi media value across a nation of over 6 million but the commercial teams on the 6th floor who deliver sponsorship revenues on our behalves seem to find it impossible to match them to genuine partners.
This week’s Murrayfield ‘slam-dunk’ delivery makes us look like poor relations.
We are.
Very poor relations.
And our way forward should be to identify the reasons why and address or bypass them.
Fans can see through ‘non – Sponsorships’ like the ‘Viaplay’ Cup, stick-on plaster, branding.
We also want to see long term relationships that benefit our sport and our communities and not just the winners of the antique silverware.
Fans pay good money to be supporters in Scotland and want our sport to be seen as premium and not a poor Hobson’s Choice, a token effort.
To this blogger, rebranding and upselling our game takes thought that isn’t that difficult yet it is something that we seem incapable of.
And not just because of our voting structures and the power of the big clubs always wanting more of any and every cake.
Sure, we can sell our sport hard to toxic partners like Gambling or alcohol or even tobacco if it was allowed but sponsorship is a two way street and we obviously don’t and probably can’t deliver downstream to the right partners.
And worryingly, we don’t seem to know how to get out of the deepening rut we are experts at digging for ourselves.
We’re trapped in a Pete Seeger song,
Where have all the sponsors gone, long time passing?
Why is all the money less than long time ago?
Where have all the sponsors gone?
Found better partners everyone
Oh when will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
It’s never too late but I don’t see us pulling rabbits out of hats anytime soon.
This Week’s Sting
1. Cooking on Gas at Murrayfield
2. Strict Liability Approval
3. Beyonce and Etta Sing About Ian and Neil
4. Packaging the Girls
5. More on ‘The Manageress’
1. Making Us Look Bereft
SRU Announce Record Sponsorship Deal with Scottish Gas
It’s a deal that got Centrica’s boss, Chris O’Shea on a plane north.
The amount is said to be £ Eight figures over 5 years i.e. way more than double our current cinch undersell, (where peace has finally broken out) and infinitely more than either of our men’s cups get. (The previous biggest SRU deal was £20M with BT and this is said to be bigger).
The headline elements are the ‘Naming of Murrayfield’ to the almost unrepeatable, ‘Scottish Gas Murrayfield’, (a mouthful almost nobody will ever use), and the Women’s International Rugby tops are a makeweight add-on.
But fair play to the SRU because they seem to have thought about this one, attracted, hooked and reeled in a potential sponsor who in the current confusion of unprecedented price rises, record profits and stop oil and gas protests has a need to be loved like never before and was an easy target
(Why were we not banging at their door?)
The Centrica deal includes:
– A 5 year commitment to support 130 community clubs to reduce their carbon footprints and energy bills.
– Free energy efficiency advice.
– Access to a £2M fund to improve clubhouses.
A hard working package based on mutual opportunities rather than just giving money mostly to the biggest clubs.
It will probably make Centrica a profit too in future business.
The best type of win/win deals.
SRU Chief Mark Dodson knows full well that energy firms are unpopular right now with his customers and members and in a week where his appointment to the SRU board of well known Tory Ruth Davidson did not go down well with many, asked that Scottish fans take a longer term view.
Mark wants them to see how the deal can help develop the game across the country and aid the environmental ambitions and requirements that everyone has.
“Scottish Gas brings environmental expertise to all clubs and this is our biggest ever deal cascading right down to every level of Scottish Rugby”.
Chris O’Shea, Grand Fromage at Centrica, and paid more per annum than our collective deal with cinch, even with Rangers back in the camp, said,
“It is an opportunity to bring a message to all rugby grounds across Scotland. ‘Scottish Gas Murrayfield’, is an iconic name for our brand to link with, and together we will help decarbonise lots of community rugby clubs and be good for the planet. It is a true partnership and much more than just a branding exercise”.
Yes, the Press Release Tries to Disguise That This is Really ‘Sportswashing’ Using PR Gobbledegook
But it is Sportswashing, and it is Commercial too, to a Hard Nosed, Carbon Centred Energy Provider and to the SRU and its Clubs
The energy companies collectively need to change or at lease soften public perceptions and we know in reality they are are only friends to themselves and their own shareholders.
That is business.
But there are also mutual benefits here.
And sponsoring various rugby initiatives in Scotland is not illegal.
It is also immeasurably better than the gambling money coming into our game, or more pay per view extortion and sleights of hand.
Once again those managing the oval ball game have made us look rather ‘off the pace’.
Yes we have a recent Scottish Power link with our women’s game but it is smaller beer and the absence of our men raises questions,
2. Responsibility is With the Clubs
In last week’s Sting I raised a ‘Fan’s Charter’ and ‘Strict Liability’ as two things that would be improvements in our game and the postbag agreed.
Fans should discuss, debate and agree what is acceptable and agreeable behaviour by fans and to fans.
And this is intertwined with fan behaviour where if clubs were deemed morally and financially liable, pretty soon social disruption and the cost to communities would start to recede.
I particularly agreed with emails from Tommy from Brechin, William from Stirling, and Carol from Wick.
“At some grounds I am treated like I am sub-human. Why should any of us pay to be treated like lesser beings. We need to up the standards? We need to be treated like Rugby fans”.
“No fan wants to get caught up in mob behaviour and unpleasantness, and each time it happens you know the next time it will happen again but worse. Stewards and Polis back off, achieve nothing, and seldom seem to act afterwards. If unacceptable fan behaviour hurt their clubs financially then we’d see it disappear like the snow off a dyke in March”.
“How come Strict Liability is accepted by all our clubs in Europe, yet they fight the idea tooth and nail against it in Scotland.
Right now the tail seems to be wagging the dog, Please keep this one broiling on the BBQ”.
More views always welcome.
3. Nicola, For Some Reason the Answer is a Wee Song
One of my regular contacts, Nicola, wrote after last week’s section about league sizes.
“Andy, the research you share with us never comes as a surprise but it seems to make no difference to anything.
Do they (the payroll at Hampden and those who represent our clubs at Hampden) ever think about their customers and how they think? Don’t they ever think past season book renewal?
Why do they never do research with fans”?
Thanks Nicola, I think they know deep down, and have become battle hardened to the fact, that if you don’t ask you can just get on with and justify what you are doing and indeed what you have always done.
Never ask questions where the answer will cause you hassle.
Here are two versions of a song that sums up extreme ‘myopia for a reason’.
Etta has long passed but Beyonce will probably share her thoughts for next week’s update after she has read Sting. (Everybody reads Sting).
I’d Rather Go Blind – YouTube
Beyonce, I’d Rather Go Blind
Etta James – I’d Rather Go Blind – YouTube
Etta James, ‘I’d Rather go Blind’.
4. Well Done the SFA
Yes that is a true heading.
In a week where a pal told me his seats at Murrayfield cost £150 per ticket.
Yes £150 per seat just to watch us beat England next Winter, when it is also free on council telly.
Anyway that £150 bargain makes our Girls package look cheap as chips for the upcoming Women’s Nations League games against Belgium, The Netherlands and England.
3 Tuesday night matches with a 7.45 kick off.
The SFA price is just £40 for the 3 match package, £25 for kids and oldies and on sale Monday morning at 10 am.
Brilliant guys.
Really brilliant and I hope it sells out.
But, and why is there always a but?
A Customer Friendly Request to the Same SFA I’ve Just Praised
Please allow fans to decide where they want to sit (within reason).
Don’t just sell tickets by the block in your own mandated order.
Change and sell them on line like theatres do.
Please think about the customer and give them a choice and yes the early birds get the best worms.
It is after all the entertainment business.
5. Two Series, A Book and Still Big in Germany and France
I mentioned ‘The Manageress’ last week and wasn’t the only one who remembered Cherie Lunghi pretending badly to know about football.
George from Keith said, “Gabriella was wooden and it was crap but I watched every episode”.
The series was filmed at Reading’s old ground, Elm Park.
IMDB give it 7.8 out of 10 and it is on YouTube, I think for free in the same way that special firesticks give some fans free Scottish games.
The Manageress S01E01 A Man’s Game – YouTube
If George is interested and very rich he can also buy both series on new DVD at Amazon for a bargain £149.99, ‘used’ a snip at £74.90 .
That’s me for this week, feel free to comment on anything I’ve said or raised and if you haven’t already, please read the McLeish Free Report.
This week’s ‘album on repeat’ to keep out the Morningside seagulls is Plainsong’s ‘In Search of Amelia Earhart’ on vinyl. They were a band put together for a short time by Ian Matthews, born Ian Macdonald, ex Fairport Convention and also Matthews Southern Comfort.
A great album by an unheralded legend with Sottish roots, somewhere.
Scottish Football Needs:
– An Open and fair Pyramid.
– Fair treatment for youngsters by clubs.
– A Football Futures Fund.
– A Fans Charter.
– Strict Liability.
– Kids football prioritised, free, and central to everything throughout the game.
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