Post by Captain Marvel on Sept 20, 2011 8:09:20 GMT 1
SportsDirect.com have gone too far with Newcastle United branding
By Chris J Reed September 20 2011, 4:08 am Leave a comment
Tagged: newcastle united, sportsdirect.com
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is this a football ground or a billboard?
SportsDirect.com’s owner, Mike Ashley, also owns Newcastle United, currently 4th in the Premiership. He never wanted to own the club, he only ever wanted to buy and sell it for a quick buck but the buyer he had lined up pulled out after he had already bought it and he was stuck with it.
Since that point he has got the club relegated, sold all its best players and slowly but surely started using the club’s ground, St James Park as a massive billboard for his terrible sports shop brand SportsDirect.com.
Many Newcastle fans boycott SportsDirect.com and there is no love lost between owner, management and fans. There is little communication and the club is generally run in a way that no normal business could ever be run. But a football club is no ordinary business. Passion for your club goes blood deep and you can’t just change allegiance just because you feel like it (unless you’re a Manchester United fan of course…..).
Ashley knows he can treat the customers like rubbish and they’ll still come back and 50,000 do every game. Newcastle fans loyalty is unmatched in the world amongst sporting clubs considering the lack of success that the team have had or even lack of entertaining football.
This weekend will see the new SportsDirect.com Newcastle United SportsDirect.com branding on the TV facing main stand, the East Strand for the first time. As you can see it looks horrendous.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Ashley and his cronies had big plans that a brand like Nike or Apple or Mastercard or Carlsberg would wish to have naming rights over St James Park and it would be X brand @ St James Park. They underestimated marketing directors who do know what they are doing who took into consideration angry and annoyed fans who vented their protests over this idea from the start and 18 months later there is no sponsor.
The London based owners are not liked anymore now than when they took over
Which brand would want to start with negative reactions and association and alignment with a disliked management and pay for the privilege when sponsorship of a football club is supposed to be about brand synergy, positive brand association and sharing a passion (although judging by the amount of non-descript betting brands sponsoring football clubs at the moment this rationale went out of the window as soon as someone wrote a cheque large enough)?
Unfortunately it looks like SportsDirect .com will have their way and will brand every inch of St James Park bit by bit. It won’t encourage anymore Newcastle fans to visit his Lonsdale littered cheap and tacky warehouses but it will remind Mike Ashley that he stills owns a football club he doesn’t want.
Read more: chrisreed.brandrepublic.com/2011/09/20/sportsdirect-com-have-gone-too-far-with-newcastle-united-branding/#ixzz1YTRGSYmY
By Chris J Reed September 20 2011, 4:08 am Leave a comment
Tagged: newcastle united, sportsdirect.com
Share
is this a football ground or a billboard?
SportsDirect.com’s owner, Mike Ashley, also owns Newcastle United, currently 4th in the Premiership. He never wanted to own the club, he only ever wanted to buy and sell it for a quick buck but the buyer he had lined up pulled out after he had already bought it and he was stuck with it.
Since that point he has got the club relegated, sold all its best players and slowly but surely started using the club’s ground, St James Park as a massive billboard for his terrible sports shop brand SportsDirect.com.
Many Newcastle fans boycott SportsDirect.com and there is no love lost between owner, management and fans. There is little communication and the club is generally run in a way that no normal business could ever be run. But a football club is no ordinary business. Passion for your club goes blood deep and you can’t just change allegiance just because you feel like it (unless you’re a Manchester United fan of course…..).
Ashley knows he can treat the customers like rubbish and they’ll still come back and 50,000 do every game. Newcastle fans loyalty is unmatched in the world amongst sporting clubs considering the lack of success that the team have had or even lack of entertaining football.
This weekend will see the new SportsDirect.com Newcastle United SportsDirect.com branding on the TV facing main stand, the East Strand for the first time. As you can see it looks horrendous.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Ashley and his cronies had big plans that a brand like Nike or Apple or Mastercard or Carlsberg would wish to have naming rights over St James Park and it would be X brand @ St James Park. They underestimated marketing directors who do know what they are doing who took into consideration angry and annoyed fans who vented their protests over this idea from the start and 18 months later there is no sponsor.
The London based owners are not liked anymore now than when they took over
Which brand would want to start with negative reactions and association and alignment with a disliked management and pay for the privilege when sponsorship of a football club is supposed to be about brand synergy, positive brand association and sharing a passion (although judging by the amount of non-descript betting brands sponsoring football clubs at the moment this rationale went out of the window as soon as someone wrote a cheque large enough)?
Unfortunately it looks like SportsDirect .com will have their way and will brand every inch of St James Park bit by bit. It won’t encourage anymore Newcastle fans to visit his Lonsdale littered cheap and tacky warehouses but it will remind Mike Ashley that he stills owns a football club he doesn’t want.
Read more: chrisreed.brandrepublic.com/2011/09/20/sportsdirect-com-have-gone-too-far-with-newcastle-united-branding/#ixzz1YTRGSYmY
I've seen Newcastle United win silverware!
There probably would'nt be as many objections, if it was a "prestige" firm like Nike or Adidas though, but Sports Direct is on par with pound shops!! ;D
