Our Commercial Team

[frankbutcher]

I think we all know that we're punching well below our weight on this aspect of Club Business. The much heralded and expensive Commercial Team were put in place a few years ago. But who are they and what have they done to improve us? Are we getting value for money? I don't have a particualr insight here and much of this is cobbled from Google. However the direct quotes about our Marketing approach do not make much sense to me. All seems very airy fairy. Predictably us the fans are targetted for extra money-making. And what have this team done exactly? Deals with Indesit, Carlsbery, 02, Lucozade Sports, Thomas Cook, Betsson and EA Sports.... One of the bigggest jokes is a deal to sponsor our pre-season tour. With who...? Emirates!! LOL. Couldn't make it up. Not sure what this hugely impressive team are actually providing apart from trying to weedle more money out of the customers they've already got and thus pissing them off. The Swiss Ramble question the team's performance. Of key note is how we signed a 3-year kit deal extension with Nike in 2011 at £9m per season, compared to Liverpool's £25m with Warrior and United's £25.4m per season with Nike. What are we doing????????? Serious questions need to be asked IMO.

http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2012/ ... dance.html

Here is the team and a bit about what their experience is and what they plan to do to improve us....

Tom Fox - Chief Commercial Officer

Arsenal’s chief commercial officer, Tom Fox, joined the Club in August 2009. With over 20 years of experience with some of the world’s most recognised global brands, including Gatorade, the NBA and Nike.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11380291

Angus Kinnear - Marketing Director (UK)

Before joining Arsenal, Kinnear worked at Proctor & Gamble in the brand management operation, and also headed up sports and youth marketing at Coca-Cola Great Britain.

http://www.sportspromedia.com/notes_and ... senal_way/

Nick Peel - Retail Director

Formerly head of Property Management at Land Securities and Rangers Foootball Club. One of the first things he did was to replace the current licensing partner for our merchandise and take this in-house. Worryingly he has appointed 'several new people' as a consequence.

http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1rrwb/ ... es/142.htm

Matthew Gilmore - Head of Licensing

Richard Law - Player Contracts and Trannsfers

Trevor Saving - Head of People and Operations

Svenja Geissmar - In-House Lawyer

Not known - Business Development Analyst

Vinai Venkatesham - Head of Global Partnership Development

Rupert Daniels - Global Partnerhsips

In his role at Arsenal FC Rupert is responsible for developing content driven Global Partnerships across multiple industry sectors - with a special focus on integrated digital technologies and telecommunications to engage Arsenal’s 150 million global fans.Prior to Arsenal, Rupert spent 7 years working as a Director at FIFA where he was responsible for the commercial success of the record breaking official website FIFAworldcup.com, the FIFA film & TV archives, official music & giant screens for the 2006 world cup, and executive production for FIFA TV graphics and multi-media content.

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/ars ... 60.article

Charles Allen - Head of Marketing

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/arsenal- ... 81.article

Communications Director - Mark Gonnella

Gonnella spent nearly ten years at Barclaycard and was a member of their Executive Committee. He was responsible for Public Relations, Internal Communications, Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility and developed a number of award winning communication and corporate responsibility programmes. He also led Barclaycard’s PR activities during their sponsorship of the Premier League.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17977841


On the topic of brand, the guys who know what it's all about reckon we've got it all wrong...Arsenal is the Bank of England Club. We are called The Gunners. We should be the archetypal London Club around the world, associated with class and strength. Are we perceived to be this kind of Club around the World? No. We're missing a trick. What exactly are this Commercial Team doing for us?

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/juventus ... 10.article

This team is taking up multi-millions of our budget. A joke IMO

[arseofacrow]

10 million facebook followers Frank, 10 million.

[storrmin571]

When you can't buy childrens kits and other children orientated Arsenal products a week before the start of the season then something is seriously wrong.

My father in law is a Chelsea fan, more than enough reason to hate him anyway, but we had to go the bridge to get something for his birthday, the amount of stock they had, everything from newborn baby up to size 6xl adults shirts, made me think we are missing out big time.

Co-incidence that the chavs have Addidas as the supplier?

[GranadaJoe]

With that many people the first 5 million they bring probably only covers their cost. It has been a mystery to me why a number of our commercial deals appear inferior to our competitors.

[frankbutcher]

With that many people the first 5 million they bring probably only covers their cost. It has been a mystery to me why a number of our commercial deals appear inferior to our competitors.

If anyone is on Linked-In, log in and search for Arsenal. The amout of "Execs" we have is worrying. SERIOUSLY. There are dozens if not more working on Club Level and Exec Boxes, teams that try to hire our Stadium out for concerts (all 3 days a year we're allowed. ) There are guys over-seeing our Marketing on IT Platforms (e-mailing us to see if we want to buy tickets for Arsenal v Wigan on Monday night. ) The management team size is enormous. This ignores the people on the ground that actually do the donkey work. Seems to me that Gazidis has decided to build a big impressive team without having any real clue of how British football works. He's applying US concepts to a UK model and not getting any results. SwissRamblee reckons that the Commercial Team have actually overseen a decline in Commercial revenues since being appointed.

[g88ner]

10 million facebook followers Frank, 10 million.

It reallly makes you proud, doesn't it?

Hopefully we can do the double, and rack up a few million on twitter

[augie]

It has worried me for some time now, the amount of "inside" influence nike will have when negotiating new contracts - can any of you really see adidas winning out in a bidding deal when contract runs out ?

[rolypoly]

very interesting.

can you explain what role does gooner ed`s mate gazidis have in all of this?

[frankbutcher]

very interesting.

can you explain what role does gooner ed`s mate gazidis have in all of this?

He gets paid £1m plus £700k bonus to put up season ticket prices and sell our prized players.

[rolypoly]

frankb

you are right and his bonuses are not related at all to onfield success but despite all gooner ed supports his every move.

see siver membership thread

[frankbutcher]

frankb

you are right and his bonuses are not related at all to onfield success but despite all gooner ed supports his every move.

see siver membership thread

I'm not getting involved in this one. However, I would like to point out the ridiculous juxtaposition that rewards our Club management for off-the-field failure instead of on-the-field success. Says it all really.

[frankbutcher]

It has worried me for some time now, the amount of "inside" influence nike will have when negotiating new contracts - can any of you really see adidas winning out in a bidding deal when contract runs out ?

Exactly. The Chief Commercial Officer is Nike through and through. Might he make his way back there some day???

[QuartzGooner]

Let us see what happens 2014+ when some of the commercial deals are up for renewal.
Many of the existing deals seem to have been done when the club needed money quickly to build the stadium.

The Platinum Level team probably has to be quite big as they use club level and boxes throughout the year for non football activities.

In some ways they are between a rock and a hard place.

Frank you say we should maximise our brand as the leading London club. How?

The club has been criticised by many for going into property.
Should the club be expanding into the package deal business...holidays in London including match tickets?

It's an idea but the cub would get criticised for expanding out of the core business.

[frankbutcher]

Let us see what happens 2014+ when some of the commercial deals are up for renewal.
Many of the existing deals seem to have been done when the club needed money quickly to build the stadium.

The Platinum Level team probably has to be quite big as they use club level and boxes throughout the year for non football activities.

In some ways they are between a rock and a hard place.

Frank you say we should maximise our brand as the leading London club. How?

The club has been criticised by many for going into property.
Should the club be expanding into the package deal business...holidays in London including match tickets?

It's an idea but the cub would get criticised for expanding out of the core business.

Nike was up for renewal last year. We extended it for £9m per year.

Rock and a hard place? Yeah - the rock and hard place that is their massive salary and then their bonus for doing squat. The only notable money-earner has been to sell top players and to up season ticket prices. At least we are now touring the world on pre-season tours. It's probably the most useful thing they've ensured we do. If as you say there is little they can do until 2014, and that we can only really earn income from re-negotiating the Emirates deal (you seem to be implying that their hands are tied elsewhere) why have we employed a team on c. £5-10m per year. If they have nothing meaningful to do, why employ them? Man U have 40 seperate commercial deals. Just off the top of my head.... DHL, Hublot, some Red Wine Company. A fuller list is as per the attached story.

http://footballspeak.com/post/2012/02/1 ... nited.aspx

Branding-wise, have you ever read about Arsenal in a brochure when on a plane? Have you ever seen us advertised at Luton Airport, Heathrow Airport, or any of the other London Airports? ""Come and see the world-famous Arsenal play at The Emirates..." NO????????????? I don't believe you. For the amount of international and European exposure we get from the team, we make nothing of it. I'm not a massive fan of the tourist fan, but it is where the income comes from. Our much-lauded team is failing miserably.

[SteveO 35]

Let us see what happens 2014+ when some of the commercial deals are up for renewal.
Many of the existing deals seem to have been done when the club needed money quickly to build the stadium.

The Platinum Level team probably has to be quite big as they use club level and boxes throughout the year for non football activities.

In some ways they are between a rock and a hard place.

Frank you say we should maximise our brand as the leading London club. How?

The club has been criticised by many for going into property.
Should the club be expanding into the package deal business...holidays in London including match tickets?

It's an idea but the cub would get criticised for expanding out of the core business.

Nike was up for renewal last year. We extended it for £9m per year.

Rock and a hard place? Yeah - the rock and hard place that is their massive salary and then their bonus for doing squat. The only notable money-earner has been to sell top players and to up season ticket prices. At least we are now touring the world on pre-season tours. It's probably the most useful thing they've ensured we do. If as you say there is little they can do until 2014, and that we can only really earn income from re-negotiating the Emirates deal (you seem to be implying that their hands are tied elsewhere) why have we employed a team on c. £5-10m per year. If they have nothing meaningful to do, why employ them? Man U have 40 seperate commercial deals. Just off the top of my head.... DHL, Hublot, some Red Wine Company. A fuller list is as per the attached story.

http://footballspeak.com/post/2012/02/1 ... nited.aspx

Branding-wise, have you ever read about Arsenal in a brochure when on a plane? Have you ever seen us advertised at Luton Airport, Heathrow Airport, or any of the other London Airports? ""Come and see the world-famous Arsenal play at The Emirates..." NO????????????? I don't believe you. For the amount of international and European exposure we get from the team, we make nothing of it. I'm not a massive fan of the tourist fan, but it is where the income comes from. Our much-lauded team is failing miserably.

Great post Frank. Agree with every word. If I may add one thing for people that like to point to tangible facts/evidence, then as I pointed out previously in addition to the points Frank made, look at the segmental analysis in the club's accounts i.e. the breakdown of revenues from different activities. The commercial revenues went up by less than inflation - a truly shocking performance and in any business I invested in as a shareholder, the CEO could expect a bloody hard time. These guys are delivering nothing. They are passing off their costs to us and talking about 'rising utility costs, rising VAT rate' - the true signs of weak leadership if ever they were needed. Ivan Gazidis has delivered nothing for Arsenal