Investing in the Brand Rather Than the Sport

Today in sport your “Brand” is everything. In many cases the “brand” is bigger than the team. (Podcast #52 – Battle of the Brands)

The team is made up of the players that represent the club and they go out and perform to their best and their success and failure is supported by their fans.

The “brand” is so much more than that, although the team and the players are intrinsically linked to the “brand.” For a brand is the image or values that are identified with the team and differentiates it from its competitors. This image becomes associated over time with a level of credibility, quality, and satisfaction in the minds of the supporters and even those who do not support the club. It is the “brand” that encapsulates all that the club and its players and even it fans represent. It is the brand that in modern day sport creates value.

Back in 2009 the Victorian Government saw value in the Tiger Woods brand. This was prior to his very public troubles and split with his wife. They paid a believed $3million for Woods to come and play in the Australian Masters. The belief was that Woods participation would attract tourists from not only overseas in Asia but also from around the country to Melbourne. Equally the exposure the tournament would garner from Wood’s involvement would be further promotion of Victoria and Australia.

Last year The Western Australian Government brought English Premier League side Chelsea out to Perth to play against Perth Glory at their new Optus Stadium. Once again in return to being linked with the Chelsea brand Tourism Western Australia has received promotion at Stamford Bridge for the duration of the 2017/18 season. It is hoped that this will make people who support Chelsea, or visiting fans consider visiting Western Australia for a holiday, or will prompt those who were already considering such a holiday to book it. Quite how the Government will measure the success of such an investment is anyone’s guess. No doubt it will be as loose as the figures they produce after they host a major sporting event and the numbers they claim it contributed to the economy.

In 2018 the Western Australian Government has invested tens of millions more to bring Manchester United to Perth. A team with a brand that is one of the most successful in World Football. The investment is by all accounts huge. Quite what they are getting in return has yet to be revealed, but should be declared as ratepayers would love to know the return on investment. Tourism figures from this region of Britain are already high thanks to the visiting Friends and relatives market. How many new tourists the game generates from Asia and The East Coast of Australia will be the key. One feels that it may not be as much as they hope, with United have visited Asia and the East coast of Australia in recent times.

Ironically the thing that could make the event a success is also the biggest potential banana-skin. The fact that a game against Leeds United has been arranged. There is a massive rivalry between these two teams, and it is fair to say that there is little love lost between them. Leeds fans were polled and claimed that United were the team they hated the most. The two have only met twice since 2004 when Leeds were relegated from the Premier League, both of these games Cup ties. The last in 2011 saw the Yorkshire Police launch an investigation into the abusive chants both sets of fans hurled at each other. Hopefully the Police are briefed properly here or an expensive publicity exercise could go horribly wrong.

Whereas these examples of athletes and commercial entities choosing to work together to enhance each other’s brand make sense there are some that remain questionable.

Fans are beginning to wise-up to the way things work. Some do not like the commercialisation of their heroes, some understand that the messages they are giving are far from genuine, and therefore one wonders the percentage of those who buy into the message and those who dismiss it, and how this balances out in terms of the investment. Of course the marketers will tell you any publicity is good publicity.

At the Hockey World Cup in India fans saw possibly India’s greatest and certainly one of the best Cricketers the World has seen, Sachin Tendulkar attending the Final. Tendulkar was paraded on the pitch, was part of the presentation ceremony, sat in the VIP box and even went to Twitter to lend his support to the event.

First of all the World Cup had been a huge success without Tendulkar, so one wonders why he was there. Was it because he genuinely loves the game of Hockey? Of course not. He had been paid to attend to try and help promote the event. Some would say that this was a wise move by those in power as Cricket is King in India, so to have a Cricket deity such as Sachin Tendulkar come and praise the sport, it may encourage others to take up the sport.

Judging by the reaction on social media the public were divided. Some questioned the validity of his comments and also the sincerity. In fact did he even type them, or were theses comments attributed to him in fact typed by an employee who manages his Twitter account for him? As for his fee, it was rumoured to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If we cast our minds back to the Hopman Cup at the start of this year. Once again the State Government decided that there was going to be a huge benefit in linking itself to the Brand of Roger Federer. After donating part of his fee to participate it was agreed that they could leverage Federer’s brand to try and attract Tourists.

So Federer, the Minister for Tourism and staff from WA Tourism’s events arm and Public Relations hired a private boat and sailed across to Rottnest in order to make sure that they had the best Quokka selfie to promote Rottnest Island.

First of all it should be stated that the “Quokka Selfie” campaign had been running for a while long before Federer arrived on the island, and appeared to have achieved its goal in making the public overseas and interstate aware of this unique animal on this idyllic island just off the coast.

The impact of Federer’s photos was spectacular according the Government and Tourism Minister who claimed “His Instagram post attracted 525,000 likes, 5000 comments and was shared 2500 times, reaching 5.3 million people across Facebook and Twitter.”

We were then advised that the selfie shot made headlines in newspapers and on news websites around the world, appearing in 239 publications in the United Kingdom, 53 in Switzerland, 45 in Colombia, 30 in the United States and 41 across Australia, with the post reported on in 13 different languages. Looking at this information the satisfaction would come from the coverage in the United Kingdom as that is a market that Tourism WA target along with Inter-state travellers. The other major markets are areas that attract few tourists to the state. So was it a success or a bad investment? This year Federer will be escorted again to another Western Australian Tourism site. Will this generate much needed tourists?

There is no doubt that the decision-makers have decided that linking themselves to major sporting brands is a good move. But does it really work? Or are the athletes and teams simply cashing in on the value of their Brand?

Of course the question is a very hard one to answer. There is no clear way of measuring the result of such an exercise. Yet those with far more experience in this area have said that they feel that Governments are over-spending due to often being star-struck. In fact it comes down more to what they Decision-makers gain personally from their link to the team or the athlete than what the State, in this case, may gain.

So how much are you influenced by such arrangements? Do these star endorsements convince you to book a plane ticket to attend an event?

Of course there are again examples where hosting such an event clearly has such benefits. The singer Katy Perry is banned in Singapore. So when she performed in Perth, there were understandably a large number of fans who hopped on a plane to Western Australia, because they knew she would never perform in Singapore, so it was worth it.

Of course dedicated fans, will travel to watch their team play. The question is how many will travel from overseas and inter-state and will that expenditure come close to covering the cost of the investment?