Asia and USA key to Spurs future success
6 min read
Sports Pro conducted an interview Tottenham Hotspur Executive Director Donna-Maria Cullen which I'll have a look at i this short series of articles.
Expanding the Tottenham fan base is key to future success, a greater fan base mens more interest from commercial sponsors and more money coming into the club, money equates to success on the field, without it you are trying to achieve miracles every season and the statistics show a club without money these days rarely wins anything.
Manchester United got into the Japanese market before anyone else and have a huge following there. They was crucial because they were the top Asian side so Asians started following United. It is a huge market that we are having to play catch up in. Australia is another big fan base, for this blog there is only a larger readership in the UK and USA, there are more readers from Australia then there are from Ireland which just demonstrates the support we have there.
The USA is the next frontier in football. The game is still in it's infancy and the market is vast. Soccer is the third largest participation sport and as children who played the game in their youth and follow it grow into Dads the next generation grow up having a greater exposure to it. The will just continue increasing and it's vital to be at the cutting edge rather than playing catch up when it's too late.
To that extent the NFL deal is huge, it gets Tottenham, our name, our brand in front of people and that gives us helps to turn people into fans. You are more likely to support a club if you keep seeing there name than a club that you don't and people support clubs for many reasons.
When the NFL was first on channel 4 I watched it for a few years and thought I had better have a team to follow, I plumped for the New England Patriots simply because they had England in their name, that year they got thrashed by the Chicago Bears in the Superbowl. I have followed and looked out for their results ever since.
We tour the States, have a US player on our books, another coming through, the US national coach is a former Spurs player, two Brad Friedel and Clint Dempsey played for us, Kasey Keller is a former goalkeeper for us who now words in commentary, Robbie Keane at LA Galaxy, there are many links which all help to get our name across.
Eventually the David Beckham team will get off the ground and it's one that maybe we should be looking to have a tie up with to loan younger players, Grant Ward was at Chicago Fire last season. Helping to develop football out there and keeping our name in the public mind is an ongoing process that will still be happening 5-10 years down the line, but it's not a path that we can stop, we have to keep at it and look for any opportunity.
In the first part of this interview Donna-Maria Cullen discusses pre and post season and the potential growth markets that are important to Spurs.
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Teams Include: - Atlanta Falcons, Boston Celtic's, Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Dolphins, Miami Heat, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Knicks, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers
I'm all for fans in Asia, Australia and USA for instance in sharing content, people need to see the Tottenham name again and again. When new people take an interest they will eventually gravitate to the official club website, it's amateurish to me that promoting the club is not a joined up experience.
When I talk about the club needing to take the Kaizen approach (constantly introducing small incremental changes in a business in order to improve quality and/or efficiency) to every facet of the club, fan engagement is one area, but promoting the club is an altogether different proposition. The club that uses its fans to promote the club and harnesses the power of leveraging will be a giant step ahead of everyone else, an advantage that will be difficult to peg back.
Previous Articles
The underlying midfield issue at Tottenham
Concentrate on the problem
Porto have 250 scouts, how many do Spurs have?
The key lesson from the Leicester game
Expanding the Tottenham fan base is key to future success, a greater fan base mens more interest from commercial sponsors and more money coming into the club, money equates to success on the field, without it you are trying to achieve miracles every season and the statistics show a club without money these days rarely wins anything.
Manchester United got into the Japanese market before anyone else and have a huge following there. They was crucial because they were the top Asian side so Asians started following United. It is a huge market that we are having to play catch up in. Australia is another big fan base, for this blog there is only a larger readership in the UK and USA, there are more readers from Australia then there are from Ireland which just demonstrates the support we have there.
The USA is the next frontier in football. The game is still in it's infancy and the market is vast. Soccer is the third largest participation sport and as children who played the game in their youth and follow it grow into Dads the next generation grow up having a greater exposure to it. The will just continue increasing and it's vital to be at the cutting edge rather than playing catch up when it's too late.
To that extent the NFL deal is huge, it gets Tottenham, our name, our brand in front of people and that gives us helps to turn people into fans. You are more likely to support a club if you keep seeing there name than a club that you don't and people support clubs for many reasons.
When the NFL was first on channel 4 I watched it for a few years and thought I had better have a team to follow, I plumped for the New England Patriots simply because they had England in their name, that year they got thrashed by the Chicago Bears in the Superbowl. I have followed and looked out for their results ever since.
We tour the States, have a US player on our books, another coming through, the US national coach is a former Spurs player, two Brad Friedel and Clint Dempsey played for us, Kasey Keller is a former goalkeeper for us who now words in commentary, Robbie Keane at LA Galaxy, there are many links which all help to get our name across.
Eventually the David Beckham team will get off the ground and it's one that maybe we should be looking to have a tie up with to loan younger players, Grant Ward was at Chicago Fire last season. Helping to develop football out there and keeping our name in the public mind is an ongoing process that will still be happening 5-10 years down the line, but it's not a path that we can stop, we have to keep at it and look for any opportunity.
In the first part of this interview Donna-Maria Cullen discusses pre and post season and the potential growth markets that are important to Spurs.
Nearly 4,000 OFFICIALLY LICENSED gifts and souvenirs at the Football-Shop
NFL Gifts
NBA Gifts
Teams Include: - Atlanta Falcons, Boston Celtic's, Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Dolphins, Miami Heat, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Knicks, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers
Sports Pro: Could you explain the thinking, and timeframe, that goes into organising off-season fixtures?
Donna-Maria Cullen - We obviously have our key territories that are important to us as a club and at the moment they happen to be Asia and the US in equal parts. So we always look and listen to what’s possible to do in those two markets. It’s interesting as well talking to you at this time because for the first time we have swapped our pre and post-season around and we went away post-season. [Head coach] Mauricio [Pochettino] was keen to do that in order to get as much pre-season time uninterrupted and with key training times back at base in the UK. So at the end of last season we went out to Malaysia and Australia, which was hugely successful.
We have an Asian sponsor, AIA, so we were able to fulfil some deliveries for them while we were out there and Australia was unbelievable. It’s currently clearly our second largest fan base area after the UK – 70,000 attended the match, we had 5,000 attend the open training session, the queue for the store signing went round three blocks – I mean it was just massive. We had great fun; we lit up Sydney Harbour Bridge. So it had a bit of a different feel to it being post-season and the players thoroughly enjoyed it.
We have an Asian sponsor, AIA, so we were able to fulfil some deliveries for them while we were out there and Australia was unbelievable. It’s currently clearly our second largest fan base area after the UK – 70,000 attended the match, we had 5,000 attend the open training session, the queue for the store signing went round three blocks – I mean it was just massive. We had great fun; we lit up Sydney Harbour Bridge. So it had a bit of a different feel to it being post-season and the players thoroughly enjoyed it.
And so for pre-season this time we’ve got a great combination – we were lucky enough to be invited to the prestigious All-Star Game and it allows us to go back to the States where our fan base has just seen growth on growth, year on year; particularly after our 2014 tour out there where we saw a 48 per cent uplift in our figures for social media engagement. So it’s great to be able to go out there and play a high profile match to a key audience. And we've now got about 43 supporters groups out there - more than any other Premier League club at the moment – and I think we have a growth appeal out there because we are the challenger club and the Americans have really got behind that aspect of us and enjoy the style of play as well. And so at the Denver match we expect 24 of those supporter groups to be represented that will converge on Denver. And again it’s excellent because we get the engagement levels but also they will get to meet up and have a community of their own out there as well.
Interesting to see her talk about Social Media engagement after having written several articles discussing how the club should be using the power of the Internet, websites like this one and the vast army of fans out there to help grow our fan base.I'm all for fans in Asia, Australia and USA for instance in sharing content, people need to see the Tottenham name again and again. When new people take an interest they will eventually gravitate to the official club website, it's amateurish to me that promoting the club is not a joined up experience.
When I talk about the club needing to take the Kaizen approach (constantly introducing small incremental changes in a business in order to improve quality and/or efficiency) to every facet of the club, fan engagement is one area, but promoting the club is an altogether different proposition. The club that uses its fans to promote the club and harnesses the power of leveraging will be a giant step ahead of everyone else, an advantage that will be difficult to peg back.
Previous Articles
The underlying midfield issue at Tottenham
Concentrate on the problem
Porto have 250 scouts, how many do Spurs have?
The key lesson from the Leicester game
2 comments
The off field success is so big and important that it translates zilch on the field.
14 n a half years 1 league cup enics/levys reign and return is pitiful