Post by QPR Report on Dec 11, 2009 8:26:06 GMT
(QPR clearly doing their bit for "name-brand" recognition 
)
Telegraph/Henry Winter
Premier League clubs that embrace internet poised for rich pickings, says Lee Strafford
Americans and Arabs are buying up English clubs because of the potential riches when football fully embraces the internet, according to Lee Strafford, the Sheffield Wednesday chairman who himself made millions out of the web.
Strafford co-founded Plusnet, an internet service provider, which he subsequently sold to BT for £67 million, before turning his attentions to the club he supported as a boy.
He is building up Wednesday's fan-base, remodelling Hillsborough as the "biggest community stadium in the country'', bidding to host 2018 World Cup games and striving (with some difficulty) to guide the team back to the Premier League.
Strafford predicts a future where clubs such as Wednesday will have millions of followers around the world engaging with the club via their mobile phones, accessing match broadcasts, fans' forums, information and merchandising. "The problem that football has is that it doesn't understand the Internet,'' said Strafford.
"Dave Richards [the Premier League and ex-Wednesday chairman] asked me to talk to him about the internet. I said we are all going to end up with a transactional relationship with the mobile phone.
"The mobile ends up being your passport that gives you access to the club. It's about arguing with your mates who are at the match on the mobile and using the mobile to project the image of the game on to your wall.''
The Premier League is currently examining how broadcast rights deals may change in the future but Strafford believes a revolution will be triggered by the Americans.
"The old school are still in control of the Premier League but Americans are coming in, saying our TV deal is not good enough,'' continued Strafford. "It's only $1billion a year – way down per head when compared with baseball, gridiron and basketball. It should be $10 billion a year but the internet is not valued.
"The Arabs and Americans employ enough smart people to see where it all is going. Change of ownership is going to drive it. The amount of money English football gets out of Sky is going to look like chicken feed 10 years from now as we move to hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese with mobile phones having a one-to-one relationship with Manchester United or Wednesday. I am saying to the Football League and Premier League: 'guys this is the route you need to go'.''
Clubs will cut out the media middle-man, Strafford believes. "Sky should be scared. I don't see how a media business owns a relationship with fans of the future. It is the club.
If you look at Facebook and Google, they are platforms that enable clubs to have a one-to-one relationship with the fan. Because of the internet platforms and broadband being ubiquitous you don't need a broadcast company to run the business for you.
"The club that embraces the internet first could grow a fan base disproportionate to their position. We are doing it. We have 300,000-400,000 fans in Sheffield who probably don't go to a game who we can have a couple of quid a month out of. We have another 500,000 scattered around the world.
"We launched our Facebook site recently that allows fans to build a one-to-one relationship with the club. We are going to expose a huge amount of new content through that environment.
"Instead of dribbling out manufactured pieces of PR that most clubs do, we say what's been going in your club today, right down to the tea lady. As a fan you want to know everything about your club, then you can get advertising and sell tickets, products and shirts.''
For this transactional relationship to work, the bond between club and fan must be strong. During Richards' tenure in the 1990s, Wednesday enjoyed brief prosperity with a fine team including John Sheridan and Chris Waddle before tumbling into a spiral of debt from which they are still struggling to recover. "I get on fine with Dave Richards but Wednesday fans don't,'' said Strafford.
"It was the most broken club. We set the template for Leeds. We were swapping world-class players for Championship players, Jim Magilton replacing John Sheridan, who was the most creative, effective midfielder in the country, better even than Paul Scholes at his best.
"You probably had the cheapest best team ever assembled and with a great fan base. You probably get 20 per cent off a player's salary because of the [attractive] environment around Sheffield. Chris Waddle still lives here. Credible people say it's a great place to live.
"Our top wage was about £20,000 a week at peak, and now it's less than £10,000. The club has gone through the pain of failure. We had horrible PR. All the Wednesday fans felt misled. I was sponsor [via Plusnet] and thought if I don't barge in here politely it will all blow up.
"I have no interest in making a penny out of Wednesday. Too many bad people have tried to do that. The debt now is £26 million. Effectively we have £10 million in what it is costing us. It is not as burdensome as lots of other clubs.''
Strafford seeks to whittle away at Wednesday's debt by making fans fall back in love with the club again. "Community is the best way to re-engage with fans,'' said Strafford, who donated the shirt sponsorship away to a good cause. "The touch-feely thing is the broken club who gave their shirt away to the local children's hospital, which is more important than the church in Sheffield.''
Now Hillsborough is being redeveloped, increased to 44,825, with learning zones and a proper memorial area at the old Leppings Lane End where 96 Liverpool fans perished in 1989. "I have chatted with Kenny Dalglish and Liverpool supporters' groups,'' added Strafford, a community man with respect for the past and a vision for the future
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/6781452/Premier-League-clubs-that-embrace-internet-poised-for-rich-pickings-says-Lee-Strafford.html
)Telegraph/Henry Winter
Premier League clubs that embrace internet poised for rich pickings, says Lee Strafford
Americans and Arabs are buying up English clubs because of the potential riches when football fully embraces the internet, according to Lee Strafford, the Sheffield Wednesday chairman who himself made millions out of the web.
Strafford co-founded Plusnet, an internet service provider, which he subsequently sold to BT for £67 million, before turning his attentions to the club he supported as a boy.
He is building up Wednesday's fan-base, remodelling Hillsborough as the "biggest community stadium in the country'', bidding to host 2018 World Cup games and striving (with some difficulty) to guide the team back to the Premier League.
Strafford predicts a future where clubs such as Wednesday will have millions of followers around the world engaging with the club via their mobile phones, accessing match broadcasts, fans' forums, information and merchandising. "The problem that football has is that it doesn't understand the Internet,'' said Strafford.
"Dave Richards [the Premier League and ex-Wednesday chairman] asked me to talk to him about the internet. I said we are all going to end up with a transactional relationship with the mobile phone.
"The mobile ends up being your passport that gives you access to the club. It's about arguing with your mates who are at the match on the mobile and using the mobile to project the image of the game on to your wall.''
The Premier League is currently examining how broadcast rights deals may change in the future but Strafford believes a revolution will be triggered by the Americans.
"The old school are still in control of the Premier League but Americans are coming in, saying our TV deal is not good enough,'' continued Strafford. "It's only $1billion a year – way down per head when compared with baseball, gridiron and basketball. It should be $10 billion a year but the internet is not valued.
"The Arabs and Americans employ enough smart people to see where it all is going. Change of ownership is going to drive it. The amount of money English football gets out of Sky is going to look like chicken feed 10 years from now as we move to hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese with mobile phones having a one-to-one relationship with Manchester United or Wednesday. I am saying to the Football League and Premier League: 'guys this is the route you need to go'.''
Clubs will cut out the media middle-man, Strafford believes. "Sky should be scared. I don't see how a media business owns a relationship with fans of the future. It is the club.
If you look at Facebook and Google, they are platforms that enable clubs to have a one-to-one relationship with the fan. Because of the internet platforms and broadband being ubiquitous you don't need a broadcast company to run the business for you.
"The club that embraces the internet first could grow a fan base disproportionate to their position. We are doing it. We have 300,000-400,000 fans in Sheffield who probably don't go to a game who we can have a couple of quid a month out of. We have another 500,000 scattered around the world.
"We launched our Facebook site recently that allows fans to build a one-to-one relationship with the club. We are going to expose a huge amount of new content through that environment.
"Instead of dribbling out manufactured pieces of PR that most clubs do, we say what's been going in your club today, right down to the tea lady. As a fan you want to know everything about your club, then you can get advertising and sell tickets, products and shirts.''
For this transactional relationship to work, the bond between club and fan must be strong. During Richards' tenure in the 1990s, Wednesday enjoyed brief prosperity with a fine team including John Sheridan and Chris Waddle before tumbling into a spiral of debt from which they are still struggling to recover. "I get on fine with Dave Richards but Wednesday fans don't,'' said Strafford.
"It was the most broken club. We set the template for Leeds. We were swapping world-class players for Championship players, Jim Magilton replacing John Sheridan, who was the most creative, effective midfielder in the country, better even than Paul Scholes at his best.
"You probably had the cheapest best team ever assembled and with a great fan base. You probably get 20 per cent off a player's salary because of the [attractive] environment around Sheffield. Chris Waddle still lives here. Credible people say it's a great place to live.
"Our top wage was about £20,000 a week at peak, and now it's less than £10,000. The club has gone through the pain of failure. We had horrible PR. All the Wednesday fans felt misled. I was sponsor [via Plusnet] and thought if I don't barge in here politely it will all blow up.
"I have no interest in making a penny out of Wednesday. Too many bad people have tried to do that. The debt now is £26 million. Effectively we have £10 million in what it is costing us. It is not as burdensome as lots of other clubs.''
Strafford seeks to whittle away at Wednesday's debt by making fans fall back in love with the club again. "Community is the best way to re-engage with fans,'' said Strafford, who donated the shirt sponsorship away to a good cause. "The touch-feely thing is the broken club who gave their shirt away to the local children's hospital, which is more important than the church in Sheffield.''
Now Hillsborough is being redeveloped, increased to 44,825, with learning zones and a proper memorial area at the old Leppings Lane End where 96 Liverpool fans perished in 1989. "I have chatted with Kenny Dalglish and Liverpool supporters' groups,'' added Strafford, a community man with respect for the past and a vision for the future
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/6781452/Premier-League-clubs-that-embrace-internet-poised-for-rich-pickings-says-Lee-Strafford.html