International programs

An internship program “English Soccer Business” based in London, Liverpool and Manchester was held on 2nd — 12th January 2014, organized by the RMA business school for the students of RMA “Sports Industry Management” and their partners.

Dates: 02 — 12 January 2014

Cities: London, Liverpool, Manchester

Football Clubs: Arsenal FC, Chelsea FC, Tottenham Hotspur FC, Fulham FC, Liverpool FC, Еverton FC, Manchester City FC.

Stadiums: Emirates Stadium, Craven Cottage, Stamford Bridge, White Hart Lane, Wembley, Anfield, Goodison Park, Etihad Stadium .

Matches: Arsenal FC — Tottenham Hotspur FC (FA Cup), Fulham FC — Sunderland FC (Barclays Premier League).

Program: masterclasses and seminars by the leading top-managers in the industry’s; visiting the stadiums and overview of the training infrastructure of various centers and academies, attending the soccer games.

Speakers: Richard Milham (Head Of Global Merchandise, Сhelsea FC), Jerry Newman (Global Fan Base, Сhelsea FC), Steve Cumming (Head Of Commercial, Chelsea FC), James Murray (Business Strategy, Arsenal FC), Fran Jones (Head Of Partnerships, Tottenham Hotspur FC), Mike McSweeney (Head Of Sales, Fulham FC), Jonathan Williams (Assistant Club Secretary, Everton FC), Justin Ellis (Marketing Department, Manchester City FC), et al.

Richard Milham on Chelsea FC merchandising: “Our most important store is located right on Stamford Bridge. This is the fourth largest club shop in the world (after Manchester United, Manchester City and Barcelona) located at the stadium. Half of a million people passes it through each year, and it brings about 9 million pounds of income to the club.

Besides, we have a large store on Kensington High Street, which appeared in 2010, and we also consider opening a store on Oxford Street.

The store at Stamford Bridge is open daily, but it is clear that games bring the majority of the proceeds. We have a minimum number of home matches — 26 per season, it seems quite a bit, but this is 40 percent of all the money received from the store. On average, 10 thousand people come here in a matchday, and 40 percent of this amount buy something.

Chelsea’s total revenue from merchandising last year was around £ 20 million. This figure definitely reflects not only what we earned from the sale of T-shirts, scarves and other merch. It`s necessary to include both online trading and income from the sale of licensed products.

The total number of licensees working with us is reaching fifty at the moment. By paying royalties for using the brand, they bring the club a total of £ 2.5 million a year. Concerning the products — they are very different — from watches and umbrellas to underwear and wallpapers. Specificity largely depends on a region: for example, one of our Asian partners produces chess under the Chelsea brand.”

Mike McSweeney on Fulham`s work with teenagers and youth audiences: "The main problem of our regular audience is, of course, its age. The main contingent of our fans is elderly people. There are not as many youth on the stands as we would like.

Because of this, in particular, we are not doing well with sales of merch, T-shirts to be more precise: at Fulham`s matches you will see a few fans dressed in club colors, at least there will be definitely less of them comparing with Arsenal.

And this is precisely because the whole story (t-shirts, scarves etc.) is interesting mainly to young people. It captures an average age less, and already does not touch old people at all.

In order to rejuvenate our audience we do a lot. Our services on the Internet and on social networks work pretty well, because young people are also much more involved than the older generation. If you bring together those who follow the club’s news on Twitter and Facebook, you will get more than half a million people.

Besides, we are actively trying to use the capabilities of YouTube: Fulham has its own official channel, and one of our videos, the Harlem Shake version shot with the participation of the first team players, has collected 4.3 million views over 10 months.

We have programs aimed at very young children: for example, many schools that side with the district, where Craven Cottage is located, host football lessons by our players and coaches. There is an absolutely unique offer directly at the stadium for the same age category: those who come to see the first game of their life are let to walk through the arena not just in a matchday, but right before the match starts.

Children can sit on the bench, see the entire infrastructure right up to the director’s boxes, watch how the stands are filled; they can go into the dressing room, where the kits are already prepared, and probably they will even face the team. All this makes great impression on the children...

A few words about special ticket offers for youths. At the present our fans under the age of sixteen can buy tickets for three specific matches of the current season, paying for each of them only one pound in case that they are registered on our website and will be available for our further targeted commercial offers.

An option, which is currently working and has as a goal to attract the youths: every person under the age of 30 who buys a seasonal subscription from us for the first time receives an original game T-shirt as a gift. "