Clubs’ Relationship With Fans and Internet

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Relationship building
Internet and Revenue Generation
Conclusion
References:

Introduction

The advent of The Internet could be classified among the greatest inventions of all time. Through this invention, the world has been reduced into a mere global village, quoting a term used in the globalization realms. By global village, the term signifies that through the internet, a person can easily navigate the whole world within a couple of minutes. Just like one could walk around his village within a couple of minutes. Apart from just walking around the globe, the internet offers an opportunity for an individual to look for all sorts of interesting stuff ranging from news, holiday spots, shopping joints, etc. these are just but a few aspects of human life that have been positively implicated by the advent of the Internet. But one of the most essential parts of life that the Internet has contributed greatly is communication. Through the internet, communication has been hastened and facilitated all around the globe. With the presence of the internet, people can now communicate and get instant replies while thousands of miles apart. This is facilitated by the help of chatting and blogging provisions offered by the Internet. As a result of this invention, organizations and institutions have highly capitalized on it to increase their sales and publicity. All industries that matter have opened websites through which they can interact with their customers and also advertise themselves. Like all the other organizations and industries, the sports industry has majored greatly in this invention. Teams have come up with their websites through which they get the opportunity to publicize themselves and also market themselves.

Despite this great implication of the internet on the sports industry, some critics in the football world have argued that the contribution of the internet in the formation of a strong relationship between clubs and their fans has been greatly overinflated. Critiques further point out that apart from overrating the interaction aspect of clubs and their fans, the contribution of the Internet in the revenue generation of clubs has also been overrated. However, this paper will ascertain the falsehood of this perspective by pointing out how the internet has contributed greatly to this aspect of team building and relationship construction between clubs and their fans. It will also point out how clubs generate revenue with the assistance of the Internet.

Relationship building

Most of the big clubs in the world have official websites where fans visit for a variety of reasons. This marks one role of the internet in the strengthening of the fans/club relationship. One would ask this question; how does the official website assist in the bonding role between the club and the fans? To answer this question, a clear illustration of Liverpool FC will be used. Liverpool FC is one of the high-flying teams in the English Premier League. In the previous season, the club completed in the second position less than five points behind the leader’s Manchester United. Like any other high-flying team, Liverpool FC has an official website that is dedicated to its fans where they are allowed to access a diversity of Liverpool FC-related stuff. This website whose URL address is www. Liverpool FC.tv is divided into several parts that are designed to satisfy the diverse interests of millions of fans all over the world.

Within the website, there is the part specifically designated for club news both archival and the most recent news. This is very important in the bonding aspect of the team and its fans. Most of the news offered by this part is club-related news most of which could not be featured in the mainstream media. As a result, this allows genuine fans to get even the most trivial happenings within the club. The part also gives historic information and news. By having an in-depth understanding of the club’s history and happenings, fans develop a staunch affiliation with the club. They are allowed to know what the coach is expecting for the next season and who are the new players expected. By having this knowledge of which other nonclub supporters don’t understand, the club establishes a strong bond with its fan base (Liverpool FC, 2009).

Another very important part of the club’s website that offers an opportunity for relationship strengthening between Liverpool FC and its fans is the interactive part. Under this part, fans are allowed to interact and discuss several issues concerning the club. Under the message boards, fans get the opportunity to write their views and post their topics on the message boards where other fans discuss the topics and offer their views. Among the topics include discussions on what striking combinations to be used for the next match, expected results for the match, voting for the man of the match, voting for the player of the season, discussing what could have led to a defeat, etc. all these are very important because they not only allow the coach to create a favorable lineup but also adds morale to the players as they fight to gain the favor of the fans and also struggle to be voted the best player of the match. By discussing the causes in the event of a defeat, the coach and the teams are allowed to rectify the mistakes. This participatory role of fans supported by the Internet offers a great channel through which the relationship between the two is cemented (Liverpool FC, 2009). As Beech et al (2000) put it, for effective relationship building, the clubs have to develop communication channels not only from the consumer to the organization or organization to the consumer but also, the communication should be made to go from one fan to many, many fans to one, one fan to another and also many fans to many fans. This is what Beech terms as important in the creation of a great relationship between the fans and the club. Liverpool FC has achieved this through the message boards that allow one fan to post a comment or question and leave other fans to offer their views. Many fans can also engage with several others in discussions while in other circumstances a fan can engage with another fan in penpals and Facebook provisions within their website. Low-rated clubs have not embraced this and hence less popularity and poor marketing ability.

Apart from having a chance to discuss topical issues, Liverpool FC’s official website is linked with an interactive site on the internet called Facebook. Through the services offered by Facebook, fans of Liverpool FC are able to interact with the other and also with the administration. This can be done by writing on the Liverpool FC wall. This offers a great opportunity for the administration to communicate to the fans and also for the fans to communicate to the administration. As a result, the mutual relationship between the two clubs is enhanced through the Internet. In addition to Facebook, the club is also a member of another interactive site called Twitter which offers similar services to Facebook (Liverpool FC, 2009).

Finally, fans of Liverpool FC are engaged in various competitions within the official website. Through these competitions, the fans do not only benefit economically but also feel that the club recognizes them and thus offers an opportunity for them to improve themselves economically. Through such competitions, the relationship between the club and its fans improves greatly. The club also gets to realize that it has fans that are knowledgeable about the club while the players feel recognized and hence play for the team while understanding that the fans are appreciating their services (Liverpool FC, 2009).

Just like Liverpool FC, most of the teams in the English premier league and UEFA have official websites which play similar roles as those offered by Liverpool FC. A research carried out by Borba (2008) points out that information is very essential for relationship development. Clubs that portrayed great varieties in their websites were found to be more advantaged in terms of marketing and relationship with fans. These clubs with at least 22 different communication attributes were found to be effective as compared to the less favorite clubs whose websites were poorly developed. This is clear evidence that with good use of the Internet, a club can have great advantages both in revenue generation and in cyber marketing opportunities. As a result, big clubs like Manchester United FC in England, FC Porto in Portugal, and AC Millan in Italy, etc have greatly benefited from the use of the Internet while small teams have failed to make an impact in marketing due to poor strategies in their websites.

Internet and Revenue Generation

The internet is much beneficial for the club for its revenue generation. The revenue generated from the Internet could outweigh all other forms of revenue generation for the clubs. The partitions of the Liverpool website offer great opportunity for money generation for the club. To start with, the website offers the part entitled the shop. From this part, the clubs store offers all kinds of Liverpool FC stuff like shirts, boots, banners, ring tones, wall papers etc. through the sale of these equipment, the club generates a lot of money (Liverpool FC, 2009).

In addition, the Liverpool FC fans do not have to walk all the way to the designated spots to get access to match tickets. The website offers online tickets, match tickets for all the games. Through such sales, the club is able to generate great revenues. Apart from selling tickets through the Internet, the club also provides other services which also contribute in the generation of income. For example, Liverpool FC’s website gives its fans opportunity to book for away match travel facilities and other packages which allows for Liverpool FC fans to travel together for solidarity. Through such services, the club generates a lot of money that is put in other uses and contributes in general growth of the club (Liverpool FC, 2009).

Just like Liverpool FC, Manchester United has several opportunities offered by the Internet which allow them to generate income. The team has several provisions within the fan base that allows them to generate a lot of money. For example, through the official website, Manchester United is able to sell wall papers and screen savers to the lovers of the team. Other than wall papers, they also sell screen savers and video games which all contribute to income generation. Without an official website, the club could have lost a lot of money through other organizations that would have capitalized on their team to make money through the sale of these paraphernalia (Manchester United, 2009).

Another income generation activity that is powered by the Internet is the Manchester United online magazine. Through this magazine, Manchester United Club is able to sale spaces for advertisements which account to millions of money. Many companies rush for these spaces basing on the expansiveness of the Manchester United fans. By advertising in the club magazine, business organizations are confident of reaching millions of people all round the globe. In addition to selling advertisement spaces, subscription fee for this magazine contributes great revenue to the club. The club magazine is accessible only to members who pay a certain amount of money that allows them access to the magazine. Subscription fee is not only generated from the club magazine only. It is also generated from special membership sections that are not accessible by any person visiting the website. Through these special sites within the official website, fans are given opportunity to contribute to the club through their subscription to membership (Manchester United, 2009).

Club websites also offer a great opportunity where several supporters of the club meet so that they can have fun and discuss on topical issues. To benefit on this, Manchester United formed a local supporters’ club. To qualify as a member, one has to pay membership fee. This, like other fee payments, offers opportunity for revenue generation. In addition, the activities within the clubs also provide other revenue generation opportunities for the club (Manchester United, 2009).

Just like the clubs, nations also have capitalized on the Internet to generate income and improve on the relationship between the teams and their fans. Through the formation of official websites, national teams are able to generate a lot of money through different activities within their official websites. A good example of nations that have utilized the Internet to improve on their relationships with their fans and also generate income is England and Spain. These teams have official websites where fans have diverse opportunities to interact with the teams. The Spanish team website, for example, offers a site that is open for customizing. This offers the fans great opportunity to contribute to the beautification of the website of their loveable team. By doing this, the fans develop a stronger tie with the team because they are able to feel like they are part and parcel of the team. The fans are made to feel that they are contributing to the success of the team. This is a strong bonding factor (Gamblog, 2009).

On its part, the English National team has an official website that also allows its fans to meet and discuss topical issues. Through this website, fans are given opportunity to contribute on all topical issue that would be constructive to the team’s well being. This includes identifying the problems leading to poor performance, the most appropriate line up for the game that follows, voting for the man of the game etc. through such opportunities, fans are made to feel like part of the team and that they are contributing to the good performance of the team. In addition to this, the team’s technical bench is able to read through the fans’ views and identify where problems would have come from and hence rectify. For the players, knowing that fans are recognizing individual effort through their voting of the player of the match makes them double their effort so that they are chosen among the men of the match. All these activities cement the bond between the players, management and the fans. This shows that the Internet is positively contributing to the team’s relationship (Gamblog, 2009).

One question by the critiques is the ability of the Internet to build the team’s relationship with the fans and at the same time contribute to revenue generation. This is a very undebatable factor. It is known world over that Brazil is the home of football. This is evident by their great performances in most of the World Cups. Watching the Brazilian League also leaves a soccer fan with astonishment at the quality of football played by those small teams. South American teams offer one of the greatest skilled soccer all over the globe. However, asking a person to name four teams from Brazilian League could make him bite his lips after mentioning a single team. This is also characterized by Confederation of African Football that gives birth to great players that mark the best performers in the European Leagues. Countries like Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, South Africa have produced great talents, the likes of Arsenal’s Emmanuel Adebayor from Togo, Chelsea’s Didier Drogba from Ivory Coast, Michael Essien from Ghana, New Castle’s Obafemi Martins, and La Liga’s Kanoute and E’too. Unfortunately, football fanatics rarely recognize teams from this region. What could be the reason for this? It could be attributed to the limited embracing of Information Technology. The UEFA region is made up of develop countries from which Information Technology has greatly been utilized within all sectors. This allows the clubs to utilize the opportunity by using the Internet to build their relationship with fans and also generate great incomes. As a result, the teams in the world that have great fan bases are from the UEFA region. These include Liverpool FC, Manchester United, AC Millan, Inter Millan, Juventus, Real Madrid, Barcelona and several others. In addition, these are the teams that top the records of the richest football clubs in the world. This means that by embracing technology, they were able to make money develop a strong fan base. Accordingly, teams from developing countries that have low use of internet cannot afford such great fan bases and cannot generate equal amounts of money. Also, by developing the great fan bases raises other stakes such as value of sponsorship and broadcast rights. This leads to UEFA region becoming the most popular and thus the most expensive football region in the world (Goal.com).

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is true to say that the Internet is very essential in a club’s efforts to create great relationships with the fans. This is facilitated by the Internet’s ability allow information to pass from the fans to the club’s management to the players through message boards and other clubs within the official websites. The internet also facilitates revenue generation through sales of wall papers, screensavers, ring tones, replica T-shirts and many others. The club also has opportunities to generate money through subscriptions to magazines and other clubs within the fan zones. Through such opportunities, teams from regions with developed countries who have embraced IT tend to gain more recognition and more revenue generation opportunities as compared to other regions from developing countries. This could be attributed to failure of recognition by Brazilian teams which play fantastic football. While critiques could purport that the role of the computer is overrated, research by Borba (2008) concludes that relationship building is fundamental to the club’s optimization of the brand value. This can only be achieved through enhanced dialogue with the cyber fan. This therefore shows that the Internet plays an important role in the improvement of the brand value of the clubs if well organized. It is therefore not true to argue that the Internet’s role in clubs’ relationship with fans and revenue generation has been overrated.

References:

Beech, J., Chadwick, S. and Tapp, A. (2000). “Scoring with the Net – the cybermarketing of English football clubs.” Web.

Borba, E. (2008). “Online Trends for Football Sector.” University Fernando Pessoa. Web.

Gamblog (2009). England National Football Team Unofficial. Web.

Goal.com (2009). Africans in Europe. Web.

Liverpool FC Official Website. (2009). Web.

MagazineShop.com (2009). Inside United. Manchester United FC. Web.

Manchester United FC Official Website. (2009). Web.

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