SOS Sensible canary fans.

[Green and Yellow fellow 0]

Hello guys,

I''ve not posted on here In a couple of years since I''ve been at university in Lincoln. It''s getting to the point where I have to seriously think about my dissertation. A dissertation is an independent study on a field of your choice. I study business and the field I wish to pursue a career in is football.

Enough about my life story, I would like to know if any of you could help with some ideas. Ideally I would like to taylor my study on NCFC because they are the club I want to work for, however I am passionate about football in general and am open to suggestions like womens football, economics, marketing, training, leagues and cups. You get the idea.

Apologies for such a boring post but any help would be appreciated.

OTBC

[Van wink 2,994]

How about having a look at how we have built the community capacity of the club, the costs and the corporate and community benefits.

[Hairy Canary 754]

You picked a good course there!

Endless possibilities to be honest. How about investment in youth as an economic strategy?

NCFC seem to have made a business decision in buying up some of the best young potential from lower league clubs recently. Be good to analyse if that will prove to be money well spent or not. Also we invest in our academy which to date hasn''t reeled huge benefits. Maybe expand that into how a club our size can prosper amongst the money bags clubs who can buy proven talent, community relations, and business strategy. Also bit of a human/ethical side to that in how clubs (Chelsea for instance) buy young talent only to loan them out for profit when they have no real chance of making it with their parent club.

[Green and Yellow fellow 0]

Both of your suggestions have been awesome, exactly the type of thing I''m looking for so thank you for that. I knew I could count on the fine fans of Norwich to come up with something. It got me thinking, the game/business of football would be nothing without the fans, so in my dissertation I will certainly state how important people like yourselves are to football and everything it does.

[FCC 94]

It''s not Norwich but you could look into what has gone on at MK Dons. They are unique in being moved to a new area. Who are their fans in a town with no tradition of football? How have they built a brand and links with the community. What is the long term aspiration and business model?

You could also consider studying the impact on clubs when they have lost their league status.

[Jools 584]

Hevingham use to have an amateur football team that played their home games at neighboring Stratton Strawless, who didn''t have a football team.Start there and work your way up.

[Yellow and Green 352]

The obvious idea would be to evaluate whether owning a football club could realistically be run as a profit making business - whilst keeping all stakeholders happy. It''s topical with all football clubs - especially us, Newcastle, Arsenal, United... the list could really go on and on!

At the moment, the answer would almost certainly be..., despite what some whingers think,... no. We are a club that publicly announces that it spends all available income on transfers/stadia/training ground etc every year, however never seemingly satisfying the consumer''s demands/expectation.

With the already high wages and agents fees etc, it could be a good opportunity to see if clubs could possibly benefit from the impending rise in TV income...

Good luck with it! I''m glad I don''t have to do another dissertation again!!

[canary dreamer 0]

My two suggestions are based around my two passions in life,

energy engineering and beer, using these to firstly reduce the overheads and secondly increasing the match day profit margins.

 

The energy consumption at carrow road must be very high, how

about looking at ways over reducing these overheads. Could the under pitch

heating be run off a geothermal system located under the carpark? There is a

very large roof space at a football ground which is not utilised; could this be

used for either photovoltaic solar panels or solar water heating? Could wind

turbines be incorporated into the flood lights? Or would a biomass combined

heat and power plant be built at the ground? Would using government incentives help the

club to offset the start-up costs against potential long term

savings.

 

Secondly beer, currently the club has got a contract with a

brewery to supply the beer; this is at a set cost which normally brewery’s set

with a very large profit margin. Talking to a landlord recently he told me that

he only makes 10p on every pint he sells due to being locked into this kind of

contract. If the club marketed its own beer, out souring production, this would

cost in the region of £1.90 a bottle, 500ml of beer costs 12p to produce, bottling,

storage and delivery cost would take this up to the region of £1.90. Then 44.4p

alcohol duty, this would mean that the club could have each 500ml bottle of

beer delivered for a cost of £2.34.4p per unit. The retail cost of a 500ml

bottle at carrow road is £3.50, giving a potential profit to the club of £1.15.6p

per bottle of beer sold. Beer has a long shelf life, so wastage should be

minimised, the club should have detailed records of sales, so they should be

able to predict how many units they will require at different points of the

season. Using batch manufacture methods they should probably only need to

produce three batches a year, thus reducing overheads. Organising this should

take very little resources, one member of staff could be given the role and it

would require only the smallest of time and energy outlay. So if this was done, then

theoretically the profits from beer sales on match days could be increase

substantially, but most importantly to me personally, the quality of the

bottled beers hopefully will improve.

[Katie Borkins 1]

A comparison of clubs with external owners. The location of the owner, investment in the club, involvement in the running of the club and a translation into club performance as measured by league position.

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

I don''t know how narrow or broad you want your subject to be. But if you are studying business then there certainly has been a major switch, involving football, in the last few decades.A football club used to be a standalone enterprise, run entirely within and of itself. There were no outside considerations. Even if the owners had other businesses there were no effective links between them and the football club.Now not only are many clubs are part of a portfolio of companies, but the owners (such as Fernandes at QPR) aim for what in the jargon are called synergies between the various parts of their empire. Whether these synergies exist or are illusory is another matter, but not the point.

[FenwayFrank 2,717]

I like canary dreamers ideas, particularly the one about the beer 😀. There are plenty of local breweries that would probably love to supply the club with some decent ale.

[Well b back 3,605]

A couple of books written on this. Why not look at the age gap for kids as this country seems to just want to group kids together on a school year basis. Obviously those born in September have a much better chance of participating in football / sport than those born in August. Kids in this country are compared like for like even though the August born are in many cases almost a year younger than their counterparts born in September. I understand that the catch up point is 14 but by then lots of late birthday kids are not playing sport as they have spent the previous 9 years being told they are not good enough / quick enough / physical enough.

[mr footy 36]

Yes a good sound idea lo

[Green and Yellow fellow 0]

Hey guys a bit late, but I''ve endured a month packed with deadlines and not really had much time to look at this forum. Who would want to anyway haha, being a Norwich fan is slightly depressing atm, especially when your girlfriend is a huge Liverpool fan.

Anyway, I would like say thanks for all of your comments, It has helped me come up with an idea. I will studying football from an operations management p.o.v. and analysing the difference between internal and external ownership effects football clubs. Much like Norwich vs Liverpool haha.

Thanks though once again, feel free to share any input you might have. OTBC

[Katie Borkins 1]

My opinion is that more takeovers by wealthy owners fail than succeed, if you judge success as measured on the pitch as opposed to in the accounting books.

My other option is that it is very easy to tell other people how they should spend their money.

[FCC 94]

Best of luck with the studies.

[Van wink 2,994]

Green and Yellow fellow wrote the following post at 26/04/2016 4:13 PM:

Hey guys a bit late, but I''ve endured a month packed with deadlines and not really had much time to look at this forum. Who would want to anyway haha, being a Norwich fan is slightly depressing atm, especially when your girlfriend is a huge Liverpool fan.

Anyway, I would like say thanks for all of your comments, It has helped me come up with an idea. I will studying football from an operations management p.o.v. and analysing the difference between internal and external ownership effects football clubs. Much like Norwich vs Liverpool haha.

Thanks though once again, feel free to share any input you might have. OTBC

👍🏻