NORWICH AS A GLOBAL BRAND

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

I wonder. If through a surge into the play offs and a victory at Wembley Norwich found themselves in the Premier League next season and this time established themselves how would Norwich supporters feel then about becoming a global brand?

There have been many on this Board calling for fresh investment, so how about an American coming in and looking to do a Derby with us because of the future financial benefits of a more global Premier League?

Some may see such a status and the final snub to Ipswich as they might to us.

How would YOU feel about Norwich playing Man Utd in Beijing in January?

It seems those in favour include Clubs with only Premier League retention to play for such as Sunderland and Bolton although this is not a strict rule, however, for these Clubs without additional European games the extra money would surely ensure they have the funds to never be out of the Premier League for more than one season (and it will be interesting to see what happens to Derby if they fail to be re-promoted). By the same token, do people in Melbourne want to turn out to watch Blackburn vs. Wigan?

Personally, I detest the current cartel that is the Premier League. It is uncompetitive and as with other monopolies I believe the Government should step in and look at what is happening. I would love to see a complete re-structure so all our football was as competitive as the Championship currently is. At the moment there is nothing for all but four Clubs except Premier League survival. Supporters of the other 16 are often dissolusioned and grounds are only part full.

But, for a Club which does buck the general attendance trend what would be the position of Norwich City to the global brand idea? We were happy enough to be founders of the Premier League only to leave it at the worst time for years in the wilderness as the gulf grew.

Despite what many might say on here I suspect Norwich supporters may just be minded to buy into this proposal should it ever happen and should we ever be in a position to have a choice. On that basis, do we have the right to criticise David Gold et al?

[blahblahblah 2]

I''d be happy to see a groundswell of supporters rejecting TV money.  Players don''t need 100-150k a week, regardless of what anyone says about how short their careers are, and if the TV deals are bigger next time, as has been suggested with ESPN entering the running, then all that will happen is the likes of John Terry and Frank Lampard will need a second wheelbarrow for their butlers to take their cash home in, the game below the top level, and especially at grass-roots level will still be starved of funds. The same goes for this ridiculous plan to play Premier games abroad.  They can stick it as far as I''m concerned, it''s got very little to do with sport, and everything to do with naked greed.  I can''t believe that people in Los Angeles would pay good money to watch a 0-0 draw between Bolton and Everton.  They might do the first time out of novelty, but if you get 2 or 3 years down the line, demand will be there for Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea, and little else.  Then what happens ?  A proposal for the top 3 to play their home matches abroad all the time, with LA getting the Man Utd - Arsenal clash, and Addis Ababa getting Chelsea - Derby ?This bubble is ripe for bursting.

[SWP = Poor Mans Ruel Fox!! 0]

I think the whole idea is wrong on so many levels.

Most importantly, the idea of a 39th game drawn randomly..oh apart from a seeding for the top 5 teams so that most importantly they all win and cannot get caught by the rest of the league....makes the league season asymmetrical and therefore destroys its integrity as a league competition!

I would have no problems with the Premier League buggering off in January to have a little competition of their own, maybe pull Premier teams out of the league cup and have a separate one just for them, but to incorporate it into the league like this is an awful idea, thought up by money men only interested in how many extra dollars they can make.

[Hairy Canary 668]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]I''d be happy to see a groundswell of supporters rejecting TV money.  Players don''t need 100-150k a week, regardless of what anyone says about how short their careers are, and if the TV deals are bigger next time, as has been suggested with ESPN entering the running, then all that will happen is the likes of John Terry and Frank Lampard will need a second wheelbarrow for their butlers to take their cash home in, the game below the top level, and especially at grass-roots level will still be starved of funds.

The same goes for this ridiculous plan to play Premier games abroad.  They can stick it as far as I''m concerned, it''s got very little to do with sport, and everything to do with naked greed.  I can''t believe that people in Los Angeles would pay good money to watch a 0-0 draw between Bolton and Everton.  They might do the first time out of novelty, but if you get 2 or 3 years down the line, demand will be there for Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea, and little else.  Then what happens ?  A proposal for the top 3 to play their home matches abroad all the time, with LA getting the Man Utd - Arsenal clash, and Addis Ababa getting Chelsea - Derby ?

This bubble is ripe for bursting.
[/quote]

Fantastic post BBB, everything I feel in a nutshell.

I heard the Derby chairman on the radio this morning explaining how much he wanted Derby''s name to be globalised so they could maximise their marketing potential! I just wanted to shout at the radio "you are called Derby County because thats who you represent and play for, you''re selling the fans down the river just for even more cash". Can you imagine a situation where Derby play Wigan in the oversees match, say in Australia in the middle of the night, where the outcome determined who stayed up? The most important game of both teams season played in front of a handful of could''nt care less viewers while the real supporters are left at home chewing their names. The football might be high quality but whats the point of that if nobody gives a damb about the result!

[The Voice of the Thorpe Area 0]

Can only agree with you blahblahblah- football as we know it has been in transition for the past 10 years- and, let''s face it, is already a money-ran business, we''ve all known it for along time. This move, would effectively, be the last nail in the coffin of the Premier League, in terms of popularity at home- fans around the country are not going to take this.

Football is on a slippery slope, and, it may well be 5-10 years down the line (if this does goe ahead)- that we see domestic football flung into a state of disaster- no matter how many foriegn owners there are- they still need mugs like us to turn up to games and pay the SKY subscription. I can truelly see fans not doing this in the future.

RIP English Football

[Carrow89 0]

Why not go the whole hog and follow the example of US ''sports'' by moving to another location.LA Man Utd, Moscow Chelsea, Woolwich Arsenal (that''s been done)Even the paupers down the road could get in on the act, by moving to South America and renaming themselves ....Binners AiresWouldn''t look too out of place among loads of other incompetent, third world economies

[Shack Attack 0]

Never mind being in The Premiership, I would still be against this idea if we were one of the top five teams who are due to be seeded. The whole idea of a league is that everbody plays each other a set number of times, the moment you start messing with that it ceases to become a fair competition. It can only be a matter of time until The Premiership decides to shut up shop and end relegation and promotion. If we were to get promoted in the next couple of seasons, expand our ground and maybe become one of the teams they wanted to keep would we then be happy with the idea?

The Premiership simply exists to make small number of people extremely rich and any semblance of true competition is long gone. This is is a logical step for them but it could be stopped. If these proposals were to be introduced (and I''m not convinced they will yet) the supporters groups need to take action if this idea is as unpopular as I believe it is. Withdraw their support on matchdays, refuse to buy any merchandise and cancel their SKY subscriptions. Hit the clubs where it hurts most, in the pockets. Yes, they''ll miss a few matches but do they really want to continue to be part of what is now a money making exercise for a select group of billionaires?

It won''t happen though, because we''ve reached this ridiculous point in our country''s history when football has ceased to become a hobby and has become the most important things in some people''s lives. These people simply can''t abide the thought of not watching Man Yoo from the comfort of their Surrey homes, tucking into their five course lunch at Ashburton Grove, from hearing the latest inane warblings from $tevie Gerrard on Liverpool TV or getting the latest the latest update from Chelsea''s reserve team via ''exclusive'' text. They sleepwalk through their lives endlessly quoting that damned Bill Shankly line but never once getting the humour behind it. Eventually they start referring to ''brands'' and actually caring whether the team they ''support'' gets a share of the Asian market. These are the people we need to convince which unfortunately means that football in this country is screwed.

[Ivana_rubyatitz 6]

[quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]

I wonder. If through a surge into the play offs and a victory at Wembley Norwich found themselves in the Premier League next season and this time established themselves how would Norwich supporters feel then about becoming a global brand?

[/quote]

Heck of a lot of "ifs" in their Rudolph!

Truth is that even if the Premierships latest money making scam were to come off (and I hope to God it does not) the biggest benificaries will still be the big 4.  They have the brand awareness already worldwide - you see kids on TV in distant corners of the globe wearing Man Utd shirts but not Wigan ones and nowt is going to change that.  The rich (Man Utd etc)  will get richer, the well off (rest of current Prem fat cats) more secure in the medium term, and everyone else falls ever further behind the gap.  As others have already said the lure of Wigan v Reading is not enough to get em in at the moment, I cant see the good folks of Sydney wanting to turn out and watch in their droves either.

Sad to say, if we were still there in the "winners" corner I might feel differently - but even then it would be a short term benefit because when the big 4 have driven all the smaller teams to the wall they are just going to abandon the likes of Birmingham City to set up a European Super League with Ac Milan, Real Madrid etc.  Be interesting to see how good an idea Mr Gold thinks it is at that point. 

[Norwich R Us 59]

You know, I always thought we could do well in Thailand, considering the whole population has a yellow obsession if we were in the premiership im sure we could win a few fans over!

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

An interesting post as usual Blah.

If you were in charge at the Football League what would be your strategy? I believe there is a real opportunity for Mawhinney to do a bit of branding himself because the Football League has the opportunity to be distinctly different.

I would be suggesting an end to promotion and relegation with the winners of The Championship being The League Champions. I wonder what the Premier League would think of this, it would surely promote stagnation and kill off that league. I would be negotiating with UEFA for their cup places to go to League Clubs and The Champions League can go it''s own way. I would exclude Premiership Teams from The League Cup.

I wonder if this might result in more competitive opportunity for home grown players who want to do more than fill out Premiership squads. If Scudamore wants to be radical he should expect the League to be radical too.

You would end up with TV corporate football and real football.

[The Voice of the Thorpe Area 0]

[quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]

An interesting post as usual Blah.

If you were in charge at the Football League what would be your strategy? I believe there is a real opportunity for Mawhinney to do a bit of branding himself because the Football League has the opportunity to be distinctly different.

I would be suggesting an end to promotion and relegation with the winners of The Championship being The League Champions. I wonder what the Premier League would think of this, it would surely promote stagnation and kill off that league. I would be negotiating with UEFA for their cup places to go to League Clubs and The Champions League can go it''s own way. I would exclude Premiership Teams from The League Cup.

I wonder if this might result in more competitive opportunity for home grown players who want to do more than fill out Premiership squads. If Scudamore wants to be radical he should expect the League to be radical too.

You would end up with TV corporate football and real football.

[/quote]

RH- I''ve made this suggestion before, and it could so easily work. The majority of fans, no matter what team, want to see real football, which is fast becoming the football league as a whole.

I really hope the FL take this opputunity to establish itself as the ''real football'' league, and as far as no promotion is concerned, and naming a League champion, I think this idea could be implemented and become very popular.

[alex_ncfc 648]

[quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]

An interesting post as usual Blah.

If you were in charge at the Football League what would be your strategy? I believe there is a real opportunity for Mawhinney to do a bit of branding himself because the Football League has the opportunity to be distinctly different.

I would be suggesting an end to promotion and relegation with the winners of The Championship being The League Champions. I wonder what the Premier League would think of this, it would surely promote stagnation and kill off that league. I would be negotiating with UEFA for their cup places to go to League Clubs and The Champions League can go it''s own way. I would exclude Premiership Teams from The League Cup.

I wonder if this might result in more competitive opportunity for home grown players who want to do more than fill out Premiership squads. If Scudamore wants to be radical he should expect the League to be radical too.

You would end up with TV corporate football and real football.

[/quote]

That sounds like a perfect scenario to me, RH. Much rather see us playing competitive football than getting tonked every week, I don''t care about the opposition playing "good quality stuff", I don''t want to watch them. If we can''t get the Premier League back to being as competitive as it was from around 92-97 then I would rather not be in it.

[plan b 0]

[quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]

An interesting post as usual Blah.

If you were in charge at the Football League what would be your strategy? I believe there is a real opportunity for Mawhinney to do a bit of branding himself because the Football League has the opportunity to be distinctly different.

I would be suggesting an end to promotion and relegation with the winners of The Championship being The League Champions. I wonder what the Premier League would think of this, it would surely promote stagnation and kill off that league. I would be negotiating with UEFA for their cup places to go to League Clubs and The Champions League can go it''s own way. I would exclude Premiership Teams from The League Cup.

I wonder if this might result in more competitive opportunity for home grown players who want to do more than fill out Premiership squads. If Scudamore wants to be radical he should expect the League to be radical too.

You would end up with TV corporate football and real football.

[/quote]

i have had similar thoughts to this too, it would take a very brave decision, and for the first few years i would imagine some clubs would suffer, but no more than they are already. after those first few years of watching a league whose only selling point would be to see who would win it out of 3 or 4 teams while the other 16 just make up the numbers would be very boring, every televised match would only feature arsenal, manure, chelsea and liverpool because they would be the only games that matter as there would be no relegation battles, or a place in the uefa cup etc, and in turn the top 4 would then demand more of the tv revenue than the rest of the league, leaving the rest not only picking up the scraps but also having nothing to fight for. 

as i say it would take a few years for people to tire of this and turn to the ''real'' leagues, but, and here would be the real turning point, make all the teams play with british players. it woulld take a few years to clear all teams of imports but then it would be an extra selling point as majority of  the international players of the home nations will be playing in these new leagues. implement a wage limit on all clubs to keep it on a more level playing field and there you have it.

there is a similarity to this to what happens in the states. NFL is the franchise league, but, equally as popular, and watched and followed just as much is the college leagues, the gates for those games puts most premier clubs to shame.

i would much rather see norwich, obviously at the top of this ''poorer'' league, but stable because we wont be paying huge wages or trying to catch up to teams with benefactors, than trying to break into a league that we will inevitably get relegated from no better financially off than we were before (as we are now, because that apparent £30 mill has done us no good at all)  

what do you say?      

[newyorkcanary 14]

As a New Yorker, I would personally love to see a Premiership game in my backyard, but even I agree that this is a generally horrible idea. First, the notion of a 39th game, thereby skewing the league results as a 5 teams will have to play the top 5 teams an extra time is just unfair.  It won''t fly.  Second, the locales getting Arsenal and Man United will obviously yield more money than the Bolton/Wigan match, thereby perpetuating the economic disparity between the top and bottom.

How about something that Major League Baseball has recently adopted-- a luxury tax.  Every year, the comissioners office comes out with the next years salary threshold where teams who exceed that threshold will pay a percentage of their overage into a fund which goes to the clubs with the least revenues.  Rather than fund just the Premier league, these funds should be spread among all teams through League 2.  If teams want to spend 100s of millions of pounds, so be it, but they wil also be paying for it on the back end as well, so that they will have to think twice about doing what Chelski did.  Only 3 or 4 teams exceed the baseball threshold, (Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and Angels).  It doesn''t eliminate the competitive imbalance, but you do see smaller teams (Marlins, Rockies etc...) go much further into the post-season than you used to.    

[macdougalls perm 0]

[quote user="blahblahblah"]I''d be happy to see a groundswell of supporters rejecting TV money.  Players don''t need 100-150k a week, regardless of what anyone says about how short their careers are, and if the TV deals are bigger next time, as has been suggested with ESPN entering the running, then all that will happen is the likes of John Terry and Frank Lampard will need a second wheelbarrow for their butlers to take their cash home in, the game below the top level, and especially at grass-roots level will still be starved of funds.

The same goes for this ridiculous plan to play Premier games abroad.  They can stick it as far as I''m concerned, it''s got very little to do with sport, and everything to do with naked greed.  I can''t believe that people in Los Angeles would pay good money to watch a 0-0 draw between Bolton and Everton.  They might do the first time out of novelty, but if you get 2 or 3 years down the line, demand will be there for Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea, and little else.  Then what happens ?  A proposal for the top 3 to play their home matches abroad all the time, with LA getting the Man Utd - Arsenal clash, and Addis Ababa getting Chelsea - Derby ?

This bubble is ripe for bursting.
[/quote]

Great post. There''s a petition on Facebook, elegantly called ''Stick your 39th game up your bollix'' [:D], a 365 thing I think. We should all pop across and sign it I reckon.

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]

An interesting post as usual Blah.

If you were in charge at the Football League what would be your strategy? I believe there is a real opportunity for Mawhinney to do a bit of branding himself because the Football League has the opportunity to be distinctly different.

I would be suggesting an end to promotion and relegation with the winners of The Championship being The League Champions. I wonder what the Premier League would think of this, it would surely promote stagnation and kill off that league. I would be negotiating with UEFA for their cup places to go to League Clubs and The Champions League can go it''s own way. I would exclude Premiership Teams from The League Cup.

You would end up with TV corporate football and real football.

[/quote]

The Championship is potentially an easier sell abroad than the Premiership, if only because it is so ridiculously competitive.  I''ll give you a fiver if you can find a closer league from top to bottom anywhere in the world.  I''d be looking to sell the key closing games of the season to the US and Asia if every season was as close as this one - the big names aren''t in this league, but the narrative would keep people on the edge of their seats - compare that to the Premiership when it''s usually all done and dusted by early April.  If you could do a "live football" version of Soccer Special for the closing 3 or 4 weeks of the Championship, say a live game with key moments from other games as they happen, similar to sky''s coverage of Champions League games, it could be electric viewing.

I agree with every suggestion in your post, I think I might have suggested removing the promotion / relegation link to the Premiership in other threads, every team from Man City down would panic a couple of years after this occured and beg to be let back into the home of true competition, as your billionaires would look to join an extended "closed shop" Champions League format.

Removing Premiership clubs from the league cup is a risky option, but probably neccesary, most of them field weakened teams / youth squads at the moment anyway.  To make things interesting, I''d invite conference league clubs into the competition instead - they would effectively become the "Division 4" of the new structure, after all, it could be seen as a show of solidarity with league clubs who have fallen into "non-league".  Ebbsfleet or Dagenham & Redbridge would love an opportunity to play at Carrow Road in front of 20,000.  This would generate the cup upset stories and interest you get from the FA Cup, and create much needed revenue for small clubs who need it.

Uefa Cup places for the top couple of teams of the Championship, again I agree.  Championship teams would be more than capable of competing at this level.

If you really wanted to make a statement, you could remove league clubs from the FA Cup, but I''d stop short of this, the competition has too much history and means too much globally to be messed with.

The problem is that the Football League has very little room for maneouvre, which is exactly why the FA set up the Premier League in the first place - by doing so they made the football league the poor relation instantly.  The fact is that there are still strings that the league can pull in order to get a bigger slice of the pie and make English football as a whole fairer and more competitive.

[quote]I wonder if this might result in more competitive opportunity for home grown players who want to do more than fill out Premiership squads. If Scudamore wants to be radical he should expect the League to be radical too.[/quote]

For the current generation, I wonder if it''s too late - too many of them are getting money they can''t get in the Championship by playing in front of 500 in the Premier reserve league.  Maybe the next generation could avoid the shocking waste of this one though - but it would take some serious changes to the current structure, and as things stand, I can''t see the people in charge being willing to make the effort.

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

Michel Platini sums it up:

"It''s ironic. Soon you will have in England no English presidents, you already have no English coach, you have no English players and maybe now you will have no clubs playing in England. It''s a joke."

Say what you like about the French but at least they have a sense of who they are.

I think our biggest hope may be from football governing bodies imposing some rules on us to save us from ourselves.

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

BLAH! Now Norwich have won in a foreign City I am going to revise my opinions!

[Big Down Under 0]

A couple of problems with all of this I''m afraid Rudolph and all;1. Take away the possibility of promotion to the Premiership and take Prem teams from the League Cup, and you lose what little tv revenue league teams get. You can''t just take this revenue from clubs without them suffering, so the clubs won''t vote for it. It just won''t happen.2. The appeal of the ''EPL'' in many parts of the world has little to do with sport and lots to do with glamour/branding/celebrity. Beckham recently came to Australia, they got something like 75000 fans to a friendly game to watch ''Beckham''s LA Galaxy'' play. He came on at half time for a wander around the pitch during a Sydney league game and they sold out the ground (they never come close to half filling their ground normally) he wasn''t even playing! Its a glamour thing not a football thing. They won''t pay to watch Luton vs West Brom. Or Norwich vs Ipswich. There is very very little revenue for the Football League from anywhere outside England, apart from ex-pats like myself.3. Why would UEFA go against the FA, and let teams like West Brom into the Champions League? They need the pull of the big clubs to get the tv viewers and therefore the money. Its all about money, and our league won''t generate it. Financially there are 4 teams that count in this country, and all the others are make weights.I would love to take the money out of the game, but since the FA let the genie out of the bottle, I can''t see any way of getting it back in. I guess this is strange, for someone who is so positive about his club, but I''m very depressed about the general state of the game. The best thing that could happen is for the big 4 clubs to leave the Prem to join a Euro league, the money would follow them, we could just carry on without them.

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,020]

Good post Rude Old. I have to agree with Blah x 3. You only have to look at the rows of empty seats at the less fashionable Premier League sides to question if some clubs are already over reliant on TV money. The other big test will come when all of the Premier League clubs are owned by foreign consortia, three of those clubs will get relegated, I wonder how long their "investors" will hang around when that happens. I want Norwich City to do well, and I would love us to receive a cash injenction but I would not want us to be owned by some franchise and I would not want us to be hooked and over reliant on TV money......