Do clubs care about the fans?

[Daniel Brigham 0]

My latest blog, written to keep me awake last night while having to watch the horrorshow in the cricket ...With clubs pricing out many fans and banning reporters, something has

to be done before people start turning their back on football. By

Daniel BrighamThere is something unpleasant happening at the nation’s football grounds. As

Norwich fans travel to Newcastle tomorrow, there will be a few regulars

missing from St James’s Park: the local journalists from the Journal, Evening Chronicle and Sunday Sun who were recently banned from reporting from the ground by Newcastle’s comedy owner Mike Ashley.  Then,

over the last couple of weeks, Premier League managers have started

muttering about what fans have known for a long time: the atmosphere at

games is becoming increasingly similar to that at a fringe-haired,

bed-wetting Indie gig. Moribund, as Alan Partridge would say. Those

two developments might not appear connected, but they are both

depressing evidence of how clubs are controlling who enters their

stadiums to the detriment of the fabric of the game. Ok, so ''the fabric

of the game’ is a horrible, cliche that is over-used to conjure up

sepia-tinged images of moustachioed footballers, wooden clappers and

balls made from bovine bladders. But if you ignore the cloying romanticism of the phrase, there is

a ‘fabric’ to football, made up of two key elements: passionate fans

who turn up at grounds to watch their team play and journalists – plus

broadcasters – who relay the game to the hundreds, thousands, millions

of people who aren’t at the ground. Without either of these elements

football would never have crept into the national consciousness. Without

them now, the sport would cease to exist. So why are clubs so

keen to turn their stadiums into no-go zones for most of the population

and football reporters? What makes Mike Ashley think it’s OK to allow

Joe Kinnear into his stadium but not local reporters? Ashley

objected to the perfectly reasonable reporting of an anti-Ashley

demonstration by Newcastle fans, so he barred the newspapers, shutting

out the dissenting voices. Perhaps he has been talking to Paolo Di Canio

about politics, for his decision has a touch of the black shirts. He’s

not the only one: Alex Ferguson famously got all stroppy with the BBC,

stamped his feet, refused to talk to them and chucked them out for seven years

all because of a perfectly legitimate documentary they made that

featured his son. Port Vale got in on the act last month, with chairman

Norman Smurthwaite banning a local reporter for writing a correct and

reasonable story about fans not receiving shirts they had paid for. While

it''s true that journalists attend football matches in greater numbers

than ever before (let''s give sports journos the collective noun of

''freelunchers''), their growth is nothing compared to the rise in the

number of pseudo-journos that make up a club’s own media team, there to

report for the club''s website and social media feeds. There is

room in the press box, at the moment, for both freelunchers and the

team’s media team. But many clubs would prefer it if the freelunchers

were squeezed out and that the only place you could read the team''s

latest news was on their own website and social media feeds, where they

can control the agenda and protect their brand. They don''t care if the

news they deliver is sanitised as long as the club is presented in a

positive light. As long as the brand is protected.In fact,

they''d be happy if newspapers didn''t turn up at all, evidenced by

Nottingham Forest’s decision to limit local reporters’ access to its

players and management to post-match press conferences only. Port Vale

also attempted to charge local papers for a seat in the press box, a

cynical move as alarming as it is predictable. And it’s not just

local journos in danger, as Fergie’s beeb ban testifies to. How long

will it be until a club takes issue with something Sky reports and

refuses their commentators access to the ground? It’s not a

coincidence that Sky’s football coverage is so sycophantic – they’re

scared of offending football clubs, all-too happy to pay above the odds

for media-managed interviews in which players show remarkable dexterity

in not saying anything remotely interesting. It’s like spending top

dollar on a tin of beige paint and it''s becoming increasingly difficult

to remember that there really was a time when footballers didn''t just

talk in platitudes and cliches. Sadly, these days they rarely give 110%

in interviews.  Sky isn''t the only example of the great

sanitisation of football. The crowds are, too. Or certainly Premier

League crowds, where clubs happily charge anything up to £126 (hello,

Arsenal) for just 90 minutes of entertainment. No wonder many grounds

are so quiet these days – fans spend the entire time in a state of

slack-jawed bewilderment at being fleeced, staring forlornly into their

empty wallet. The Etihad and Stamford Bridge are often quieter

than Twenty20 cricket matches. Even at Stoke the noise levels are down,

and their fans need little excuse to drown out the bad football through

the medium of song. Obviously there are exceptions – for big games the

noise can still be awesome and spines can still very much be tingled.

But the designated singing section at Old Trafford is a desperate

acknowledgement that atmospheres now come vacuum packed for many games.Arsenal

have a similar section at The Emirates, but novelty ideas such as these

are for beach volleyball, for darts. It is not for football, not when

the most obvious solution is to just lower the prices, to turn football

back into a social event rather than a tourist attraction. It is far

easier – and way more wallet-friendly – to watch games in the pub with a

group of mates than it is to turn up with friends to a game. Clubs

can afford to do it. Their megasquillions from TV deals will easily

cover a reduction in ticket prices. They could even reduce the number of

season tickets they offer, allowing more available seating for groups

to turn up together on match days. Standing areas, which reportedly

works so well in the Bundesliga, is also another option – but that''s a

column for another day.The broadcasting companies want

boisterous noise, they want a raucous atmosphere as a return for the

millions they are investing. If football matches are deathly quiet,

people will stop watching their product; bang goes the TV rights deals,

bang goes the top players, bang goes the club.The sport isn’t

quite eating itself yet, but it is having a sniff and a nibble as clubs

greedily look after themselves rather than the needs of their

supporters. The solution is easy: lower the prices for fans and lower

the drawbridge to journalists before sanitisation becomes the death of

football. Daniel Brigham is Features Editor of The Cricketer magazine.You can follow him on Twitter: @cricketer_dan

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 2,424]

Very good piece and a very interesting topic (for me at least) - having worked both as a press officer at a football club and a sports reporter I agree with you entirely about clubs obsession with controlling what is and isn''t reported (and who reports it). Player and manager interviews aren''t really worth the airtime or column inches they recieve - and I think we are seeing reporting change to reflect this, with more and more ''football analysts'' producing good copy. The analyst is only needed now because managers will not give any great detail over what tactics they will use or why decisions were made - players are told to never mention specifics in interviews and talk in bland soundbytes. For my sins I have sat down with Premier League footballers and given them flash cards on what are good things to say in interviews to certain set questions.

 

It is written into the contract with the Premier League that clubs give access to all acreddited, via DataCo, media but Ferguson''s refusal to speak to the BBC was a blatant breach of this agreement and he was never taken to task over it. Newcastle banning local media is also an infringment which nothing will be done about.

 

Ulitmately the largest clubs want to retain their media rights and sell the package directly to their fans through their own TV stations - John Henry talked about doing this when he purchased Liverpool - this will allow clubs with the most fans to generate the most revenue whilst also having almost total editoral control over outputs. The Premier League clubs are the most paranoid of any I have had to work with, clubs in Europe are much happier to grant access to players without a press officer present (although Draxler recent completed interviews prior the England friendly with both Schalke and DFB minders to keep him on message) and they are also more willing for press to come to training sessions etc. It''s hard to understand this approach when media in Europe is often far more fanatical around sports than the UK.

[Daniel Brigham 0]

Interesting stuff Bethnal. What a lot of clubs don''t realise is that by not allowing reporters access to players/press conferences etc they''re actually losing all control of what''s written. If they work with journos they can at least give their view of facts/events and indirectly shape what''s written. It''s happening increasingly in cricket - a change that''s I''ve only really seen creep in (in the UK anyway) in the last three or four years.

[Tetteys Jig 851]

The clubs defensive strategy doesn''t surprise me though, the press have made their own bed. Things like the space monkey palava just get overplayed and make the players and managers look stupid. Perhaps the press should learn to work with the players and managers a bit more.

As for pricing people out, blame murdoch and also blame ourselves. The fact is, the clubs need them gate receipts and unless everyone is willing to cut prices, it''d be daft for a club like us to do so when we can fill our stadium at current rates.

It''s no longer a matter of simply going to a footy match that most people won''t care about, whenever you turn up to a premiership match with the other 300,000 that do over a weekend, you are in a priveliged position that over a billion people around the world would love to be in.

Football clubs are not charities and if Norwich decided to be, we''d be swiftly relegated from the premiership and have no money left.

If anything, perhaps Sky and FIFA and the FA or whoever should be forced to give some money back to the game and subsidise school kids and poor people to go to the odd game as well as other intitatives, but this isn''t really Norwich''s responsibility.

[PurpleCanary 6,378]

There are other examples of bans, such as at Southamton, and - closer to home - with Look East. Apart from the specific points already made by the OP and Bethnal I think there are two quite new factors at work here. One is the prevalence of the rich or even mega-rich owner/chairman/CEO, such as Cortese at Southampton, Henry at Liverpool and Ashley at Newcastle. These are powerful people who in their previous incarnations as non-football businesspeople were used to getting their own way. And they have carried this attitude on into football.The other factor is that there used to be a rough balance of interests between the local club and the local paper. Both needed the other. Not so now. Cyberspace has sharply shifted the balance. Papers need the football but the clubs can do without the papers. Hence the increase in bans. It doesn''t harm a club the way it did 20 or even 10 years ago.

[Daniel Brigham 0]

Jimmy. I agree that the media is also to blame. We create headlines out of nothing and turn anything interesting that a sportsman/woman says into something controversial - just look at the furore over the recent Wilshere comments. So naturally players become more inclined not to say anything interesting, to talk in platitudes. But this is also partly a result of the limited access - because the press get such little contact with players they usually have to work with scraps and cliches, so it''s not all that surprising when they immediately jump on anything remotely interesting and make a big deal out of it. Also, Premier League clubs need gate receipts less and less. The revenue they generate from tickets is dwarfed by the money they get from TV rights - so they can afford to drop the prices. Purple - all good points. I could''ve written another 2,000 words but had to end it somewhere!

[Indy 3,471]

[quote user="Daniel Brigham"]Jimmy. I agree that the media is also to blame. We create headlines out of nothing and turn anything interesting that a sportsman/woman says into something controversial - just look at the furore over the recent Wilshere comments. So naturally players become more inclined not to say anything interesting, to talk in platitudes. But this is also partly a result of the limited access - because the press get such little contact with players they usually have to work with scraps and cliches, so it''s not all that surprising when they immediately jump on anything remotely interesting and make a big deal out of it.

Also, Premier League clubs need gate receipts less and less. The revenue they generate from tickets is dwarfed by the money they get from TV rights - so they can afford to drop the prices.

Purple - all good points. I could''ve written another 2,000 words but had to end it somewhere!
[/quote]

 

Nice blog, but your second point here just sums up football attitudes today! Gone are the days where fans are any clubs priority are Football in the top divisions has moved inot the realms of what I like to call Americanization of sport......super wealthy atheletes who have huge egos and demand too much!

 

For the real value of fans you need to move down a few divisions to those die hard fans who follow their team and the clubs are reliant on the revenue generated from the gates. These clubs are old school and if you ask the fans they have an assossiation with club, players and staff in general.

 

I go to games but in recent times I have found myself not watching any other games on tv, I don''t bother to watch the rest of the Premiership games nor have I watched any european cup games in a number of years! it just bores me to tears if I''m honest.

 

I had the pleasure of watching a game at York this year and the atmosphere there was like it was back in the early 80''s at Carrow Road, it felt real and the pleayer coming into the ground appeared to be relaxed and genuinly had time to chat with fans. None of them blanked the fans, none of them had an ego which made you feel second class, unlike the feeling you get at this level.

 

Must admit, I''m not being priced out of football but I do find myself falling out of love with it at times! This read makes me think that even more.

[PurpleCanary 6,378]

[quote user="Daniel Brigham"]My latest blog, written to keep me awake last night while having to watch the horrorshow in the cricket ...Daniel Brigham is Features Editor of The Cricketer magazine.You can follow him on Twitter: @cricketer_dan[/quote]

 

A fair number of years ago a sports writer defined the UK winter as "that time of the year when - in some place very hot - England are struggling to avoid an innings defeat". To be fair it hasn''t been generally true for quite a while.

[im spartacus canary 0]

Good stuff DB not your usual level of entertainment but some good points , the bit about groups of casuals sitting together reminded me of peterborough in the cup when the club sold as many tickets as anyone wanted to whoever rang up first and all those that usually monopolise everything cos basically they don''t have a life  were going into meltdown [:D]

[CiderkiddCanary 0]

I''m a Yeovil Town fan (born and raised in Norwich I might add) and there''s a really well-run fan website called Ciderspace. To be fair, I don''t know of many people who would prefer to use the official Yeovil website rather than Ciderspace, though I do accept it may be slightly easier for supporters of Yeovil to follow the on-goings of the club on a more intimate level than Norwich due to the differences in size. But I think fans can still have an important role to play in the reporting of club news.In terms of football overall, I do think that the predictions suggested by previous posters in this thread regarding the demise of the game may well come true, particularly if everything becomes even more bland and there is a sudden realisation or campaign to make clubs more in touch with the grassroots. Football itself won''t of course die out in such a rapid fashion, and if there was to be another ITV Digital-esque collapse I would expect the game to recover, even if several bigger clubs are lost en-route. Alas it probably won''t come to that, but if one or both of the main paid-for broadcasters gets it wrong and there is a sudden and dramatic decline in demand, it would certainly be interesting to see how events unfolded.

[Buh 0]

Do clubs care about fans: Yes. Will some always maintain that they don''t: Yes

[Daniel Brigham 0]

Spartacus - it''s like the famous Wimbledon final between Rafter and Ivanisovic. Rain stopped it being played on a Sunday so it was played on a Monday and all of the seats were resold to non-corporate guests - ie actual fans. Best atmosphere in years.

[Mister Chops 7]

Good piece.  Do journalists get free lunches from the football clubs?  Would have thought that might impact on impartiality and a burger and chips from the van over the road would have been the ethical choice.And yes, disappointing that Mitchell Johnson found his radar while our batsmen strived to make Nathan Lyon look like Muralitharan.

[Daniel Brigham 0]

Food''s always provided at sporting events - but then its not the ground/stadium the journos are reporting on - it''s the action on the pitch, so don''t see it as unethical! Lord''s do the best lunches ...

[Mello Yello 2,572]

Do clubs care about the fans?.....Probably about as much as politicians care about the people.....

 

[Houston Canary 0]

Stadiums are packed for most Prem. clubs. Until they regularly feature significant vacancy, I don''t see a problem.

TV ratings are high so TV revenues continue to grow. It doesn''t seem people are turning away from the game at all. Quite the opposite.

The fabric of the game has changed, that''s all. So has society. Nothing wrong with that.

Cheers!