Beech, J.,
Chadwick, S., and Tapp, A. (2000) 'Surfing in the premier
league: key issues
for football club
marketers using
the Internet', Managing Leisure, 5
(2): 51 — 64.
Sports clubs are
increasingly
using [what the authors call the] net, but they often under utilise
their
sites.This is probably not just the
result of technical problems, but rather old marketing techniques.There are some good examples though, above
all with American sports clubs, who commonly feature pages for fans
(featuring
simulations, keep fit tips and buddy pages).Those sites are much better integrated into
marketing strategies, and
feature information on pricing, various promotions, links to sponsors
and so
on.Football clubs in the UK need to do
this as well.Sports fans do use the net
and they want to identify with their teens, and they have an unusual
intensity
of brand loyalty.There is some
potential for interactivity to develop this brand loyalty.Opportunities include a chance to do more
online secure tickets selling, to offer walkthroughs video clips or
even live
action.Sites could provide information
on fixtures, player profiles, details about sponsors, quick updates,
and online
chat.Getting surfers to sign in would
mean there was a chance to track them and build up a customer database.It would be possible to engage a range of
fans, browsers as well as the committed, and thus to build a fan base.Virtual marketing would be required, however
based on information and interactivity.It would be possible to further segment the market.Generally, football clubs need to add value
to the actual commodities that the cell, using multimedia and multi
sensory
devices.Electronic Marketing will also
reduce the cost of physical sales and marketing.It
would open up access to those who cannot
attend, including dispersed fans.The
only problem is that computers tend to be dominated by white males, and
there
might be some initial conservatism.Virtual marketeers would face a challenge to first
of all provide and
then compete.They might wish to promote
websites through existing networks and stadiums.In
general, they should deliver a sense of
stake holding, and empower fans. [All rather interesting, and this
should be a
good read for those designing sites for universities and colleges as
well, but
the authors are right in the middle of a couple of tricky issues,
concerning
the nature of virtual fans—see Guilanotti –who tend to be more fickle
and
instrumental, and there is the whole disenchantment issue].
The existing websites of
premier clubs were analysed over a five month period 1998 to 99 [well
out of
date by now then].The sites were more
complex than they had realized.Eight
regular viewers known to the authors were recruited to code the content
using a
standard pro forma with 31 questions and six headings [presumably as in
the
table of findings on p.56]. The authors
resolved any incompatibilities and did random checks [a really feeble
research
design then, especially if they are going to generalise, as they do
about
fans].They found:
Four clubs have no
information
about ticket sales and only two let fans buy them online.There was more effort put into merchandising.This might be because clubs wish to manage
ticket sales from match to match, or perhaps to restrict them to loyal
fans
[the first tension between loyal fans and TV fans?]
Merchandising was more
common,
but there was some detailed variation
Corporate hospitality
was advertised
for all but three clubs
Few clubs offered
affinity
cards, but this seemed to be growing
Some clubs offered
domain names
and screensavers, but had a curious marketing strategy in hoping that
screensavers would annoy rival fans
There was some
information for
supporters in the form of club news, news about players fixtures and
match
reports, away travel details and the club’s history: the latter tended
to be
‘terse’,
Unrealised possibilities
including the use of cookies, gathering information directly and
indirectly and
providing feedback.Only a few clubs had
click of all links to outside organisations.Only seven promoted community or junior activities.There were connections with other products
including the products of sponsors, but this was not very systematic.When it came to ownership, clubs ‘were
generally shy’ (58).10 clubs promoted
supporters’ organisations, and all but six offered chat rooms; all but
eight
provided live audio links. Only 12 clubs mentioned their sponsors, and,
‘in
several cases’ it was not even clear who the sponsor was.Although Carling sponsored the premier league
that year, only seven clubs mention them.
Overall, clubs were not
meeting
the needs of fans, there were lots of incomplete sections or errors,
slow
downloads, unstructured pages.Sites
faced competition from unofficial [they noticed those at last!].There was a growing trend to offer a
standardised websites using a company called Planet Football [what
happened to
them?] [Note lots of generalisations about fans, based on eight
reviewers!]
So [and this section is
called
‘observations’!].All the clubs seem to
have sites and they do provide for quite a lot of access, according to
site
counters [remember them?].However,
Internet Marketing has been little studied, it tends to be poorly
developed and
not linked to marketing in general.UK
clubs could learn from American ones about adding value and not just
duplicating non electronic content [and so could UK universities!]
Clubs seem
to have a limited idea of marketing, seeing it as raising revenue
rather than
adding to experience [ah yes, the experience economy and all the
disenchantment
it brings with it].
Clubs tend to be Anglo
centric
and even local [that tension between real fans and virtual fans again].They should consider both fragmenting the
market, but above all tracking their visitors to build up databases.They should attempt to encourage engagement
to rather than just providing information.At the moment, unofficial sites do better, and offer
live broadcasts,
e-mail updates, chat rooms and even video highlights.Why should a club offer a professional
site?[Quite so—there is no commercial
agenda with fan sites, and they’re always going to be better able to
communicate with real fans].What
football clubs failed to realise is that the net can empower ‘both the
supporterf/customer and the club itself] (62).