Reply To: The funniest thing ever in football?

[Northumbiron]

Very good points Awaywego.

And if the clubs can fill their 60-75,000 all seater stadia and sell the overpriced merchandising and food/drink AND get a fat wad of money from a tv company then why should they worry about Joe Public?

Down the road from me, Newcastle United can get 55,000 polyester clad “fans” into SJP even when the football is crap and said fans are moaning. Meanwhile in the surrounding conurbation similarly attired punters are watching on tv in pubs and clubs. Throwing copious amounts of larger down their necks, much to the delight of the landlords.

Their idea of supporting the Toon is not how many games they get to a season but how quickly they can get hold of the new home shirt, and how many NUFC related tattoos they can fit on their corpulent bodies. Their preference is for tribal drinking rather than live football.

Of course not all NE football fans are like that, so the ones who can’t (or won’t) pay £40 for a ticket go and watch the likes of Gateshead, Blyth Spartans or Spennymoor Town. Where it costs £8-£12 to get in and pie, peas and a pint will get you change from a fiver! You can stand or sit with your mates and even have a bit of banter with away supporters.

Not a great comparison, but there was a similar scenario with breweries. A century ago every town had its own brewery (Brigg had Sutton-Bean & Sergeants). Cities had several. By the 60s/70s they had all been bought out and we had 4/5 big brewers churning out bland nitro-keg rubbish. The reaction – microbreweries producing good beers at a local level.

And how do the major players combat this? Making their bland brews even colder and employing clever marketing tricks to attract the younger drinkers.

You’ve developed a brand name, so go on and milk it for all its worth. There are countless multinational companies out there doing exactly that. Why should football be any different?

That’s what’s happening with these ESL proposals. I talk football with guys in their thirties and many of them confess to following the European Leagues. Some actually say they “support” Barcelona or Real Madrid!

Any Capitalists out there who are enraged by the thought of a ESL are hypocrites. Any Brexiteer who thought we were better out of Europe – tough luck!

It’ll be very interesting to see where the tipping point is.