champion professor

Chapter 200 The inside story of the business competition

A small year with an odd number of sports events is often a suitable year for European football giants to visit China to participate in commercial competitions, because there is no interference from the World Cup, European Cup and Olympic Games, and it is easier for clubs to arrange travel.

This is the case with Arsenal. In the summer that just passed the first full season of the 21st century, they set foot on this land in the far east again after three years.

Aside from paying off debts to build a new stadium, for most of Arsene Wenger's time at Arsenal, they have never traveled this far for a commercial game.

Arsenal general manager Edelman even expressed such an attitude-for the sake of the players' status, they will not come to Asia for commercial competitions.

Because Wenger feels that as long as you leave London 500 miles, the time difference is more than two hours, the player's state will be affected.

In an interview with "French Football", Wenger also repeatedly emphasized: "During the season, the training cannot be stable and systematic. It is either recovery or adjustments to the opponent. How the team performs in the season is determined by the pre-season training camp. factor."

So every summer, Arsenal under Arsene Wenger would choose to train in Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium, but they would never leave Europe.The Gunners who can play the most beautiful football have no intention of using wonderful football to cash out instantly like Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Barcelona.

Of course, in the end, under the pressure of repaying debts for the new stadium, Arsenal came to Asia for two consecutive years.

The training in the first three weeks of the season will affect the competitive performance of the entire season.

Shao Bo did not deny this.

Having served as the head coach for many years, he also played an unknown number of Champions League games.Long-distance travel is indeed a great enemy that affects the athlete's state!
But Shao Bo is not a pure head coach from the beginning to the end, he can't just consider it from the perspective of football competition.

The club is now starting to do various work to build a new stadium, and the need for funds is increasing.Before the construction of the new stadium is completed, they must not only "reduce expenditure", but also "open source".

Sometimes, you can earn a lot of money by playing a few commercial games. Shao Bo will never miss such a thing, after all, no one thinks too much money.

Just because Arsenal almost completed the legend of winning the championship unbeaten last season, they have also received extensive attention from fans all over the world.

Although Valencia also surprisingly reached the Champions League final again last season, La Liga is still dominated by Real Madrid and Barcelona after all, and no club has been able to overthrow the dominance of the two.

In their shadow, Valencia's light is not obvious.Not to mention that they still lost to Bayern Munich in the end and did not make a historic breakthrough.

In contrast, the Premier League has been purchased by mainland sports channels for many years, and Chinese people are more familiar with the Premier League teams.

Moreover, national footballer Sun Jihai also plays for Arsenal, just like Yao Ming in later generations. Even Chinese who don't like basketball will at least know the Houston Rockets.

And because the Chinese team is now attacking the World Cup, domestic interest in football is also being rekindled, and it is a good time for the Asian tour.

In Hong Kong and Japan, there are large companies as sponsors, and the clubs don't have to worry about the income of the game.

It is precisely because of this that Shao Bo and David Dane made an agreement to "go to Asia and other emerging markets to develop and promote the Arsenal brand every one or two years".

In fact, even if David Dane does not do this, Shao Bo will not give up his fight for the Asian market. This is his hometown at any time. Shao Bo does not want the entire continent to be occupied by other clubs, and then my compatriots Keep away from yourself.

From the perspective of the general environment, although Chinese football has gone on the road of professionalization for many years, there are still many problems.

Leaving aside the domestic league and shady scenes, it is said that these foreign giants come to China to play commercial games and cannot be effectively managed.

In the chaotic current situation of Chinese business competitions, many companies are unwilling to participate in it, because in the process of sponsoring business competitions, their interests cannot be guaranteed, and the entire process is almost out of control.

Although many teams try to come to China to seek gold every year, in the summer of 2013, Shao Bo remembers that almost no team chose China.

There are many problems in this. The main reason is that although this business model has been in operation for many years, there has never been a government to regulate or an industry association to coordinate and supervise.

There are too many involved, even Shao Bo is unwilling to go too deep.

But at least he hopes to ensure that there will be no problems with Arsenal's trip to China, such as the sponsor's final arrears, or the failure of the sponsor's original requirements, and the greater impact is the damage to the fans.

With a spirit of being the master, this trip to China, whether it is the sponsor or the organizer, has been strictly investigated by Shao Bo.

At the very least, he owns several Arsenal sporting goods franchise stores in China, and has contacts with many sports companies.

For this trip, he can also guarantee that the club won't be owed the money won, the sponsor can also get enough sponsorship funds, and the sponsor's requirements can also be met.

As for the most important thing, the exciting game that the fans want to see, Shao Bo will certainly not be perfunctory.

The appearance fee Arsenal will get for each game played will be about 200 million euros.

Although a company once proposed an astonishing quotation of 350 million euros, after Shao Bo's in-depth investigation, he found that the company's registered capital was only 3 yuan, and the government guarantee and the host location were not in the same place. a location.

This is obviously a leather bag company!

They hope to grab the club's business in China first, get the right to host, and then slowly find sponsors.As long as there are enough sponsors, the organizer will not pay 200 million euros or 350 million euros anyway.

If there are not enough sponsors, then they have no choice but to break the contract. Anyway, they are fighting big with small things, which is equivalent to white wolves with empty hands!Anyway, he has lived in China for more than 20 years, and Shao Bo is not unfamiliar with these tricks.

Many Chinese event organizers hope to sign the event contract first, then find sponsors, and finally use the sponsor's funds to pay the club the appearance fee.If there is a sponsor willing to pay the bill, everyone will be happy. Once the sponsor cannot be finalized, the event organizer can only unilaterally break the contract and cancel the event.

In fact, this kind of commercial football game has always lacked government and industry supervision, causing many companies to dare to take risks, because even unilateral breach of contract does not need to pay high economic costs.Previously, both Barcelona and AC Milan were unilaterally breached by Chinese companies, but they did not pursue relevant legal responsibilities.

At that time, Arsenal's commercial personnel were very happy to see the nearly doubled offer. When they were about to choose this small company, they were noticed by Shao Bo.

Fortunately, Shao Bo has been paying attention to this trip to Asia, otherwise the club would be easily deceived.

350 million euros, it is hard to say whether Arsenal is worth this amount, but at least judging from the government guarantee letter and the size of the company, there is a huge risk.

If the right to host is handed over to this small company, and they fail to pay the full amount of appearance fees within the contract period, then Arsenal will have to work in vain all summer?
Domestic commercial competitions are different from those in Hong Kong and Japan. They have sponsors to invite Arsenal early, and there is no problem with appearance fees.

The domestic market is still developing, and it is understandable that it is immature, but Shao Bo cannot take the initiative to let it go.If you can be responsible for your own share, try to be responsible as much as possible.

The idea of ​​the club is very simple, come if you have money, and don't come if you don't have money.

But Shao Bo can't let his club be fooled.This kind of temporary cancellation is a great loss to the interests of the club, because many plans are prepared in advance.

Just like these trips to Asia, basically the general framework was established at the beginning of the year, and then after several months, details such as appearance fee, time, and location were negotiated.

Of course, it is difficult for regular organizers to make a profit because they need to pay huge appearance fees and huge expenses such as promotion and operation.

The government has a kind of sports industry to guide funds. For teams with high attention like Arsenal, the sponsors are likely to receive financial subsidies.

There are also some companies based in other industries who want to use this kind of game that has attracted more attention to obtain other benefits. This is what Shao Bo hates the most. This kind of impure purpose directly pollutes football. sport.

However, although the organizers need to sell the tickets to earn income, many times the club will take the initiative to reduce the ticket price by means of subsidies in order to increase its influence, or even simply buy the tickets and give them to the fans.

Manchester United once had such a situation. They were negotiating a sponsorship contract with Chevrolet for the chest advertisement. In order to show that Manchester United has considerable influence in the Far East, it caused the illusion that the stadium was full.

Take the initiative to clear the tickets on the day before the game day by buying tickets and giving them away when the tickets are not fully sold.

As a result, Manchester United ended up signing a sky-high sponsorship deal with Chevrolet.

The focus of this commercial competition is not the appearance fee, but the sponsorship of more than 5000 million per season!
When Arsenal did not conduct commercial games, they did not give up the overseas football market, but they chose a promotion model that was different from other clubs.

That is to cooperate with the local football community and media to help cultivate youth football talents in different markets and increase the awareness of Arsenal's brand.Arsenal are building a series of football academies in China, Southeast Asia and Africa.

(End of this chapter)