Tom Fox, Arsenal’s Chief Commercial Officer, is confident that he has the right team in place to help the club secure lucrative new deals for kit manufacture and shirt sponsorship when the current agreements with Nike and Emirates come up for renewal in 2014.
The existing partnerships, signed in advance of the move to Ashburton Grove and used to fund the move from Highbury, have been dwarfed in recent years by those done by Premier League rivals. What’s more with the Premier League’s sugar daddy era exploding almost simultaneously, the financial terms, which at the time were ground-breaking, have been pinpointed by frustrated fans as a major reason for the club’s supposed limpness in the transfer market.
Speaking to the Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association (AISA), Fox made clear that recent progress signing up second-tier partners hinted at a good foundation for forthcoming negotiations.
“We are actually making good progress in the partnerships area, but there was a lot of work to do in this area when I arrived.
“For the past 2 1⁄2 years we have been building the team and enhancing our capability to have the right conversations not only with our 2 primary partners, Nike and Emirates, but with new and renewing secondary partners. We’ve had success in secondary partnerships during this time, renewing Citroen and Thomas Cook and signing Carlsberg, Betsson, Indesit, Airtel (Africa) and Malta Guinness.
“While I can’t go into any detail on where we are with both primary partnerships, this early success in the secondary market gives me great confidence that we have the right team and are well positioned to bring both of these up to the market during the next round.”
Despite the gloomy economic climate, Manchester United’s recent sponsorship deal with US car giants Chevrolet has proved that the boundaries of financial possibility are constantly being redrawn. While Fox is pleased with the progress that Arsenal are making in marketing and commercial spheres, he urged caution against assuming the gap between the two clubs can be closed quickly.
Noting United’s long-standing superiority and their success on the pitch he continued:
“It’s not very realistic to assume that striking these new deals will allow us to match what United are doing commercially.
“We have a great story to tell and sponsors are taking notice, but we have only recently begun investing behind our commercial vision, whereas they started on that journey 7-8 years ago.
“Since then they have had unmatched success on the pitch, which has in turn fuelled further growth. As a result, they are frequently the Club that sets the high water mark when their new deals are done, take Chevrolet for example, and few if any Clubs can match their commercial appeal to partners today.
“Do I believe at some point we can catch them? Yes I do, but it won’t be in the next 3-4 years.”
One area which will likely prove vital in closing that chasm is the exploitation of Arsenal’s increasing popularity abroad. In the last two seasons, and after long-standing opposition from Arsene Wenger, the club have embarked on rewarding tours to the Far East. Outlining the impetus gained from pushing the global brand, Fox concluded that they had been an outright success.
“Arsenal is a huge Club with incredible support internationally, but the difference that touring has made to our profile has been profound, both with our primary partners Nike and Emirates as well as other large brands looking for sports marketing assets. For them, touring is part of being a truly global Club and is a prerequisite to being in their consideration set.
“For the fans, seeing their heroes live and up close is what engages them with the Club, and if they’re engaged and active then our profile with partners is further enhanced. One good example of this is in China, where we have visited 2 years in a row.
“In 3 previous years with our media partner in China, Titan, we registered 15,000 fans into our database. In the past 16 months (around both Tours) we’ve attracted the interest of a larger media partner, Tencent and their portal called QQ, and that number now stands at over 600,000.”
____________
Tom Fox was speaking ahead of the AISA AGM on 10 September. The full transcript, in which the Arsenal CCO talks about touring abroad, the club’s profile and Stan Kroenke’s role, is expected to be available on the AISA website, or can be read here thanks to @GeezyPeas.
I cant stan Man U but Park ji sung and kagawa are probably the type of signings we may want to emulate when good opportunity arise – positive outputs on and off the field
we tried with park ji sung not sure who sanctioned that move but it was embarrassing for all involed
yeah, he still has to be a quality player. It’s not like Park will have drummed up more money from shirt sales than his wages.
We should sign Kim Jong Un.
He has a huge personal fanbase and an army.
I couldn’t care less how you people vote. This post will achieve a score of over 1,000 whether you like it or not.
sign Kim Jong-un and arsenal will probably end up as the no. 1 hated club and public enemy in south korea
Ryo Miyaichi will be a gold mine on and off the pitch for Arsenal.
i truely believe he can be a future world class star after watching all of his games for bolton last season.
The commerical $ in the States, count on it.
Heh, good spelling…
No not really. Maybe right now it is. The future is Asia. Why do u think all the big clubs are playing friendlies there? It’s the next lucrative market. Our next sponsor will come from there. And it’ll be huge.
The commercial $ in the States, count on it.
I can’t quite understand the thumbs down on this one. Like it or not, the US is a huge market with growing interest in football and growing exposure to English football. Living in Boston in the US, I can see a significant effort by Liverpool to attract more followers here (the new owners are, of course, connected to this city).
It makes me sick to see glorifying ads for Liverpool’s documentary-style tv show, but (from their standpoint) it isn’t stupid — there are consumers/followers worth pursuing here.
I’d agree the US is un-tapped from an Arsenal point of view but I guess they look at it as a really saturated market.
Obviously there are loads of Gooners stateside but you’re also competing with American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, and other more established ‘traditional’ sports.
The Asian countries really love football and there’s probably a lot more potential revenue wise from going there. I assume that’s what their research tells them.
That said, with an American owner I’d be very surprised if we didn’t at least play a game there in the next couple of summers.
Blogs, I agree that if choices need to be made, Asia is a better choice for the reasons you already stated. However, efforts to increase visibility can be made without the having the team itself make frequent visits. Therefore, I don’t see the need to abandon one in favor of the other. As for competition with other more “traditional” sports, football (meaning soccer) is so widely played by children here that the potential to recruits fans from that pool is immense. When I was young here, we were starved for exposure to English/European football and, one by one, many of… Read more »
The club are very aware of North America but at a time when we have to make every penny count from our commercial income the one that makes most money will always win out.
Danny K is doing some good work scouting out there though, I’d put money on us making a couple of youth signings in the near future, which would, of course, provide real interest to US Arsenal/football fans.
Ah, I see. And yes, youth signings from the US would be really interesting, for a number of reasons.
We could re-sign Henry, that might turn a few heads in North America.
I’d kill for a North American trip! But that’s the way it is, don’t think I’ll see them in Toronto anytime soon.
It would be wrong to look at the US as a saturated market. Just because you live in, say, Chicago and are a Cubs fan, that does mean you also aren’t a Bears and Blackhawks fan. In fact you probably are. Americans don’t have loyalties to just one team in just one sport, but more one team per sport. And the game is really growing in the US. Numbers for the Euro were well above expectations for ABC/ESPN (both web and air). The World Football Challenge matches usually sell out (or sell relatively well). That’s partially attributable to a demographic… Read more »
Ack. I really should proofread better: “… doesn’t mean you aren’t…” also, ‘American’ isn’t a country.
@ A Yank, every time I see a kid with a Chelsea uniform in Boston I want to confront their parents about the poor life choices they’re making for their children.
I hope we dump Nike and sign with Adidas, someone did a mock Adidas Arsenal kit and it looked amazing.
Also, dumping Fly Emirates off the kit sounds good too, as i dont like us having the same sponsor as the scummers.
Quite a few whispers that we’re returning to Adidas.
Bruised Banana for 13/14 COME OOOOONN!!
If that’s the case then praise Vishnu Adidas have just stopped those elbow-length skin-tight sleeves, and mostly stopped that technical sort of look everyone else gave up on years ago. I think Adidas kits have been, for quite some time, the ugliest kits around.
I say we go Le Coq Sportif. Everton were fools to let those Mugatu-esque gods of style go. They could do us a line of luminous camouflage kits or something. Maybe with epaulettes. You know Giroud would work that.
Recent Nike kits have been a disgrace – full stop.
It ain’t hard.
Red shirts and white sleeves.
Stick with that and you can’t go wrong, although there are still allowable variants. I want to see us looking like Arsenal , not Charlton or Man U when playing away.
The farewell to Highbury kit was the last really classy one they did. And someone at the Club has to sanction them. Presumably it’s the bloke with the guide dog ?
You mean the kit that wasn’t the usual red and didn’t have white sleeves?
I agree.
Which scummers though? I think Emirates have been careful to only have one team per league no? You might be thinking of Etihad.
The thing I dislike about adidas is their horribly intrusive 3-stripes round down the arms and sides of the shorts. I think the only team to have been able to exclude them from their strip have been the All Blacks (NZ rugby).
I say, whoever the sponsor, keep it clean and minimalist. And I prefer us in red socks.
Usually when I read such statements, I start to get worried.
have some pride…fuq united…no ones going to give you the best sponsorship deal if you talk about how we are second best to united…and to be honest our football is much better than united…if i was you i would shit all over united and say how they are going to sponsor a team that is only at good getting referees to suck their tiny dicks…seriously you are on my transfer out list now…
uniteds* good at**
That was pretty odd.
Yeah, WE know that the refs are worth 15 points a season and that united are saving up problems for when Fergie finally quits with a lack of investment in midfield but to some marketing executive, all they see is a massive club being successful and a name they want to be associated with. Our football and general attitude is respected and we will get good deals for it but until we match that with some success we’ll always lag behind them in terms of maximising profitability ( if you can use such words on a football blog without being… Read more »
I suppose they feel they have to have a 12th man on the pitch seeing as their fans are so shite.
thanks i understand all of that….what i dont get is pointing it out on our own…our cco shouldnt be talking about how we are second best he should really be a bit more optimistic…he wudnt necessarily fill our sponsors with hope with statements like this….
Haha where did ‘tiny dicks’ come from. This guy is weird.
ha hahaha
Maybe a Viagra sponsorship could help the tiny dicks!
Yes I like this. We need more madness in the Arsenal.
I don’t think saying “United are only good at getting referees to suck their tiny dicks…” is quite what a sponsor wants to hear from The Arsenal while we are asking them for a big wodge of cash. Mind you I like the picture you portray.
The Porn industry is a multi-billion dollar business. Fairly sure Brazzers would sponsor a team full of cunts, that are somehow good at getting people to suck their tiny dicks.
Please please please go with Adidas…..bring back the bruised banana and the likes…..classics.
He seems as aware as the rest of us that any commercial success will be the result of success ON THE PITCH.
More glory>more fans>more money for Arsenal and its partners.
Few fans in Asia, Africa, or the US will be willing to support Valencia or Villareal instead of Barcelona and Madrid for example.
It’s a cycle though. More money = more success as well. So it needs to reinforce each other.
Fly Emirates are owner of our stadium when we finish paying the stadium we are free and we can much all this big teams in the world with our new sponsor
No, no they’re not. They are the name spoonsor. Arsenal is the owner of the ground.
When the stadium sponsorship expires we are free to get another sponsor or renegotiate with Emirates. The choice will be ours.
The sponsorship expires long before the debt on the stadium is cleared.
The stadium debt and the stadium sponsorship are completely unlinked.
Knowing Kroenke, he’ll probally rent the stadium to Spurs and we go play our matches on the trainingfields.
Typical Wenger will do it of as: “our performance on the pitch is about skill, not the stadium. Do I think we can play as good on the trainingpitch as the stadium? Yes, maybe better, less fan pressure too.”
Hope we go back to Adidas. Not much of a fan of the Nike kits. There have been a few good ones but I always preferred the Adidas ones, and the last two away kits have been shite. Adidas would go nicely with Steve Bould being back. Also, if the Emirates sponsorship is up for renewal does that mean the stadium too? I really don’t like the stadium sponsorship thing. I want to know that where I’m going will always have the same name. But then, I guess it’s one of the only ways we can keep up financially. I… Read more »
I just call it The Grove.
hopefully when the emirates deal expires we will be sponsored by Grove Products, the experienced company with the personal touch
every player will get a free B-LINE STUDIO CADDY SILVER
http://www.groveproducts.co.uk/produit.asp?id_prod=QQ095750#
Agree with all of the statements saying bring in Adidas…I hate so say it but their kits are pretty dam nice, even though they sponsor those John Terry loving twats. The old ones were pretty awesome too although I never actually had one, I was only four when we switched over to Nike. This years kits are attrocious, and hope Arsenal ensure such hideous shirts are never worn again… I wanted to get a new kit this year as my last one was the 08/09 kit until I saw these! Poor Woj especially having to wear that grotesque fluorescent pink,… Read more »
Commercial success and ‘on the field’ success go hand in hand and one very much depends on the other. The more on field success we have is followed by commercial success as more companies want to invest in the club, more companies investing in the club means more revenue….
However our asian signings have not exactly set the world alight…
+1 for Adidas. They consistently create brilliant kit designs.
By contrast, the last few Nike designs have been unbelievably lazy imo… oh great a thin red stripe down the sleeve, wow. Oh now a blue band, double wow. They must have come up with those designs in about five minutes.
Not bothered about the shirt sponsor, they’re all as bad as each other really.
bring back JVC
I see this, I die a little inside.
http://www.vintagefootballshirts.com/avactis-images/ars90gl_l.jpg
Personally I don’t care who sponsors the kits as long as they pay enough. And this time round, lets work it into the contracts that they cant dick around with our colours and have to put at least some thought into the designs. The last few years of Nike looks like they outsourced design to a couple of YTS kids working on a ZX Spectrum.
Personally i wish we would go back to Umbro…..oh the glory days…..
If the club was to invest properly this year and maybe next, who knows we may even win something and look more attractive to potential sponsors.
Continue to look like aselling club with little ambition is not the most attractive look for a sponsor. With all the bad publicity that goes with it every year.
Short sited of the club if they don’t re invest the rvp and song money this time around.
What if we “invest properly” and don’t “win something and look more attractive to potential sponsors”.? What does “invest properly” mean? The league has no shortage of clubs who have gone down the path of profligate spending and lived to rue the day. And even if we did, Chelski and Citeh can always just spend more. I would suggest the policy being followed is one of “investing smartly”. Given that Wenger has a track record of spotting talent and making players, both big and small names, into better players, that is our competitive advantage and where we seek to compete.… Read more »
Investing properly means spending the money we have, I am not talking about spending city type money but using the profits we have made from trading and transfers and investing in the team. We may not win anything even if we do invest more as you say but on hat premise then a club would never buy a player again. Any transfer is a gamble obviously. Investing properly means not spending money on players such as park and not playing him. Maybe had we bought a decent forward back then when we had the money and the need maybe we… Read more »
Have they not already invested it in Giroud, Cazorla and Podolski ? Because that balances up the incomings/outgoings
Well, i reckon EBay would work well for us. come up with a clever tagline too!
something like:
“The Selling Site for the Selling Club”
or “Arsene’s Choice”
or “Ebay: Buy one Chammakh, Get a free Squillacci”
Screw Tom Fox, bring me in. I can find us sponsors anywhere.
We would stand a lot bigger chance of getting good deals if we had Cesc, Robin and 1-2 trophies of recent years.
We are not going to earn more fans with the current team.
0bviously if we won everything every year then we could get more money from sponsors, yes,
and if we signed david beckham, prince william and lady gaga we’d get even more
but we havent so whats the magic answer?
Our team would be the best. Gaga’s a mean Dee Em i here.
what has this guy said wrong to get thumbs down?? can someone explain??
We’re still an attractive proposition to sponsors without a doubt. We’re consistently in the Champions League (European exposure), finishing top 4 every season, huge fan base, a continental team, and still have the tag of a team that plays some of the most attractive football in the world.
Anyone know if JVC are interested?
Adidas kits are awful.
I hate the three stripe look on everything they produce. They may call it branding, but I call it boring.
Wouldn’t mind if Arsenal took a look at Warrior. I like what they did with the Liverpool home kit. Very traditional.
I can kinda understand some of you peoples moaning about the more recent Nike kits,but take a look around at some of the other manufacturers designs out there,spuds new kit for example! and not all Adidas kits are great,granted the three stripes do look nice but will you be moaning when you get the same churned out kit year after year (I can’t tell one Chelsea kit from another)saying kits of yesteryear are the best is just nostalgia talking!Careful what you wish for cus are kits really arent all that bad and the new purple’un is a well nice. Regarding… Read more »
I wonder how many companies want to sponser a club that has won fuck all in the last seven years?
Not that it matters anyway: none of the income will be spent on players. Our ‘self-sustaining’ model will ensure that the sponsers cash will go straight into Mr Kroenke’s pocket.
1) Warrior paid quite a bit for a team that isn’t even in the Champions League
2) Arsenal doesn’t declare a dividend. So, unless someone on AST has insights into any management fees paid out to our board, I’m assuming that compensation to Kroenke is dwarfed by comparison to the Asset Strippers (Glazers).
Companies happily sponsor clubs that have won nothing for decades so i think we may be alright. Look at Stoke Rugby Clubs trophy cabinet, ONE trophy and they have sponsors.
1) Teams in the Conference get sponsors. Sponsors pay to advertise, not to win trophies and Arsenal is a massive billboard, if not the biggest.
2) Arsenal owners, to date, have not paid any dividend. The self-sustaining model means we pay what we can afford, which is how the world outside of sugar daddies work. We’re still one of the highest spending clubs around but we don’t overspend, which is good cos’ 50 years from now our grandkids will still have an Arsenal to watch.
At least try when you moan. Be an informed moaner, for goodness’ sake.
Sir,
I fear you ask for too much. The world of Doom requires an infinite capacity for spouting whatever the press/media/I’ll informed and educated blogs tell combined with an absence of critical faculties. I would say they’re more to be pitied than blamed. But blaming them is so much more cathartic than pitying.
We’re basically the hippies of the football world.
Its not a bad thing.
None of you numbskulls are listening: if you want to make big money out of sponsership then you have to be successful. This is a simple point that our current board just don’t seem to get. Yes, I’m sure that we can get a few million quid from some small company, but the big money comes from winning. That’s what the coroprations pay for. Big sponsers don’t want to be associated with losers – and right now we are losers. And although we don’t pay a dividend, the huge increase in our share price has effectively put money into Kroenke’s… Read more »
i think the point has been made already but just to re-iterate for you fatgooner: sponsors are interested in their own objectives rather than Arsenal’s success If the good folk of N5 purchase more Citroens because of the Recaro seating keeping Andrei warm whilst he waits to come on, then Citroen are happy. They don’t give a fuck whether we win trophies or not. They only care whether they sell more cars. Unless of course you can demonstrate a correlation between arsenal fans propensity to buy cars/stereos/etc and when we win trophies. But the last time we won I didn’t… Read more »
“but the big money comes from winning. That’s what the corporations pay for.” Wrong. As someone who has worked in events management with huge global sponsors, all they care about are: 1) Product/Company exposure (and the event/team they are associated with) 2) Brand Reputation 3) Exclusivity Arsenal are a “very” attractive Brand. We may not have won any trophies in the last few years but we are the third most popular team in viewing numbers (Premiership TV broadcasts) ahead of both City and Chelsea. Arsenal have always been a popular team with “neutrals” also. Our image for financial prudence is… Read more »
“It’s not very realistic to assume that striking these new deals will allow us to match what United are doing commercially…….. they started on that journey 7-8 years ago.”….. What a fucking piss poor attitude! Look at the product and potential we have to sell i! Imagine if the players took that attitude, they’re fucking 7 or 8 years ahead of us in terms of trophies but the Arsenal players will go out and fight them. Sack this fucker and bring in someone who BELIEVES. On a separate note and the nike v addidas debate. I hope we change… How… Read more »
Seriously, get a grip: there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Tom Fox is saying. If statements of fact offend you so much, then perhaps that explains why so many Arsenal fans have such a fact-free outlook on the position of the club right now. What you are actually asking Fox to do is tell lies: to make false promises about what is commercially feasible, to claim that we can suddenly achieve Barcelona-esque revenues in a heartbeat. Maybe that would make you feel better for a short while, but it wouldn’t leave us better informed as fans and it would… Read more »
I agree with Irfan. Mr Fox doesn’t exactly infuse a lot of confidence in me with his talk of us not being able to catch man utd commercially. Its almost as if he’s tempering expectations so no matter what deal he gets, he’ll justify it with that argument. Not saying that he’s not gonna work his ass off, just saying that if Pool can also get bumper deals despite sucking bad the last couple of years (albeit with a large asian base) why can’t we try to emulate them? We’re a london club, with an increasing Asian fanbase, I say… Read more »
It certainly sounds like he’s trying to manage expectations downwards. The jury is out on him.
I’d be more worried if he didn’t manage expectations and promised to overhaul the mancs in 3-4 years. He still claims we can overtake them and I’m sure he’s evaluated by the club (be it by Gazidis or the board) based on his performance.
Take your point. At least he answered the question put. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t I guess…
Benik Afobe…Benik Afobe…the next Kevin Campbell
I think we should set our sights a little higher than that.
ideally there’d be no need for commercial logos spoiling our red and white shirts or naming rights for the home of football of course, ideally shite hart lane would fall into a pothole before spuds were found guilty of lillywhite-ism and relegated to the beazer home leagues combined division XVIII so i suppose given the evil need to sup with the devil we should get somebody who knows what they’re doing my suspicion is that the best man (or woman) for this job would not be a tub-thumping gooner, eyes rolling in the back of his head, as he chants… Read more »
The North American market is not saturated. ManU just signed a 10 year sponsorship agreement with Chevrolet for 400 mil. Arsenal reupped Citroen for how much? We should have gone after Toyota as a secondary sponsor. ManU (hate to mention them again) signed DHL to be their training kit sponsor at 10 mil per year? Crazy money. That is what Arsenal need, badly.
me i want a Puma arsenal kit , they do very good football shirt for few team
http://www.puma.com/football/teams but then money talk so it will be Nike or Addidas i suppose
I’ve learnt so much today! I now understand why sponsors completely ignore Olympic champions like Jess Ennis and Mo Farah and instead put their money in losers like Christian Malcolm and Kelly Sotherton.
Fats, I think you’d get a better deal than the club too. After all, you aprobably have 10x the surface area to advertise.
The parallels with athletics are conceited. The difference between the amount of exposure a top level track and field athlete gets relative to a second class one is HUGE- Jessica Ennis will appear in a significant number more newspaper articles and will receive public interest in the coming years than Malcolm. By contrast, the difference between the amount of exposure a title-winning team and champions league team gets is, while noticeable, not anywhere near as large. If you’re playing in the Champions league and you have a massive fan-base, people are going to be paying attention. While being associated with… Read more »
Hahahaha you’re trolling now aren’t you?
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You folk are all forgetting about the 3rd largest market with just under 1 billion people: Africa. Africa is football mad akin to Brazil and besides one trip to South Africa by Arsenal, Spuds and Manure have been perennial visitors. Nigeria alone has 150mil people, Ethiopia 80mil, South Africa 60mil, Kenya 45mil. Other than South Africa, there is no competition really from other sporting codes. DSTV (Digital Satelite TV) offers probably the best EPL coverage globally with 3-4 games covered on a Saturday and Sunday and every weekday game (same applies to FA Cup, League Cup, CL, Serie A, Bundesliga,… Read more »