Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[thisGRAEME]

7 minutes ago, Ill Ray said:

I mean, IMO, this isn’t really incorrect it’s just different scales. Look at how many interactions you see from Uganda fans on the socials for Bevis Mugabi. Celtic have a wide Japanese following now and a page on Twitter with significant followers. 
 

 

I think we had a young goalie from India training with us that resulted in hundreds of people from India following and commenting on the socials. The question is is there a way to convert things like this into revenue, which is not a bad question. 
 

I don’t think EB is really too far off it with what he’s saying here just need to take in account scale will be smaller obviously. 

Without being too dismissive of this principle: to what end?

We did Japanese translations of highlights on the SPFL YouTube for months and while it did benefit short term, the long term fades, and drops off pretty steadily, eventually rendering it more hassle than it's worth.

 

You're quite right in highlighting the values of scale in this, but the scale (and quite happily be told I'm wrong on this if folk think I am!) is the draw. Pulisic is the best and biggest player from the biggest sporting nation on earth, playing for one of the giants of European football, so... Yeah! That's a draw and a reason to buy in.

It's been after a couple of failed starts and absolutely barrel-loads of money and effort that the NFL are gaining a bigger foothold in Europe, and yet, there seems to be this suggestion that advocating for Motherwell or the league in some different territories of the world can somehow cause a sea change in finances and direction.

Any kind of steps you can make are so tied to passing interest, or moments in time to take advantage of that making that your whole strategy is absolutely fucking mental to me. Are we genuinely hoping that we can sell 5 thousand overseas subs to Uganda because we had Bevis? 

See instead of this? Maybe focus on the things that are here, are local, are part of sensible day to day business, rather than trying to thread this needle to short-cut our way to money.

[MurrayWell]

A short story, in this hypothetical situation a business, operating with a profit, is approached by an investor looking to buy the company. 

"Hey company, I'm a big time investor and would like to buy your business."

"Oh, okay, we're not really selling up but we'll hear you out. What's the plan?"

"I don't have one. Well I have 10 per cent of one, which involves growing the business you've built, I won't be explaining how. I also don't want to pay what you, the owner thinks it's worth, someone else gave me a figure that they think so I'll pay part of that."

"Oh, well I don't want to sell the business to you then."

"No, no. That's not how this will go, you, the owner, must now explain in great detail what you will do as owner of your business to keep it."

"Wait... what?"

What a bizarre situation. Absolutely mental. Imagine this happening?

 

[RandomGuy.]

24 minutes ago, Ill Ray said:

I mean, IMO, this isn’t really incorrect it’s just different scales. Look at how many interactions you see from Uganda fans on the socials for Bevis Mugabi. Celtic have a wide Japanese following now and a page on Twitter with significant followers. 

I think we had a young goalie from India training with us that resulted in hundreds of people from India following and commenting on the socials. The question is is there a way to convert things like this into revenue, which is not a bad question. 

I don’t think EB isn’t really too far off it with what he’s saying here just need to take in account scale will be smaller obviously. 

Aye but literally single figures worth of Ugandans are going to be buying a Motherwell strip because you have Mugabi.

How many Mexicans do you think want Dundee merchandise because of their players there?

I guess the grand plan is a TV show to make the world aware of your club and then foreign players to exploit interested markets, but frankly it's absurd when you're competing against the superclubs that already have major footholds there. You'll never even match the scale of support of Celtic in Asia if that's an example to use, and even they aren't even close to a major player in that market.

[Ludo*1]

1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

 

How many Mexicans do you think want Dundee merchandise because of their players there?

 

Fair decent amount tbh. We've been highlighted and Portales has been interviewed quite a few times by Mexican's main news shows and papers tbf.

[camer0n_mcd]

1 hour ago, Erik Barmack said:

 I've received 20+ notes from people (at least half of whom were against the initial version of the deal), saying that they're afraid to post here and/or telling me that there's no point in posting here, because everything that I write will be mocked or taken out of context.

 

[RandomGuy.]

3 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

Fair decent amount tbh. We've been highlighted and Portales has been interviewed quite a few times by Mexican's main news shows and papers tbf.

How much money have you made from merchandise sales/sponsorships directly due to signing them?

[Ludo*1]

Just now, RandomGuy. said:

How much money have you made from merchandise sales/sponsorships directly due to signing them?

I have no idea, but then again neither do you. But I'd wager it's not nothing.

I agree with your general over arching point tbf, but Portales has certainly raised our profile more than I certainly expected was my point - and he was a complete no namer even in Mexico before he signed for us.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

10 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

See instead of this? Maybe focus on the things that are here, are local, are part of sensible day to day business, rather than trying to thread this needle to short-cut our way to money.

Any "extra" money you could raise from those types of opportunities is dwarfed by jumping 1 place in the league or 1 round in the cup.

 

[thisGRAEME]

2 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Any "extra" money you could raise from those types of opportunities is dwarfed by jumping 1 place in the league or 1 round in the cup.

 

Or not sacking managers every season.

One to think about!

[Vietnam91]

1 minute ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Any "extra" money you could raise from those types of opportunities is dwarfed by jumping 1 place in the league or 1 round in the cup.

 

Elephant in the room .... our merch is outsourced to Provan Sports and the club only get a kickback in a bumper season (i.e a cup final) over a certain sales threshold.

You buying a programme and a pie dwarfs 500 shirts to South America.

[Ill Ray]

3 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Any "extra" money you could raise from those types of opportunities is dwarfed by jumping 1 place in the league or 1 round in the cup.

 

Why is this exclusive from signing a Mexican player? How do you know they would’ve finished 1 place above if they didn’t sign him?
 

 

 

[RandomGuy.]

3 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

I have no idea, but then again neither do you. But I'd wager it's not nothing.

I agree with your general over arching point tbf, but Portales has certainly raised our profile more than I certainly expected was my point - and he was a complete no namer even in Mexico before he signed for us.

I think it's kind of similar to how Scottish fans pay attention to Bologna because of Hickey/Ferguson? 

It's kind of a novelty for players to play that far away (I think a lot of Mexican players tend to go to MLS or Holland?) and the club gets a raised profile, but in terms of actual financial benefit it's zero/next to nothing.

It's why I think claiming Pulisic to AC Milan, which will see hundreds of thousands of Americans buying AC Milan tops with his name on it/going to friendlies they play in America, irrelevant.

Its just a different stratosphere of business.

[Ludo*1]

2 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

I think it's kind of similar to how Scottish fans pay attention to Bologna because of Hickey/Ferguson? 

It's kind of a novelty for players to play that far away (I think a lot of Mexican players tend to go to MLS or Holland?) and the club gets a raised profile, but in terms of actual financial benefit it's zero/next to nothing.

It's why I think claiming Pulisic to AC Milan, which will see hundreds of thousands of Americans buying AC Milan tops with his name on it/going to friendlies they play in America, irrelevant.

Its just a different stratosphere of business.

Yeah, fair enough with that!

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

13 minutes ago, Ill Ray said:

Why is this exclusive from signing a Mexican player? How do you know they would’ve finished 1 place above if they didn’t sign him?
 

I'm saying you shouldn't even be thinking about extra revenue. Just sign the best player because that is what will ultimately get you the most money.

[camer0n_mcd]

Call me a cynic but I'm not exactly convinced that Bologna will have made a great deal of money from a few twitter followers and an 'Open Goal' mini documentary on YouTube and that's for one of the countries most exciting young prospects which wouldn't be the type of market we'd be shopping in. 

That's just my $0.02 though.

Edited June 21 by camer0n_mcd

[Wellmental21]

17 minutes ago, Vietnam91 said:

Elephant in the room .... our merch is outsourced to Provan Sports and the club only get a kickback in a bumper season (i.e a cup final) over a certain sales threshold.

You buying a programme and a pie dwarfs 500 shirts to South America.

Something I think we could do better is keeping money in house as opposed to outsourcing it. Catering being another thing xample of something that’s been outsourced in years gone by

[David1979]

16 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

I think it's kind of similar to how Scottish fans pay attention to Bologna because of Hickey/Ferguson? 

It's kind of a novelty for players to play that far away (I think a lot of Mexican players tend to go to MLS or Holland?) and the club gets a raised profile, but in terms of actual financial benefit it's zero/next to nothing.

If this were a minor, inconsequential part of a much larger business and investment plan from Barmack, it would be fair enough. However, of the very few things he's mentioned, this is one of the rare aspects he's actually provided detail on.

[MurrayWell]

For balance, I don't think folk are saying there are absolutely no good or potentially good ideas being discussed. But there is a massive lack of information on how this will be achieved. 

Anyone can hit out with big ideas, it's evidencing that you're actually able to achieve them that's key. We're really being asked to take a leap into the unknown here, that's imo what people are worked up about. We've been burnt before by big ideas with nothing of any substance to back them up. 

We'll be happy to hear the potential investors' full strategy, which should be a requirement before any vote. 

[thisGRAEME]

11 minutes ago, camer0n_mcd said:

Call me a cynic but I'm not exactly convinced that Bologna will have made a great deal of money from a few twitter followers and an 'Open Goal' mini documentary on YouTube and that's for one of the countries most exciting young prospects which wouldn't be the type of market we'd be shopping in. 

That's just my $0.02 though.

I mean also that, yeah.

The level of Japanese (picking an example at random here) player that Motherwell can sign, as we know fine well, is not the market we should be shopping in, and I doubt having an extra £300k in the bank would make the blindest bit of difference to that.

[RostokMcSpoons]

28 minutes ago, Vietnam91 said:

Elephant in the room .... our merch is outsourced to Provan Sports and the club only get a kickback in a bumper season (i.e a cup final) over a certain sales threshold.

You buying a programme and a pie dwarfs 500 shirts to South America.

Just to play Devil's Advocate (it's my very favourite thing to do), you kind of answered your own point:

The 500 shirts to South America might not raise money straight away, because the threshold hasn't been reached yet, but it is getting you 500 shirts nearer to reaching it, and being able to make money in the future. 

So it does rather outweigh a pie and a programme (assuming the threshold isn't at outlandishly-high levels, or indeed that the unit profit isn't ridiculously low.    If they are, then the deal needs re-negotiating in a hurry)