"The Business of Football", result of new sponsor strategy

from Dow Jones Corporate Communications Department:

THE BUSINESS OF FOOTBALL HOTLY CONTESTED AT LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL/WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE EVENT
European football champions Manchester United went head to head with Premier One league side Millwall at the London Business School last night – but in the lecture theatre, rather than the football field. Thanks to the efforts of The Wall Street Journal Europe’s VIP programme manager Gert van Mol, more than 50 of the School’s MBA students came together with selected Journal Europe readers to hear views on the business of football from Sameer Pabari, director of media at Manchester United, and Andy Ambler, COO and director of finance at Millwall. They were joined by Jo Swinnen, professor of developmental economics at the Catholic University of Louvain, who is currently studying the effects of football on developing economies, and international football journalist Ben Lyttleton, who moderated proceedings. With Manchester United the most profitable club in the world – and arguably also the most popular – its business model dwarfs that of Millwall; making more money in a couple of games than the lesser-ranked side does in a year. The Journal Europe is looking at rolling the inaugural event out to a seasonal series of moderated discussions, focusing on the business of sport.
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The combined discussions with the members of the Football Club of London Business School, and the Lisbon Agenda specialists at Itinera and EREF (European Regional Economic Forum) last year led me to believe we should completely rethink our sponsoring strategy. Traditionally a university or a student club would apply for some sponsorship money. We would pay a certain amount and in return we would receive our logo on a flag, t-shirt or website.
I completely abandoned that idea.

In the future we will carefully select some student clubs and only give them money if they agree on becoming our co-organizer of small, manageable, quality seminars, preferably on school grounds. Together we then select a topic, we invite specialists (from the industry) and organize an afternoon or evening seminar, extra curricular (or part of the curriculum in case of some Business Schools). This effectively reflects the set up of the WSJE Future Leadership Institute, the virtual institute we created January 2008, with ultimate goal to bridge industry and university.

“The Business of Football” seminar is the first seminar we set up this way.

Guy Levy, President London Business School Football Club

Panel Front left: Sameer Pabari, Director of Media Manchester United, Director Man U TV

Prof. Dr. Jo Swinnen, Director LICOS Center for Institutions and Economic Performance KULeuven Belgium

Andy Ambler, CFO Millwall Football Club

Preparing Seminar at The London Business School

I'm working together with the Football Club of the London Business School (LBS) to organize a WSJE-LBS Seminar on Football and Business. The seminar is part of the further development of The WSJE Future Leadership Institute. We originally planned to have the 'event' at the final of the Champions League, i.e. May 21, so we could have ended the event with a live session of the final on a big screen. However one of the key note speakers is attached to a club that might end up playing the final. If that would be the case the speaker wouldn't be able to attend. Therefore we moved our seminar to May 29.

In working towards the final the students of the football club asked me to sponsor the games (quarter finals, semi finals etc) leading up to the final. They asked money for each game. I asked why they needed money for each final. "To buy beer", they said. Our policy is not to pay cash for sponsorship deals. But I understood their 'need'. It led me to contact a friend at a Belgian brewery to discuss sponsorship with Belgian beers. I quickly closed a deal, until the moment it became clear the beer had to be delivered in London. The taxes to be paid to import the beer in the UK were so hefty the brewery decided against the sponsoring. But I already had promised the Belgian beer to the students. I had no other choice than to call in a favor of another friend at a beer wholesale factory, hide a superb collection of Belgian beers in the trunk of my car, and deliver the beer myself. In the past, UK customs never ever inspected my car when I used the Eurotunnel so I thought it to be a safe strategy. Indeed, it worked. On the way back to Belgium however I was asked to pull over at Eurotunnel, five custom agents came out and strip searched the car. They even took a drug sample from the seating. Luckily my car was clean...and empty.

(Picture: The President (r) and his team of the London Business School Football Club receiving a collection of Belgian beers)