The New Owner of Liverpool Football Club - Coursework Example

?A New Foreign Owner of Liverpool Football Club about How the Club’s Fans Might Be Segmented, In Marketing Terms, And How They Might Best Be ‘Reached’ Abstract The study focuses on the problems or the issues that are presently faced by the new owner of Liverpool Football Club, Mr. John W. Henry. The new owner plans to segment the supporters of the club in terms of marketing which would make it easier for the club to design and develop strategies with the intention to attract the supporters and establish a steady source of financial support. The owner also plans to find out the appropriate ways of reaching out to their segmented and targeted fans. The present economic crises, the heavy debt of the club and the growing expenses have called for the need of steady revenue generation which could only be attained with the help and support of the loyal fans of the club. Table of Contents Abstract 2 Introduction 4 Brief Background of the Issues 5 Analysis of the Issues 6 Conclusion and Recommendations 9 Summary 10 References 11 Bibliography 13 Introduction The Liverpool Football Club was acquired by John W. Henry in the year 2010 and he is now the present owner of the club. The present owner has been planning to categorize the fans of the club in terms of marketing segmentation. Along with the segmentation, the owner is also planning to look and develop strategies that would help the club to reach those segmented fans. Targeting the fans was important so as to boost the sales of the club which was considered important for meeting up the expenses of the club as well the dues. The club was already under a heavy debt and its increasing expenses in terms of holding on and maintaining the players and also the alterations in the codes of tax have compelled the owners to seek for ways so as to augment the revenues. The club has a stadium which is situated in Liverpool itself and is also pursuing the construction of an additional one (This Is Anfield, 2011). Segmenting the fans and seeking for efficient strategies to reach them would prove to be helpful for the club to build strategies which in turn is most likely to generate revenue from them (Westerbeek & Smith, 2003). Brief Background of the Issues The recent economic crisis made it clear that professional football was in jeopardy. The football clubs that were considered as over-committed could not escape from the shackles of this crisis. This made the stakeholders realize that the clubs should be operated or functioned like financially sound trading companies rather than recreational units (Butenko, 2010; Boyle & Haynes, 2004). It was identified that a football club which had a strong support was not considered to be a throwaway company with regard to other industries. The football clubs, in order to survive the economic crisis, meet up with the rising expenses and maintain their honored reputation, required the strong support of their loyal fans. It has become a fact that the gap between the supporters and the clubs has been augmenting which was posing to be a great challenge for the clubs to earn revenue. Therefore, it has become vital for the clubs to deal with the increasing distance on an urgent basis so as to keep on the supporters pouring in. This would facilitate the clubs to establish an indispensable source of financial support which would help the clubs to overcome the present crisis as well as earn enough proceeds needed for the functioning of the clubs (Garland & Et. Al., 2000). The Liverpool Football Club was observed to encounter a similar problem in terms of earning revenue and meeting its expenses as well as existing liabilities. The necessity of revenue generation made the owners of the club plan to segment their fans in terms of marketing and seek suitable ways of approaching them (This Is Anfield, 2011). Analysis of the Issues The Liverpool Football Club was already known to be in heavy debt while changing hands. The new owners of the club were responsible for meeting the debt liabilities along with the usual expenses of the club. Acquiring good players and holding on to the existing ones involved significant investments. In addition, the club needs to keep up with the escalating salaries of the players as well. All these issues evidently pointed out towards one solution which was generating enough revenue for the club which would help it to tone down the problems faced. The participation or presence of supporters in the football matches were declining at an alarming rate and the Liverpool Football Club was no exception. This made the owners of the club identify the requirement of segmenting their fans and approaching them with their product. It was soon comprehended by the owners of the club that just a football match no longer appealed to the fans. This gave rise to the need of developing this game into a product which would make it easier to be sold to the supporters (Butenko & Et. Al., 2004). With the passing years, the prices of the tickets have been on the rise without any alterations made in the product. The game needs to be developed as a product where the match of football would be offered along with some additional facilities and services in the stadium. The additional facilities offered with the game would facilitate in attracting more people. Therefore, it is important for the club to plan and develop marketing strategies to ensure the survival of the club in this era of consumerism. Segmentation of the market would help the club to take into concern the suitable marketing mix which would facilitate the club to develop the exact product to make it available at an appropriate price in the suitable place by engaging a proper promotion. However, it needs to be noted that in order to ascertain the most favorable marketing mix, the suitable target market needs to be considered as well (Woods, 2011; Armstrong & Giulianotti, 2001). From the above discussion the need to segment the supporters or fans of the club becomes important. Football is a game and is considered to be a source of entertainment being enjoyed by all age groups. Thus, demographic segmentation of the fans would be quite vast. Likewise, an avid supporter or fan would not remain limited by any kind of specific psychographic segmentation. It is possible for the club to remain restricted by their locations geographically; although, it is a fact that few supporters would travel long distances for the reason of watching a match. However, from the practical point of view, the majority of the supporters forming a part of the geographic segmentation would be the ones residing in the surrounding areas of the location. The geographical as well as the demographic segmentation would further help to categorize people or fans according to their behavior. There would be people with no interest in the game who would feel reluctant to attend the match. The other group would consist of people who are interested in the game but do not prefer to attend. Another group would comprise of people who are not regular spectators and one more group who are regular attendees of matches. The last group would consist of the people who prefer season tickets. This segmentation would facilitate the club to develop suitable strategies for attracting each group (Varrel & Kennedy, 2011; Ellen, 2010; McCarthy, 2010). The club could reach out to its supporters with the help of advertisements through different mediums such as hoardings, newspapers, magazines and television. Another way of reaching the segmented fans would be with the help of internet utilising the virtues of social sites and blogs. Furthermore, the uninterested group of fans should be approached personally by the club which would make the fans feel wanted and attract them towards the game. The club can also plan a discussion group which would consist of their fans for the purpose of exchanging suggestions and discussing various issues related to the game with the higher officials of the club. The suggestions and discussions would facilitate in having a positive influence on the future of the club. These discussions among the supporters and the officials would strengthen the association of the supporters with the club. The club would be able to reach out to a large number of supporters with the help of these discussions and even attract more fans contributing to its future growth prospects (Liverpool FC, 2011). Conclusion and Recommendations The above discussion highlights the need of segmenting the fans for Liverpool Football Club for the reason of earning higher revenue. The dying interest in people for the game has made it difficult for the club to survive. Liverpool Football Club needs to segment its supporters so that it can identify the potential supporters who could be targeted and established as a steady source of revenue generation. Segmentation of the fans would make it easier for the club to design appropriate strategies for each group in accordance with their requirements. This club also needs to adapt suitable ways of promoting and approaching the fans with its products. Liverpool Football Club should promote with the help of advertisements and other promotional events. The club should also plan to promote and approach their fans personally on behalf of the club. The ways of reaching out and approaching to the fans would differ according to the particular category or group of fans. Therefore, the club needs to devise effective ways of reaching their fans depending on the group they fall into. Summary The paper discusses the need of the Liverpool Football Club and its new owner to set up a steady source of revenue generation which is needed for the existence of the club. Issues like the mounting expenses and the economic crisis along with the dying interest of the game among people have made the owner realize the need to structure appropriate marketing strategies to sell their product, i.e. football games. Developing suitable marketing strategies would need the club to segment their fans which is likely to further facilitate the club to group the fans based on certain aspects. This shall also make it easy for the club to design their marketing strategies keeping in focus the particular groups. The identification of the groups would also help the club decide on the ways of reaching the varied groups of fans facilitating the club to attract potential fans and ensure a steady source of revenue. References Armstrong, G. & Giulianotti, R., (2001). Fear and loathing in world football. Berg. Boyle, R. & Haynes, R., (2004). Football in the new media age. Routledge. Butenko, S., (2010). Optimal Strategies in Sports Economics and Management. Springer. Butenko, S. & Et. Al., (2004). Economics, management and optimization in sports. Springer. Ellen, L., (2010). Increasing Attendances at Football Clubs. Strategic Sport Marketing & the Football Industry, pp. 1-21. Garland, J. & Et. Al., (2000). The future of football: challenges for the twenty-first century. Routledge. Liverpool FC, (2011). LFC Supporters’ Committee. News. Retrieved Online on December 8, 2011 from http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/latest-news/lfc-supporters-committee McCarthy, J., (2010). Social Network Sites and Football: Key issues for football club marketers. Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, pp. 1-9. This Is Anfield, (2011). Anfield. Club Info. Retrieved Online on December 5, 2011 from http://www.thisisanfield.com/clubinfo/ Varrel, A. & Kennedy, L., (2011). Mega-Events and Megaprojects. Chance 2 Sustain, pp. 1-4. Westerbeek, H. & Smith, A., (2003). Sport business in the global marketplace. Palgrave Macmillan. Woods, R. B., (2011). Social Issues in Sport. Human Kinetics. Bibliography Andreff, W., (2011). Contemporary Issues in Sports Economics: Participation and Professional Team Sports. Edward Elgar Publishing. Back, L. & Et. Al., (2001). The changing face of football: racism, identity and multicultural in the English game. Berg. OECD, (2009). Money Laundering Through the Football Sector. OECD Publishing. Sward, P., (2005). Researching customer satisfaction & loyalty: how to find out what people really think. Kogan Page Publishers. Read More