Hey there! Shounak here đ
Welcome to Issue #7 of Your Weekend Beer - a weekend newsletter that hits your inbox every Sunday. We are a community that helps you make sense of the business world of football - with a pint of Beer.Â
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On to todayâs issue.
The Ball is RoundâŠ
The ball is Round a section highlighting whatâs happening around the football biz world - think of it as a weekly recap of sorts. Here we goâŠ
#1 Amazon + Spurs = CoupleGoals
âAmazon is finalizing a âfirst-of-its-kindâ partnership with Tottenham Hotspur Football Club that will see the English Premier League side build out a store on the e-commerce platform. The launch of the digital storefront was scheduled to coincide with yesterdayâs (8/31) release of a new Prime Video documentary series focused on the clubâs 2019-2020 season (All of Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur )â
This is actually very interesting. Putting a documentary like All or Nothing on Amazon definitely helps people empathize with the Spurs Project. I myself never cared for Spurs much. But having watched the three episodes so far, I found myself cheering them on. The process is extremely cyclical if you look at it.
I look at Spurs on Amazon and now I actually wouldnât mind buying a Spurs Jersey - it reminds me of my first encounter with the club. Itâs special. Itâs memorable. I tell it to a friend. The process continues. Then there is obviously the whole âbrand recallâ thing going on.
Spurs do look like a club on a mission. They got a brand new all-purpose stadium, got themselves a world-class manager, have a talented squad, the Nike deal is getting them good money, and now they are teaming up with Amazon.
I reckon itâs a good time to be a Spurs fan.
#2 Building an Alternate Reality?
âEvery club will have to rethink their stadia and attendee design â optimising the footprint of stadia, a contactless environment, how food and beverage is delivered. Can they have gatherings in certain areas, do they partner with other venues?â
Covid-19 has made the sports biz model much more challenging. With no clear date as to when fans would actually be back in the stands for the whole community vibe experience, things would have to be done digitally for now.
And clubs are having a hard time navigating that.
The whole community experience is a pillar of the football fan experience. take that away and clubs cease to mean anything. The club has a personality, a history - its fans its most vocal supporters. With the pandemic, clubs will now have to look at alternate models to figure out how to recreate the whole fan community digitally.
Spencer Nolan, Nielsen Sportsâ general manager for UK and Ireland has a few words to say on this.
#3 One More In The Bag
âCity Football Group will become the new majority shareholder of French Ligue 2 side SASP ESTAC Troyes, having acquired the shares owned by previous owner Daniel Masoni. CFG, best known for its ownership of Manchester City FC and New York City FC, makes ESTAC the 10th club in their portfolio and their first in France, with a deal being reportedly worth between EUR 7-10 millionâ
Another one in the bag for City Football Group. I wonder what the rationale for this move is - and even more importantly what choose the French market?
From a financial angle, itâs a lot more challenging than other markets. The DNCG makes sure of that. They require clubs to remain solvent, unlike the FFP which focuses on profitability. In essence, French clubs are audited twice - once by the DNCG and once by the FFP. Given CFGâs trysts with the FFP, does it make sense to tackle two beasts at one time?
Only time will tell.
Itâs Our Game
IOG is a segment that chronicles the tales of football - from a historical, social, and cultural angle. Every week, I scour through tons of essays and handpick three. Here we goâŠ
- âThe Knowles brothers were lost to the world of football, one due to a religious calling the other through illness. Cyril and Peter made huge contributions to their respective clubs and are still revered as legends by the fans who were lucky enough to see them perform. They overcame personal family tragedy to make at the top of the professional game and showed deep personal integrity to respond to the challenges that life offered themâ
- â...on the night of the 19th-20th July 1940 a Luftwaffe pilot released one of the only two bombs to fall on Stirling during the war. The pilot returning from a raid on the docks of Clyde side realized the bombs over the outskirts of Stirling to lighten the return flight. The only bomb fell harmlessly onto a field just upturning some potatoes the other fell onto the Northern terracing of Forth Bank Stadium destroying it and putting a 30-foot crator in the pitchâ
- âThe Stadio Pierluigi Penzo, home of Venezia F.C., is a remarkable piece of sporting architecture. Originally constructed from wood a year before the First World War began, and surrounded by water on three of itsâ four sides, it stands as a perfect embodiment of Veniceâ.