Buying a Professional Football Team? 10 Lessons Learned: #10

(Lesson Learned #10 - refreshed)

This is the 10th post dealing with do's and don'ts in the process of a club takeover. All 10 lessons learned posted over the last 8 weeks are based on real-life experiences of the author. The first post on May 1 set the scene for this series by explaining why the acquisition of a football club is different from a takeover of a regular company. The success rate of takeovers of football clubs is very poor. The first 9 lessons learned included:

Lesson 1: Hire an external Auditor to carry out a professional Due Diligence Analysis.

Lesson 2: Recruit the right Team.

Lesson 3: Develop, Communicate and Deploy a Shared Vision & Long Term Objectives

Lesson 4: Hire adequate Managerial Capabilities.

Lesson 5: Ensure appropriate Funding and Structuring

Lesson 6: Lead merge between Cultures

Lesson 7: Roll out a Sponsors & Supporters Retention Plan

Lesson 8: Optimise the Chain of Command

Lesson 9: Anticipate timely on missing Targets

Today's lesson pertains to the media. LESSON #10: USE THE MEDIA TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

Everyone likes football. Of all non-important things in this world, football is the most important. The media is keen to know everything about its local team. All football news sells; good, bad and fake news.

In modern society, sports and media have an inseparable relationship. Both exert endless and continuous influence. Media generates profit through sports, while sports and its contents are transmitted through media. It is clear that sports (football being the frontrunner) and media are developing in and expanding through this symbiotic relationship.

Despite of the many benefits, there are still some negatives of (social) media in sports. For example, bad and fake contents can be spread more quickly than ever before. Players and other sport leaders have become "influencers", but may have no idea of using the social media appropriately. Fans have their own communication platforms and their negative comments can be detrimental to the performance, image and transfer value of the individual players and/or the team, the club's leadership, etc.

The media plays a very important role and has influence in virtually every aspect of our lives. It is considered as the best source to know about the happenings in this world. It greatly affects our lives because media has the power to influence our thoughts. This influence is sometimes positive and sometimes negative. As an introduction, we would like to throw some "nice to knows" at you to make you understand how news works.

• Bad news gets more attention than good news. It also spreads faster than good news. Meaning more people are likely to read a story if the headline implies something bad rather than something wonderful.
• A third of the people are so-called "Madvocates", people who actively spread bad news by the word of mouth.
• Negative news and stories involving prominent personalities accelerated diffusion processes and spread fast. Hence, disastrous football news — high on both emotional damage and prominence — is guaranteed peak spreadability.
• When asked the question: You want the good news or the bad news first? Research shows that 78% of the people want the bad news first.
• A Harvard study found that 87% of the coverage of the fitness for office of both candidates in the 2016 US presidential election was negative.
• The American academic Kalev Leetaru is active in the field of “sentiment mining”. He tracks the number of positive versus negative words in the media using tracking software. He found “a steady, near linear march towards negativity” since 1980.

Now you will understand the widely used phrase in the media: "BAD NEWS IS GOOD NEWS". It means: Negative stories attract the attention of the reader. If your team is not doing well, the media attention will grow for the above-mentioned reasons... and it won't contribute to the club's needed improvement.

The media is omnipresent and ruthless. Daily pressure can take its toll on the detriment of objective decision-making. It cannot be stressed enough to agree on a media policy, prior to the takeover. 

Be the master of your own news. Here are some recommendations:

• Bring news when you have something to say. Avoid falling in the trap of giving news when they ask for it. Sooner or later this will do you harm. Don't just answer theirquestions, respond with your key message.
• Quality trumps Quantity (except for Trump himself :). When you talk to the media, get YOUR message out, and apply the KISS principle: Keep it Short and Simple.
• Add Value not Clutter. Come with useful content that gets people talking, laughing or otherwise having an emotional reaction.
• The image is 90% of the message. Therefore the "how" (you bring the news) is even more important than the "what" (the news entails). Therefore, should you not be great at it, avoid live press conferences. There are plenty other online news options today.
• Rather invite the press to a real event, not a "press event". Let the journalist enjoy the ride, he/she will enjoy the authenticity. Look for new school relationships with the press.
• If you call for a press conference, make sure the conference is warranted: make sure that you actually need a press conference. A simple press release may do the trick.
• Timing is everything! If there are several pieces to a story, make sure they are all in place before pitching it. If anything is in doubt, or you do not feel right about something, follow your instinct and resist the urge to pitch the story until everything falls into place. Please note that your credibility and reputation are on the line. We have had several situations whereby -under time pressure- we prematurely announced ground-breaking news, which then subsequently did not materialise (regardless whether or not within your control). The media became very cynical thereafter, and the critical fan base, called our president a fantasist.
• Honesty prevails. Getting caught by a reporter in a lie may be lethal.
• Don't react to rumours. Your answer: "it would be inappropriate to respond to rumours, we will deal with it when it arises".

Conclusion:

When things start to go astray, you pay a heavy price. You lose tons of money and the journalists and critical fans will line up to decimate you in the various media. You need a thick skin. As they need a scapegoat, you will soon be declared persona non grata in the city and beyond. It will also haunt you in the future; what is on the internet stays on the internet. 

Use the media to your own advantage, pro-actively when you need them to work for you. Be the master of the process, otherwise you will be toyed with at their advantage. Within the leadership team, agree to a media policy and assign a spokesman shortly after the takeover.

You still want to buy an elite football team? If you can't stand the heat, you'd better stay out of this kitchen. 

Questions or Feedback? [email protected]

Thank you ! 

Thank you everyone for reading my stories and providing me with feedback in numerous messages and calls. Hopefully it has been a great pleasure to both of us. Whereas you may have learned something, I got rid of a few post traumatic demons teasing me in my head. Failure is a temporary detour, not a dead end! It is a set-up for something better. I also made some new friends along the way. Thanks for that too.

There is a Future. The football business platform "offthepitch" has offered to take this story to the next level. Please continue to follow me on www.offthepitch.com. 

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Alexander Janssen is an economist holding an MBA from ESCP Europe. For 17 years he was CEO at JURAN Inc (USA), a global management consultancy. In 2012, Alexander took a stake in TopSportsLab (Belgium) and assumed the role of CEO for 6 years, working with elite football teams, UEFA and FIFA. In 2018 and 2019 he was involved in the acquisition of 2 professional football clubs in different European competitions.