How to win the Premier League off the pitch

Driving excellence in Marketing, Communications and Content functions for leading global sports organisations

Lena S. and Neil Daugherty , Teneo

Close the nominations. Three quarters of the way through 2024 and we already have a clear winner for sports book of the year. Dr. Ian Graham’s “How To Win the Premier League” is a fascinating overview of how data has transformed football strategy, recruitment and team management.

The sports data arms race is now incredibly sophisticated – as it should be given the riches on offer from prize money, shares of TV money and commercial revenues to those who can crack the analytics nut.

Sport is now a truly global product, where competition for eyeballs, attention and share of wallet is more intense than ever before. Most major sporting organisations now understand that performance on the pitch and commercial success off the pitch are two sides of the same coin. That said, look under the bonnet and even some of the most high-profile of them are underinvesting in their commercial and marketing ventures.

Is this a surprise? Not really. Until recently the thankless job of sports administration fell to well-meaning amateurs and former athletes, at clubs and sports which had for too-long operated as cottage industries.

Even as revenues have increased, cost pressures from cost caps in motorsports or Profitability and Sustainability Rules in football – intended to maintain competitive balance among teams – ?have had the unintended consequence of restricting ‘backstage’ vs. front of house investment in commercial partnerships, marketing and content strategies.

This is changing. Slowly. Flows of institutional capital into sports from Private Equity or sovereign wealth funds mean a greater degree of accountability and professionalism is required on and off the pitch. This has led to an influx of managerial and commercial talent from the broadcasting or entertainment worlds. It has also led to more politicisation and governance pressure, and a time where is more focus on wider trends such as DE&I. Ultimately, sport is now front- and back-page news and leaders in sports need to view it as such.

The trickledown to communications is proving even slower. The relentless fixture calendar means there is a tendency to rely on what has ‘always worked before’ in terms of communications, marketing and content – dealing with one problem (often the next fixture) at a time.

The result is that communications are often analogue, in a world where the fans of today and tomorrow are increasingly turning to digital channels. As long as season tickets, debentures and hospitality continue (mostly) to sell out in the experience economy, clubs and leagues can choose to ignore the fact that they are frogs in the metaphorical pan of boiling water, failing to notice the changing demographics of their fanbases.

There is also a major opportunity cost from not engaging with fans on their own terms. From AI driving efficiencies and effectiveness in production, to fans enjoying their favourite sports in an increasingly hyper-personalised and digital way, the way fans consume sport means there are unprecedented opportunities for more direct engagement between clubs, leagues and fans, historically tightly controlled by media broadcasters.

We spoke confidentially to a number of business, commercial and marketing leaders at leading global club and league franchises in sports, and comparable global entertainment brands. Each have their own idiosyncrasies, but there was universal agreement on one thing: Content Is King.

The increased scrutiny on sport from all stakeholders means now is the time for Chief Marketing and Communications Officers to review and reset their own role and that of their teams to make it fit for organisational purpose. Shared characteristics that drive high performing content teams across different sports and geographies are:

1. Purpose and role for content teams that explicitly link? content to commercial impact, and a mandate that allows for strategic advisory as well as execution and delivery Clarity on roles and responsibilities between Marketing and Communications on content and channels – either structurally (one integrated team) or through systematic ways of working and knowledge sharing.
2. Increased investment in two areas: senior strategic capabilities able to drive a high performing culture and mindset from the top and make the right content calls under pressure; and a sophisticated machinery of data and insights expertise (the right people combined with the right technology and tools).
3. A strategic decision-making process and clear rationale for in-house production capabilities vs third party support. That also means reviewing the effectiveness of current channels. Manchester United’s MUTV was once a trailblazer but has fallen behind in a world where fans want raw, immediate content that hasn’t been through the club’s internal censor.
4. Organisational clarity and understanding of the relationship between on-pitch performance, brand and reputation with the ability to flex between content to support long-term shifts in brand and reputation vs making the most of the latest games and results. This includes avoiding institutional paralysis when a team is not winning on the pitch (which is inevitable at some point in the sporting cycle). Two of the most valuable sports brands in the world – Manchester United FC and the New York Yankees – have not won the English Premier League, nor MLB World Series, in over a decade, despite dominating their respective sports on the pitch at the turn of the century. Yet ?no-one could argue that their off the pitch performance in cementing global brands with global fanbases has been anything less than stellar.

Now is the time to act. There remains a significant first-mover advantage for those sports organisations that revolutionise how they operate off the pitch to make sure they are fit for how sport is consumed in the future. For those that do it well, there might even be a book deal (or film, or YouTube series deal) on the ?line in a few years’ time…