The commercialization of football in Europe Justification of the study

The commercialization of football in Europe

Justification of the study

The topic of the study was thought on August and mid-September. It was necessary to choose a topic that interest the author and was capable of performing detailed research to make the dissertation.it was difficult for the author to think of a particular topic of its own interest, however the topic was chosen in relation of events by changing our daily routine of sport interest throughout the years.

The topic was impact on commercialization of football over the years. All people around the world know what the word football means because is the most exciting and fascinating sport, everybody plays it and follow their favorite team on newspapers, websites and much more and the author found it interesting to have an opinion from the people about it. The author wanted to know, football has developed in relation of commercialization over the years.

Commercialize business have taken advantage of the sport because of the high demand by gaining profits. The author wanted to evaluate the impacts of commercializing football and the influence has had on fans. The theme area it has lots of findings and information related to the topic and would be simple as there are many books, articles and journals. By steering the research, time is essence but in the end it will worth the effort and will help in archiving a nice dissertation.

Aim

To investigate the commercialization of football, its dependence on sponsorship and its development through financing.

Objectives

To critically review the literature in relation to football developments over the years with specific reference of European football clubs.
To evaluate the impact and reasons of football commercialization and the influence it has had on the fans.
To discuss the importance of sponsorships in football development.
To perform primary research in the form of a comparative study.
To analyze the primary and secondary data to see if the evidence supports the hypothesis.
To discuss the result and draw some conclusion so that appropriate recommendations can be made.

Research Questions

What are the negative and positive impacts of commercializing football?
What are the perceptions of football fans on the influx of football clubs owned by non- EU businessmen?
How has the non- EU football clubs ownership impacted on European football competition?
How important is the sponsorship of a football club in Europe?

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Introduction

This chapter will present a clear review of the literature with secondary data relating on the following contents. (History and definition of commercialization of football, negative and positive impacts on commercializing football, and the perceptions of football fans on the influx of football clubs owned by non- EU businessmen, how non – EU football clubs ownership impacted on European football competition, and how important is the sponsorship of a football club in Europe).

These sections will primarily define the terms of commercialization, then will move on to the history of football commercialization (how and when it started), it will discuss the positives and negatives of football commercialization, then analyse the perception of football fans, on their football club being owned by a non – EU business entity. There will also be an analysis of how non- EU football club ownerships impacted on European football competitions and finally, it will investigate the importance of football clubs sponsorship in Europe.

History & Definition of commercialization of football

Football is arguably the most loved sport on the planet. In past years it used to be played on the streets, on muddy fields car parks etc, and only for fun and for recreation and pleasure.

According to (Williams 1993), in the early twentieth century, sports news was generally restricted to a small audience, comprising mostly of those who usually attended the events, or by those who were informed by word of mouth of the sporting event. However, as time went by, this had changed. With the arrival of the press, that started publishing sporting events in the press, had enlarged the distribution of sports news to a large number of the population that were sports enthusiasts.

In turn the cinemas followed by showing highlights of sports events in Britain in 1920s and 1930s, which then led to the introduction of radio broadcasts followed by television broadcasts in 1938 that consequently led to the first ever football match to be broadcasted live. Thereafter football had become the pinnacle event in world sports and people took to it with great interest that encouraged major business entities to invest heavily in football thus commercializing the sport. Football became a professional sport with professional football players earning large amounts of income thanks to TV rights and sponsorships and other benefits, such as advertising sports products and luxury goods, not only as a club, but as an individual player.

In today’s day and age, people have the luxury to watch their favourite team on satellite television or the internet and know how their teams are doing through the media. One can always have the ability to become a member of their beloved team, and have all information on their team, at the touch of a button. This is how the commercialization of football developed over time and will continue to do so, as technology evolves and develops because now football is the most loved and watched sport on the planet (Williams 1993).

Positives & Negatives

Commercialization is about media susceptivness for the sport. There are various positives of commercializing football. As football is a high profile sport, it attracts vast amount of attention for coverage of matches on television, which in turn attracts fans around the world thus encouraging battles for TV rights in broadcasting. The football clubs in turn bear fruit from these rights earning them huge amounts of income, and potential recognition of their team and players. This leads to the second advantage, that of profitability. Due to the vast amount of sponsorships, advertisements and other means of commercialization, local football clubs have increased their revenue and profits, which in turn grows revenue for the local economy and thus encourages teams to perform better, attracting more and more fans, which benefits both club and community. Another positive is the participation of children. For example, when watching the national football team winning the world cup on TV, children will want to imitate their idol and start playing football. This will avert them from other activities which are not healthy, therefore helping them gaining the necessary exercise, avoiding in the process health issues such as obesity and other health risks. It can also help to give children their favourite hobby and take them off the streets and away from crime.

However there are different views and perspectives which are negatives. In any business where money is involved, finances will always come first. That is where football has lost its value and the sport has become more of a business rather than pure sport (Green 2013). For example well financed businessmen buy football clubs along with world class players with budgets over several hundred millions to spend, money that are out of this world for a lot of people. Player salaries used to be £50 per week, now is £100k per week and record signings of a football player of a hundred million pounds from fees of around fifty to a hundred thousand, back in the 70’s and 80’s. Sponsorships pay enormous amounts of money to football clubs only to advertise their brand for example the likes of Nike, adidas, puma etc. Another negative is when businessmen and football club conferences want their primary target to gain profits from selling advertising space such as sponsor logos, improving facilities or billboards around the stadium. On some occasions fortunes are spent to change historic stadium names to corporate trademarks only to increase revenues. Fans don’t agree with this principle when it happens, and carry out demonstrations every once or twice a month in Europe. For the fans is more about pride, respect and willingness to see their favourite team succeed, that is the only thing that matters to them. Finally commercialization sometimes creates destruction to football players, as their greed for more money deviates their pride for the game which in turn affects their performance and can lead to the deterioration of the their club or even country, as it distracts them from their main goals (Alevel help 2011).

The Perceptions of football fans on the influx of football clubs ownership by non- EU businessmen

European football clubs date back to 100 years ago. Football players realized more financial benefits when the game started attracting more spectators (Giulianotti and Robertson 2004). Therefore, to a certain extent, business has been part and parcel of the football industry. Since 1980s, there has been tremendous economic development in football with the involvement of both the domestic and foreign organizations. In the last decade, football clubs have been largely commercialized leading to increased revenue (Krabbenbos 2013). Consequently, football has now become an international business. European clubs and players are increasingly being transferred on expensive transfer fees. Football players are transferred from different clubs all over the world in exchange of millions of Euros. In relation to the extreme commercialization of football, there has been an alarming increase in club ownership by non-EU businessmen. This has had a major impact on the perception of football fans. Most of the fans are taking the transfer of the EU football clubs to non-EU business as major threat to their home teams.

Supporter Relations

The development in professional football has had a major impact on the relationship between fans and their clubs. Football fans have opposed the commercialization of football. Football fans have seen their favourite teams turn into corporates. In football business, increased financial capital is directly or indirectly generated (Brown 2000). Through these transfers, owners of non-European football club tend to increase the cost of watching a game. This is mainly done to regain the funds lost during the purchase. As a result, football fans are exploited. They are left disillusioned by their clubs as a result of this exploitation.

The decline of supporters

Due to ownership transfer of football clubs, especially by the non-EU businessmen, there is always an increased cost of match tickets. As a result, there is the decline in the number of traditional supporters and a great increase of new consumer fans. Most of the European football clubs have generational supporters and supporters from the working class. However, the transfer of ownership to non-European businessmen poses a big risk for clubs since the cosmopolitan fan is at greater chance of leaving the club (Brown 2000).

Identity of the football club

In football, it is a culture among fans to have a close identification with their respective clubs. A football club must have a positive identity in order to have a strong relationship between the club and its fans. When a European team is sold to non-European businessman, it loses its original brand identity (Brown 2000). European club fans do not see need of supporting these transferred clubs due to loss of identity. According to Brown (2000), identity is what builds the connection between the consumer and the brand. Therefore, the success of a club relies upon how the club’s image is perceived by both foreign and domestic fans.

How non – EU football clubs ownership impacted on European football competition

Billions of Euros spent on investments into non-EU football clubs not only has a potential long term economic implications to the European Union but also social implications. Non-EU club ownership directly affects the economic activities of the European Union. In recent years, the European football governing body UEFA has claimed the lack of financial fair play which has adversely affected the European Union football clubs. Rich non-EU businessmen tend to exploit the EU football clubs (Andreff and Staudohar 2000).

The financial Fair Play

In the recent years, non-EU businessmen have been buying players from EU football clubs at an alarming rate. The signing of deals with the EU-football players has had a reduced play quality. Therefore, the football governing body (FIFA) decided to regulate the exploitation of football clubs by these businessmen. Financial fair play is the controlling of clubs by the football governing bodies so that they can use their finances fairly in the transfer markets. According to EUFA president, Michael Platini, many clubs have reported worsening and repeated deficits that have led to high club debts in the recent years (Holt 2006). Additionally, participants and private investors have extensively increased their interest in European football clubs. As a result, these clubs have experienced liquidity shortfall hence not being able to pay club managers and players. On the other hand, other clubs have climbed to the top with the help of external funds (Peeters and Szymanski 2013). The well-known example is Chelsea’s Roman Abramovitch. In the past years, he had spent up to half a billion Euros in funding Chelsea to the top. Chelsea is now among the leading European football clubs in the world. In the year 2010, UEFA announced a set of financial constrains that clubs experienced when seeking to enter the comparative market. Financial fair play has significantly reduced the diluting of top European teams (Vopel 2011).

The importance of football club sponsorships in Europe

Sponsorship has been in existence for very many years. Football clubs use sponsorship as the main tool for marketing strategy. A few years back, sponsorship was regarded as a philanthropic and charity idea. However, in the recent years, sponsorship is being used as a marketing tool for football clubs. Sponsorship is defined as the attainment of rights to directly associate with an event for the purpose of delivering benefits to that association (Sloane 2000). EU-Football clubs usually use this opportunity to attain their broader market objective. Many opportunities have come up in the recent times as football clubs compete with each other in creating better sponsorship deals. Therefore, many football clubs are aware of the fact that they need their customers to survive in the market place. Football clubs are in constant need to satisfy their customers by managing the marketing mix so as to gain a comparative advantage over others. The main importance of football sponsorship in Europe is the advantage of acquiring football kits for the players (Vrooman 2007).

Sports Sponsorship as a Marketing tool

Sports sponsorship is a marketing tool used by corporations to reach the wider audience on the global market. Through a platform of potential customers alongside targeted audience, football clubs are able to penetrate the market place efficiently (Abiodun 2011). The success of a football club is determined by the availability of finances directed towards the development of the club. One of the major ways football clubs are financed is through investments and sponsorships from business and companies. The prospects of a lucrative agreement between football clubs and corporations can be very beneficial to football clubs. Given the incentives, football clubs are able to gain more exposure and income advantage, since the clubs receive large amounts of funds and exposure. These funds allow football clubs to develop and progress. However, there are many ways a football club can benefit from a sponsorship program.

Chapter Conclusion

Football clubs are ruining the game by emphasizing on the commercial aspect over the football aspect. Football has simply become a money-making activity. Every organization requires profits to be enabled to run its daily activities and expenses. However, the rate at which football clubs are concentrating on the financial aspect is becoming a major concern. For other clubs, they would rather make money than please their fans. As a result, the welfare of the club is deserted hence no motivation among players. For a club to gain a competitive advantage in the market place, it must invest in the welfare of its players.

Methodology

Introduction

This section of the paper is based on the emphasis on qualitative data as it has been supported by the grounded theory (Thornberg & Charmaz, 2011). The theory supports that research in the field of social sciences requires being systematic. This scenario is reflective of the situation in the commercialization of European football. The theory further supports the need to analyze past data while comparing it to the present situation facing the relevant topic of inquiry. By itself, the grounded theory cements the need to embrace qualitative data on a more extensive ground than quantitative data because it is near impossible to meet and interview powerful club owners.

Purpose

Given the complexity of the research question stated in the preceding sections of this dissertation paper, this chapter takes the form of analyzing the general purpose of this methodology section. It is in this section that the questions regarding the source of data, how the data was obtained and if there were other optional data sources. Generally this chapter encompasses not only the purpose but also data collection as well as data type (Banks, 2010). With this subheading, other essentials such as research design, sample design, target population, steps, and outlines will be noted. Incorporation of an introduction to this chapter is to emphasize the pertinence of this chapter which helps the readers identify with a credible outline with which this paper is written. Furthermore research is an essential part of justifying and ascertaining the credibility of the theoretic and conceptual framework. Methodology further justifies the premises upon which this paper is grounded. As a result, this chapter provides an insight into the approach used and consequently the specific steps that were taken in a bid to riposte the research questions.

This research is exploratory in nature. This is to mean that the research is purposed at finding out the current trend in the commercialization of the European football clubs. It also insinuates that the paper makes attempts to address new insights in the development of commercial football in Europe. The reason why exploratory research was used is because it is highly flexible, qualitative and it is unstructured (Thornberg, 2012). Furthermore as a researcher, the application of the grounded theory supports that the research will be devoid of preconceptions as to what is expected of the findings on the research questions. Putting in place these measures is advantageous to this paper because it makes it objective.

Primary research

Primary data is the date which is collected by the investigator who can use methods such as questionnaires, interviews, direct observations. . It is often undertaken after the researcher has gained some insight into the issue by reviewing secondary research or by analyzing previously collected primary data. When organizing primary research for collecting data, questionnaire design with some emphasis on interviews method is preferred to be use by questioning 70 football fans randomly to ascertain their reactions on the commercialization of European football.

Secondary research

This research purposes to use a qualitative method of data collection supported by the use of secondary data. As a result, the information presented represents a wide range of empirical researches conducted by credible organizations, peer reviewed literature sources, and objective analyses of data using non-numerical procedures. All these activities are geared towards answering the questions on the negative and positive impacts of commercialization of football, the perceptions of football fans on the influx of football clubs owned by non- EU businessmen, the impact of non- EU football clubs ownership on European football competition and lastly the question on the importance of sponsorship of football clubs in Europe (Barclay, 2009). In order to provide illustrative answers to these research questions, numerous case studies on the commercialization of European football clubs is undertaken.

Qualitative data

Qualitative method of researching is a procedure of creating complicated and integrated picture of the interest of the researcher to operate in a usual environment. Investigators who use qualitative research methods seek to analyse their study in depth, in order to complete the require objectives. The method that is used to analyse human behaviour and attitude are the interviews. By collecting data through interviews the researcher can receive from the interviewer large amounts of answers. Also the expressions and attitude of a person shows how much true are the answers. Some negatives that qualitative research has is that it takes much longer time than questionnaire research. Another negative is because less people have studied it, so it’s hard to generalize.(katsirikou & skiadas,2010).

Interviews

Interviews are an interesting and exciting procedure of collecting data. By interviewing people, questions can be answered more clearly with enough information. However there are some positives and negatives.

Positives:

More details in depth can be collected.
The collection of personal information.
The researcher can choose the person for the interview.
If the response of the interviewer is not sufficient enough the researcher can ask for more suitable and clearly answers.

Negatives:

Qualitative method sometime is costly when there are different geographical areas of where the interview will take place.
Important people are hard to be approached.
Interviews take longer time than other research methods.

Quantitative data

Quantitative research method is the procedure of which the investigator analyses its work with numbers and statistical approaches through questionnaires. The aim is to figure whether the prognostics of a theory is true. Therefore as quantitative method is necessary for the collection of numerical and statistical data to analyze a phenomenon, appropriate questions are suited to answered by quantitative research. For example:

How many students over 25 aged get a university degree compared to ages under 25?
Has the performance of students developed on the university over the years?

The above questions can be analyzed quantitatively in numerical and statistical forms. One of the positives of quantitative research by using methods such as questionnaires, is that lets the researcher to focus more wider on the study, as a conclusion of the generalization of the result.(Thomas, 2003).

Questionnaires

The technique when a large amount of people is asked to answer an equivalent set of questions in the wright order is called questionnaire. Is the easiest method of collecting data. An advantage of a questionnaire is that it can be completed by a person quickly with short sentences or with one word answer. However one negative of a questionnaire is that the evaluation is not a lot because regularly the answers are: yes, no, agree, disagree etc. (Saunders, 2009)

Reasons for choosing Questionnaire/interviews

Even though this paper uses questionnaires supplied to the fans, again, it is more convincing to use empirical data collected from other secondary sources of data. The use of interviews and questionnaires insinuates a primary research because the researcher is apt in finding new information on the other hand , the use of secondary research is supported by the use of secondary sources of data which basically entails the use of information from a research that was previously done

Data collection

Data collection represents the actual process of gathering information intended to answer the research questions stipulated. Being that the abstraction of dissertation I dependent on a systematic review of football journals, evaluation of statistics presented therein and meta-analysis of football literature to fill in the knowledge gap identified. Data collection was done by the researcher with the purpose of providing information regarding the four questions identified in the theoretical framework. The data collection strategies were chosen in support of the relevance of the topic in the websites, text books, journals and the literature trade (Vrooman, 2007). Additionally questionnaires were administered to 70 football fans so as to ascertain their reactions. It therefore emerges that this methodology integrates some partial aspect of quantitative data which is in support of the overall purpose of this section.

The most essential data collection instruments used for the research included study descriptions, analysis, sampling, measurement, interpretation of the results and issues encountered during execution. The instruments were selected by reviewers who are trained at identifying the suitability of research instruments that have the ability to facilitate the collection of the required data.

Sampling methods

In identifying these instruments, there was the option of selecting between the different types of sampling techniques (Dobson & Goddard, 2011). With regard to sampling methods, there are options ranging from systematic sampling, random sampling and stratified sampling. Whereas these three are classified as probability methods, nonrandom samples are used in what is termed as nonprobability sampling methods. Among them being convenience sampling, quota sampling, snowball sampling and judgment sampling. The research used random sampling and snowballing which is a referral chain where one respondent directs the researcher to another potential respondent. By so doing, the right information was collected. In order to validate the information and ascertain its credibility, quality control was carried out using statistical support software programs such as the survey monkey software. The procedure of quality control was elicited by the need to stratify raw data into divisions that would help identify the most suitable data while discarding the unnecessary data.

Selecting the most suitable data collection methods were applauded for limiting the time used to analyse data so that it is done within a reasonable timeframe as well as a reasonable cost. Given the fact that the topic of commercialization of football has limited information which creates an information gap, this research is supported by multiple cases together with questionnaires (Barber, 2008). Whereas the questionnaires and interviews represent primary research, secondary research is defined with the use of case studies. This paper focuses on three case clubs which are analyzed giving due attention to diversity so as to enlarge the validity of the research findings. The three cases are sampled from a large quantity of samples using random probability sampling. By so doing, three sample case studies of European clubs were identified, selected, and used for the dissertation.

Reliability and validity…………

Piloting

Piloting also called piloting test entails the methods or designs used to test the research instruments before the actual research. The purpose of this test is to refine the data collection instruments (Henry & Lee, 2009). The process involves making simulations that represent the actual process of collecting data aimed at getting feedback on the efficacy of the actual instruments to be used during research. For this project, the interview questions were tested as well as the questionnaires so as to ensure that they were precise and devoid of redundancies.

Ethical considerations

In conducting statistical researches, it is always advisable to apply the basic rules guiding research work. Among the rules of undertaking interviews and filling of questionnaires is the need for privacy, anonymity and confidentiality. The researcher also has to make sure that the respondents undergo through the exercise at their own freewill devoid of cohesion whatsoever. On the other hand, the use of secondary research is guided by ethical considerations revolving around the need for giving credit where it is due so as to avoid instances of plagiarism, infringement of copyrights among other ethics and moral considerations (Henry & Lee, 2009).

Conclusion

In conclusion, this research established that European football clubs are ruining the game by emphasizing on the commercial aspect over the football aspect. Football has since become a money-making activity whereby policy makers are focused on increasing profitability rather than encouraging loyalty among the domestic football fans. Every organization requires profits to be enabled to run its daily activities and expenses. However, the rate at which European football clubs are concentrating on the financial aspect is becoming a major concern. For other clubs, they would rather make money than please their fans. As a result, the welfare of the club is deserted hence no motivation among players. For a club to gain a competitive advantage in the market place, it must invest in the welfare of its players as well as that of their fans.

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