Blue is the colour, football is the game?

This is a quote from an article written by Ashling O'Connor in The Times:

"Fans keen to follow the progress of Theo Walcott, one of England’s brightest World Cup prospects, will have to pay for the privilege after Chelsea TV secured the rights to Friday’s European Under-21 Championship qualifier against the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The club channel, available to subscribers for £5.87 a month, will screen the game from the Ricoh Arena in Coventry after rival broadcasters expressed a lack of interest. While there is no minimum contract for Chelsea TV, it is only available to those already signed up to Sky or Tiscali, although there are limited schedules available online. The news will compound anger among supporters forced to pay up to £11.99 to sit in front of a computer on Saturday evening to watch the senior England team face Ukraine."

The full article can be found here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/international/article6863732.ece

Just how important is the way in which this weekend's games are being covered? Is this era defining? A fundamental shift in the media and broadcast landscape? Or the fallout of an economic downturn through which broadcasters haven't been able to sustain themselves? And is the combination of pay-per-view AND the internet simply a step too far for most football fans. or will they be happy about the additional options it gives them?

Financial Services Authority - benchmark or barrier for football's cosmopolitan ownership

As another English football club passes into the hands of a foreign owner, many commentators have been questioning whether or not the only structural impediment to such takeovers (the fit and proper person test) is up to the task of the challenges now facing it and English football.

The BBC details football's fit and proper person test here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/6923831.stm

Compare this with the fit and proper person test developed and utilised by the Financial Services Authority:
www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/hb-releases/rel27/rel27fit.pdf

Which is the stronger test? The more appropriate? The more relevant? Could football learn from the FSA or vice versa?

Sport marketing, meeting needs and commercial exploitation

Matt Bourn of Braben PR has recently blogged about the messages that came out of last week's Sport Marketing 360 conference in London. This is what he wrote:

1. The next 48 months offers huge potential for sports marketing and sport has an important role in pulling the country out of the recession.]
2. Manchester United is said to have 300 million fans, the same as Disney. Disney monetises every single one of those fans in many different ways – film, DVD, TV, merchandise. Manchester United does not yet. So do the Red Devils have a successful business model?
3. FIFA has a much higher profile than the IOC with the youth market. Why? Because of the video game, not the sport itself.
4. Advice to all sports rights holders: Don’t sell rights, create benefits for your sponsors.
5. More advice to sports rights holders: Remember, brands have a powerful role to play in marketing the sport for you.
6. A view from a sports rights holder: Sponsorship is about a true partnership – offer unique content, unique opportunities for fans.
7. In defence of sponsorship: There has been much debate this year focusing on the credit crunch, banks and corporate sponsorship which has led to the defence of sponsorship as a valued marketing medium. Does more need to be done?
8. Advice from an Olympian to potential sponsors: understand (and enjoy) the sport, don’t lose faith in an athlete’s performance, training comes first and remember - activate the sponsorship.
9. More advice from an Olympian: sponsorship is evolving and it is a platform for doing something good
10. It’s not just brands that benefit. The global nature of sport has seen cities and countries using it to promote themselves on a global scale – Dubai, London, China – this will continue.

In the light of Sport Marketing 360, are we to conclude that sport marketing has now come of age and has a significant role to play in sport, especially as it has benefits for all associated with sport? Or is there still a pervading sense that sport marketing is nothing more than a focus for using sport for commercial purposes and that it is essentially exploitative and cynical?