Site icon Connectnigeria Articles

4 Lessons Nigerian Businesses Can Learn From European Football Clubs To Increase Their Values And Followerships

Emmanuel Nnaemeka
  Owning a football club is a big business. There is so much that happens behind the game of the round leather balls. Recently, we saw the owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovic, put up his club for sale at a whooping sum of £3 billion. He had bought the club in 2003 for £140 million.  (That possibly excludes £1.514 billion in loans Chelsea took from Fordstam Limited, which Abramovich is saying does not need to be repaid. If you include that, it simply means the club is worth £4.5 BILLION. You can do the multiples generated in less than two decades).
Read more about Business
Aside from this news, leading football clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Arsenal, Paris St.Germain, Bayern Munich, Juventus and many others are valued at between 2 and 4 billion dollars. There is a whole lot of secrets behind the growth and successes of these football clubs. If we can tap into the business secrets of these clubs, we can upscale our various businesses. There are a lot of models we can learn from these clubs. Let’s go. One of the ways clubs increase their values in the marketplace is by winning trophies. The more trophies a club wins, the more they increase their fan base, and the more their fanbases increase, the more their valuations skyrockets. How can businesses win trophies? They can by focusing on delivering the right products and services that get the credits of industry experts, industry and regulatory bodies and the media pundits. By being on the lips of industry experts and pundits as a  worthy brand, it creates a great deal of validation for your business. Furthermore, winning industry awards can be an avenue to showcase brand quality. Winning a “brand of the year” award can go a long way in boosting your brand’s value. Football clubs increase their value by getting the right talents on their team. For instance, Real Madrid has displayed elegance and wisdom getting celebrated talents to join their team. The Real Madrid of 2000 and 2010s have seen superstar talents like David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Delima Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Christiano Ronaldo and so on grace the Real Madrid club. In the case of David Beckham, it comes off clear that Madrid was looking for his brand potential. Beckham was indisputably the first great proponent of a mediatic footballer, a mass phenomenon idolized by the youngest and trend generator. Imagine flaunting a celebrated software developer on your business page on social media, or a customer visits your website and sees news of your company hiring a Harvard-trained Business Manager to take up a leadership role in your company. This goes a long way in boosting the reputation of your company, as well as boosting the confidence of your customers in your brand.
Sign up to the Connect Nigeria daily newsletter
One beautiful business model, businesses can learn from successful clubs is how they treat their fans – club fans are treated with so much respect. Fans get the latest about their clubs. If there is an organisation that keep their fans with the latest happenings, I think is football clubs. Businesses must learn to blend professionalism with entertainment to connect with their fans. Using various mediums such as social media and email newsletters to educate, inform and entertain your customers on the latest happenings – the good news of course – in your company, can be a good way to transform customers into fans. To increase your value as a brand, you have to invest in training your team. Clubs spend billions in training their teams. They get the best coach, the best state-of-the-art facility and even place their talents on bodybuilding and maintaining diets. Conventional businesses must apply the same, so that their workforce can give their best, which in the long run will increase their value. Featured image source: DW
Got a suggestion? Contact us: editor@connectnigeria.com
Exit mobile version