Special report
Preseason cancelled
For the commercial departments of the world’s biggest clubs, preseason is almost more important than the actual season. The summer is a commercial free-for-all as clubs rack up thousands of air miles in pursuit of new fans, new sponsorship deals and better TV deals – but not this year.
Coronavirus left leagues struggling to finish and, along with travel restrictions, there is no space for the traditional preseason. Most managers will be relieved that there will be no need for the annual battles with commercial departments over long trips that drain players on the eve of the season.
No other clubs travel like those from the Premier League: in the last decade, 40 different countries have hosted teams from England’s top division Between 2013 and 2017, 53 per cent of preseason games played by Premier League clubs were abroad. In the global battle for fans and television money, their biggest rival is La Liga, but only 43 per cent of preseason games played by top-flight Spanish clubs were overseas. The ratio is lower still in Italy, where 32 per cent of Serie A games are abroad, with 31 per cent for the Bundesliga and 30 per cent for France’s Ligue 1.
Last summer, the Premier League clubs visited 19 countries, and the USA is the top destination. Football finance expert Kieran Maguire says: “US tours
are very lucrative as clubs can charge a seven-figure fee. If 80,000 people pay $50, with catering and other income, you could probably gross $5 million. Divide that between the two clubs – that’s $2m each and you keep the rest.”
The International Champions Cup, run by Relevent Sports, the promoters controlled by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, is the biggest attraction. Global names from the Premier League and other major leagues play exhibition games in the USA and Asia.
With an average of nearly 15 substitutions per game, there is not much strain on the players, but fans don’t seem to mind. When Barcelona played Real Madrid in Miami in 2017 in only the second Clasico held outside of Spain, tickets cost nearly nine times as much as that season’s Champions League final, prompting a “Greed All About It” headline in UK newspaper The Sun.
With a $20m fee for the biggest names, most clubs won’t care. However, this year’s ICC has been cancelled.
Asia has also been a long-standing target for the Premier League but with a different strategy. Teams from North America are the second most popular opposition for Premier League clubs – behind Germany – but there is less interest in playing Asian clubs.
The Premier League Asia Trophy has been staged every two years since 2003 but after the 2015 event in Singapore, the tournament was restricted to Premier League clubs only. Over the past decade, English sides played 68 preseason games in nine Asian countries, but only 45 were against local sides.
Premier League clubs have played 24 games in China since 2010 but only seven against Chinese teams. Since 2013, the only matches played by a Premier League club against a Chinese side were by Southampton, who are owned by Chinese businessman Gao Jisheng. Poor pitches are one reason – in 2016, Beijing was due to host the first Manchester derby on foreign soil until it was cancelled due to the state of the playing surface. Another is that matches in China against other highprofile European sides, usually from
Europe, can command higher TV rights.
This summer was set to be particularly important for the Premier League’s “big six.” As they do the most touring, they used this to argue for a greater share of international TV rights in 2018, and were expected to continue attracting big crowds from across the globe.
On average, 75 per cent of all preseason friendlies over the last decade played by Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have been overseas.
In that time, Man. City managed just four games in the UK. Even when these big clubs do play in the UK, opponents are often brought in from overseas to drive up gate receipts and commercial income. On average, over the last decade just 15 per cent of preseason games by the “Big Six” were against other UK clubs, while 35 per cent were played overseas in neutral venues. Some are matches in training camps, but many are exhibition games like the ICC.
This touring drives up overseas TV rights, which – unlike domestic Premier League rights – is rising and totalled £4.35 billion for 2019-22. The league is marketing rights for a new deal from 2022 and tours are an ideal marketing
opportunity, but not this summer.
Sales of new shirts, which are traditionally unveiled on the final game of the previous season then sold over the summer break, are also likely to suffer as the promotion schedule is disrupted. Last year, clubs in the big five European leagues sold a record 16 million shirts according to research by PR Marketing, whose director
Dr. Peter Rohlmann says: “The record numbers for shirt sales in the top European leagues will decrease significantly due to the coronavirus circumstances and late presented new jerseys, but also due to the fact that significant sales promotion through preseason tours cannot take place.
“Overall, football merchandising will see significant losses in 2019-20 and 2020-21.”
These problems have been partly mitigated by increasing take-up of digital platforms to connect with fans.
Simon Chadwick, professor of Eurasian Sport at the Emlyon Business School, says: “Ten years ago it would have really adversely affected engagement activities but with social media and broadcast media, what the pandemic has done is brought forward something that’s happening anyway and hastened the rise of digital engagement.”
This summer Bayern Munich created an online tour including digital autograph sessions and virtual fan challenges for the Bundesliga giants’ 4,500 organised international fan clubs. This could be only the tip of the iceberg, with the potential for technology to radically change preseason forever.
“We are only just starting to see what can be achieved with augmented reality,” adds Kieran Maguire. “Soon you will be able to watch a game in New York from the perspective of the national stadium in Malaysia, or there will be a camera embedded in Lionel Messi’s shirt and you will be able to be Messi for that preseason friendly.”
As with so many parts of the global economy, the latest Premier League summer break is likely to be very different from the last pre-COVID preseason of 2019.
The league is marketing rights for a new deal from 2022 and tours are an ideal marketing opportunity, but not this summer