Premier League the key, Foxes man tells Soccerex
Only promotion to the Premier League will allow Leicester City to fully exploit its commercial potential, the club’s commercial director Paul Hunt said at a global football business conference.
Speaking on a panel session entitled “All clubs great and small – the differing commercial challenges” at the Soccerex European Forum in Manchester, Hunt said: “We’re now under new, Thai owners and ultimately we’re trying to project ourselves globally from the Football League, which is not easy.
“But hiring Sven-Goran Eriksson (as manager) and bringing in quality players is evidence of their ambition and if we can get into the Premier League, we can really leverage the opportunity to promote ourselves in Thailand and beyond.”
Also on the panel session were commercial directors from Ajax, Fiorentina and Boca Juniors, all major names in football but in UK terms, under-exploited commercially.
Boca has become the first Argentine club to offer full hospitality packages, while Ajax will this year open an Ajax centre in downtown Amsterdam. Fiorentina is looking to tap into Florence’s 10 million visitors a year with a football theme park. For Hunt, the challenges are a lot more humble.
He said: “We’re doing the boring things – integrating systems so that fans can buy tickets, shirts, even a hospitality package in one online transaction. It should allow us to market more astutely. We’re also increasing our retail space by 50 per cent. What we call the ‘mad hour’ from 2pm on matchday is when people arrive but they turn away if they see the store full. Around the stadium we’ve done things to increase dwell-time and improve customer service.”
Hunt added that a large part of maximising matchday revenue is focused on winning the hearts of seven to 11-year-olds. Every child in Leicestershire will receive, at some point around their seventh birthday, a free Foxes shirt and a match ticket. On top of that, he said that around 50,000 tickets a year go to a variety of youth groups and bodies – “the fans are the customers and we have to look after them,” he said.
