ManU is beating Premier League rivals to sign up new sponsors, according to its commercial director, who said commercial partners would not be deterred from signing deals with the Old Trafford club should it fail to qualify for the Champions League this season.
ManU Commercial Dir Jamie Reigle also revealed that the club’s execs were jumping on planes striking deals throughout the year, and that the club would be spending “a lot of time” on exploring opportunities in China under its football-crazy president.
Reigle was speaking to SBD Global after the club unveiled Gulf Oil Int'l as its new commercial partner in a three-year deal.
The club is hoping that the deal -- its 71st sponsorship deal according to the club’s website -- with Gulf, owned by the Hinduja group, will help it grow its brand in Asia where Gulf has a particular focus.
Gulf has experience in sports marketing, particularly in motorsport sponsorship, and Reigle said the club was attracted by the “pretty impressive track record [Gulf had] of bringing the fans closer to the racing experience.”
ManU’s on-field performance this season has fallen below expectations and it is currently sitting outside the top four automatic qualification spots for the Champions League.
“All of our sponsors, all of our commercial partners and ultimately our fans have high expectations for Manchester United, the team that we put on the pitch, the quality of the performance and ultimately the results," Reigle said. "The demand has always been very high. I think it’s fair to say over the last few years the success hasn’t been where we all expected it to be. That is true for our fans, it’s true for our staff, it’s true for our sponsors.”
STAYING THE COURSE: Earlier this year, Herbert Hainer, boss of the club’s kit supplier adidas, voiced concern about ManU's style of play -- which was not the free-flowing fast football which had become synonymous with it under previous Manager Alex Ferguson -- in a public intervention which captured many headlines.
There has been “no comment at all” from other sponsors railing at the current style of play, said Reigle, who believes that sponsors are cognizant that the club is trying its best to compete at the highest level.
“The commitment we made to our investors and the commitment we make to our clients is we put out a team that can challenge. We’re still fighting for three trophies this year. We still believe there is a way to run on this season,” he said.
Should ManU miss out on a Champions League spot this year, it will be hit financially through gate receipts and broadcast revenue. Last season, when it failed to qualify, it cost the club around £35M.
But Reigle believes the failing to secure a spot in the lucrative Champions League -- where sponsorship is centralized through UEFA -- will not deter the club from attracting future sponsors.
He said, “No, I don’t believe it will. If you look at the last year, we missed the Champions League, we continued to grow our commercial business, to grow the portfolio of business we had. I don’t anticipate that to have a meaningful effect.”
This year, the club has inked commercial deals with Columbia sportswear, 20th Century Fox and an Indonesian drinks brand, adding to its legion of other sponsors.
“We have signed a number of new partners over the last six months, and all of those situations were competitive. Our peers were also trying to win those same clients,” Reigle said.
It is thought, for example, that it beat Man City to sign a deal with 20th Century Fox.
GLOBAL PRESENCE: ManU now has offices in Manchester, London and Hong Kong, where Reigle is based.
“I have Japanese nationals, Koreans, mainland Chinese, Singaporeans, they are all on planes trying to do business all around the world. That is what we try to do.”
While ManU is one of the most famous football clubs in the world, there are still new markets and categories to aim for, Reigle said.
He names Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia as strong markets for the club to target, as well as India and the U.S., where the club toured the last two years.
“We think ultimately the driver of the opportunity is how many fans there are, and it is difficult to deny that there are more and more Americans tuning into English football," he said.
“China in particular is exciting now given what is happening with president Xi -- who wants to turn China into a football powerhouse -- and some of the directives they have made around developing football. There’s no doubt we are going to spend a lot of time thinking about how we address that opportunity.”
John Reynolds is a writer in London.
