Snoop Dogg, Reynolds and Modric: What’s luring stars to Welsh football? Sport Business From Wrexham to Swansea and, perhaps soon, Cardiff: is the need for narratives leading the rich and famous to Welsh football? Two years ago, an American couple at Crewe train station asked me if they were on the right platform. They’d travelled from the other side of the world to go on a football pilgrimage. [...]
The best and worst sports marketing campaigns of 2024 Sport Business In the true Christmas spirit of judging others, I’ve looked at my favourite – and not so favourite – sports marketing campaigns of 2024. I had planned to hand out awards with categories based on the startling number of current football pundits who were in Graham Taylor’s Euro 92 England squad. The Gary Lineker Award [...]
Manchester United have got it right where Jaguar rebrand got it wrong Sport Business Manchester United are showing Jaguar that inclusivity is about doing, not just showing, through their action on prostate cancer, writes Matthew Fletcher-Jones. It’s been a good week or so for football. Promotion for England and Wales in the Nations League (a format innovation that actually works), a Premier League weekend with the champions in ‘crisis’, [...]
Why sponsorship at the 2023 Rugby World Cup offered hope for a troubled sport November 10, 2023 For once, it wasn't more of the same brands doing the same things.
Trussonomics, Super League and Qatar World Cup: Why proactive PR matters November 10, 2022 Communications expert Matthew Fletcher-Jones explains why Qatar and Fifa are fighting a losing PR battle over perceptions of this year’s World Cup. Imagine you proposed a revolutionary approach, promising growth and a brighter future. Yet you never got out of the blocks as your first step was revealing that the rich would get richer. Revolutions [...]
Why sport is taking over terrestrial TV airwaves again February 21, 2022 If you’ve turned on your subscription-free, Nadine Dorries-unfriendly, terrestrial TV recently you may have been transported back to a time when moustachioed behemoths like Dickie Davies and Des Lynam ruled the afternoon airwaves – for we again live in an era of live, free-to-air sport. Of course, you may not have noticed. Sky and BT [...]
The strange case of The Hundred: a North-South divide? January 1, 2022 Recently this country has been roughly split down the middle on, well, virtually everything. Opinions are polarised and if there’s a fence in the middle, we’re damn well not sitting on it. Summer 2021 saw a new concept dividing the nation. Sports fans, I give you the strange case of The Hundred. Unlike most cricket [...]
Why brand Manchester United keeps them hooked November 30, 2021 Around this time of year, Christmas comes early for many football fans with the release of the immersive fantasy world that is Football Manager. Will this be the year I take Newport County from League Two to Champions League glory? Let’s spend 250 hours over the next 12 months finding out. In this year’s game [...]
They may not have won Euro 2020 but Gareth Southgate and his England colleagues pulled off one of their most important victories long ago July 12, 2021 England may not have ended 55 years of hurt but reaching the Euro 2020 final was a further step in the right direction. There are many things you can attribute Gareth Southgate’s achievements as England manager to, from a willingness to change formation and a winning team, to putting his faith in youth or even [...]
Too much of a good thing: Are round-the-clock matches giving you football fatigue? February 16, 2021 As I’m sure most readers of this publication will be aware, one of the characteristics of money is that there is a limited supply of it. Scarcity equals value, and that’s something which the football world might soon need to take into account. The pandemic’s impact has condensed the football season and, for many of [...]
