Saddla has brought us the news that Tile Choice are switching their sponsorship money to the electronic advertising thing facing the M6 (confirmed in todays E&S as a ‘significant increase in investment’).
But Walsall being Walsall, it’s struck me whenever I’ve driven past, how under utilised it is. While copycat sites dotted along the M6 / M5 are full of ‘blue chip’ national and international businesses paying for space (Emirates, Qatar, Jet 2 Holidays, Sky, Jaguar - Land Rover, etc, by my recollection), little old Walsall make do with a regional tile supplier and local stuff, and as they seemingly can’t sell the space, fill it up with our own events - forthcoming matches, boxing and celebrity nights at the ‘Venue, Birmingham (sic)’.
It all seems to be an opportunity lost. Does anyone at Bescot do proper commercial stuff?
I guess that it all depends on who controls the advertising for WFC. If it’s the club themselves, then they get to set the rates & who is allowed to advertise. If it’s an ad agency then they will pay for the screen time (at a low rate) & sell it on to whoever wants it (the “Blue Chips”). The club wouldn’t have a say over what is advertised, so you could get the likes of ■■■■■■ or Villa advertising on there…
Also, so called “Blue Chip” companies don’t overpay for anything whereas a local company might be willing to pay more just for the prestige of advertising on WFC’s advertising screen.
I think the Pension Fund paid for the build of the sign and the club are at liberty to manage its content as they wish and also reap the benefits.
The downside for the club is that the rent went up to take this new asset into account.
Jeff would argue that this is a significant upside of our model in that the Pension Fund can make significant, one off capital investments that the club just couldn’t afford or would need to borrow. This way, so long as the revenue for the club each year is greater than the rent increase then Jeff would argue it is a win:win and goes someway to justifying the model.
The big problem for me is that the accounts and the narrative that accompanies them just aren’t transparent enough for the above to be proven or disproven.
I for one would be slightly assuaged if the accounts showed that say the sign plus the market covered the rent with every other penny being spent on the football.
The fact that they don’t show this suggests that the Bescot Money-go-Round isn’t that straightforward.
As I recall it PT, when the thing was erected it was hailed as the biggest advertising site of its type in the UK and it would bring in a seven figure sum each year, ‘generating off field income that would give us one of the largest playing budgets in the league’.
The problem as I see it, is that, rather like Channel 4 (at times), the advertising space isn’t being taken up and the space is being filled with our own content.
It’s probably because it’s never working properly !
I have just/driven past it and it’s brojen again - just a blank blue screen and if my company had paid the very high advertising rates I would be non to happy
