Profit. Financial success. Business. Blah blah blah. I don't see why anybody should care about that. If you care such much about profits and financial success, why don't you just go and 'support' any old business? Go and watch them down at the Stock Exchange. Have away days at the New York Stock Exchange etc... If you care about football success, as you seem to do - then why not just support any football team? If you want success, then you made a pretty daft choice in supporting Hull City - not very good business sense in my opinion. Your utility would have been maximised, and returns would have been much more profitable supporting teams with a much better record. So... assuming you think what I just said is nonsense (which everybody should). Why do we support Hull City? Not for success, not for the profitability of the club. Something much more personal which cannot be defined by traditional financial values, it cannot be traded on a market. Given that we view football as more than a financial transaction, or business decision. It seems obvious that football clubs should not be used as mere profit-generating tools. That misses something really important. So the idea that Allam can expect to distort the club for profit motivations - and we should be happy about that - is really strange. Football should not be primarily profit driven, and certainly not at the expense of fans feelings/identity/enjoyment. We have already gone way too far - but to just accept it is wrong. We should be changing things for the better, not accepting continual movement away from fans enjoyment.
Why is it making our club and fans look bad? I think you you are exaggerating. In the end no supporters of other clubs will not give a flying about our name. We get it chanted at games in attempt to wind us up. That is all and will pass. We are not in the papers for match fixing or some sexual offence of our players. That is bad publicity, not a name change. At best it is controversial. The media have attached to the fans against our bad foreign owner (from Hull or as good as). It means nothing and will be forgotten. If we hadn't have reacted so badly towards the change, the media would be reporting something else. For all we know he wanted this reaction to get us noticed.
Bobby Robson would of been 81 yesterday. "What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love."
In marketing terms, enormous harm has been done to our 104 year old brand. Happily, most 'customers' can see past this crass self-inflicted damage and are relying on the FA to nip this abortion of an idea in the bud.
Sorry, but your first 2 lines are just nonsense. I support Hull City because i'm from Hull and do care about the club. I only wish everyone in Hull did the same. Support any old business? Why would i do that? The truth is football is all about money and your passion alone will not keep this club going. It's sad i know. Blame TV money if it makes you feel better.
I think the reason people thought it was a gift was because there were many interviews in which he made it seem that way. I would be fine with him taking it back out slowly when we could afford it. However, he is taking a 5% interest rate on his investment at a time when we can't afford it. That rate is well above the rate of inflation which is at around 2% so he is taking a profit from the club - not just keeping his money equal in real terms - and including this profit in the cost of running the club. I disagree. I think losing our traditional image as an English football team damages our brand image rather than strengthening it. We currently have the traditional aspect that the rest of the world craves and has huge admiration towards the UK for - think US tourists coming to see Buckingham palace and closer to the subject the new US teams being called FC to emulate more traditional UK teams. We have probably the strongest nickname in the Premier league and this does not need to be forced into our traditional name to be used on the international market for any gain that Allam claims the changed name would give us. The best way to achieve support from people with no connection to the club is success. The next best way is by buying a player from a country without many footballing superstars, i.e the boost in Egyptian support that Gedo and Fathi brought. I do not think that changing the name will bring in any significant amount of fans in the far east as I don't think that those of them that could afford to watch us play would be that easily led to support a team just because they have a tiger in their name and even if they did it is unlikely that they will ever put any money into the club as they live on the other side of the world. So you are relying entirely on attracting an Asian sponsor to make up for all of the income lost based on the hope that asians will become interested in the club. If if is money from the sponsor that Allam is relying on then he might want to look at the shirt sponsorships from the rest of the league http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2013/08/20/premier-league-shirt-sponsors-pour-record-166m-into-top-flight-bank-accounts-200801/ As you can see the clubs at around our level are on between £1M and £5M which isn't really that much compared to the amount of money that we are losing, and even so as a premier league club on the up we should be able to attract a sponsor on a similar level to these without being forced into changing the name I'm fed up of seeing statements like this which directly equate football to other businesses. In what business would most of its customers buy a product out of loyalty when it was at really low quality? (i.e if we dropped to league 2). If football followed business theory then we would all support Man City as they have low cost season tickets and one of the best teams in the world. Football is based on tradition and to discount this from the discussion is wrong.
Listen, i expected all the people who are against the change to give me some stick. Everyone is entitled to there opinion. All i am saying is many of you claim it will not be beneficial as a fact. Non of us know if it will or not. I just think if we don't try we will never make the top half of that table and will be mostly in a relegation battle at best. I want to see us improve slowly over time where we could maybe make Europe. Don't we all want to see our team have a chance of winning things? If we slowly get bigger maybe we will get that ridiculous buy out with millions to throw away. Don't get me wrong I would support us in the conference if it happened but i'd prefer to watch us compete against the best.
You support Hull City because: 1) You are from Hull. 2) You care about the club. Why do you care about the club though? If it was just because they are from Hull, why not support Smith and Nephew? Hope they do well, hope they sell more bandages? Cheer when their share price rises? Obviously that idea is silly. My point is that people, like you and I, care about the club for more than 'money'. That is why we shouldn't just ignore what Allam is doing - he shouldn't be able to change and shape the club because he has the financial power to do so. If you disagree, please nail down the reason for which you "care about the club". You can't just say it is 'silly' to support Smith and Nephew. Nail down a reason why you care about Hull City. May I suggest, that it is because supporting Hull City is not all about money, or financial success, or even sporting success. It is about something more - maybe something along the lines of community.
But that is a silly statement in itself - have Newcastle, Southampton, West Brom, Swansea over the past few years attempted something this stupid and reckless?
You can love/honour/care about the club all you want if you cant afford to pay in the club will slam the door in your face.
West Brom and Swansea are in the same boat as us they could go down (probably not but could). Newcastle and Southampton already have more money than us. Besides, im not talking about one good season. I want us to be competitive long term.
Gawge, I don't know why i care for the club so much. It's not a logical thing. That fact that the result on a saturday that i have no way of controlling can affect my mood for the rest of the week is nonsensical. But it does. I guess it's part of my life. Why do you care?
