it's a sponsor that would look good on a plain red background so it's likely to feature on a red horizontal space bisecting the lines.
Understand the need for it, but I don't like a sponsor on a colour block. Always looks amateur, as if their Mum just stitched it on for them.
that's the way it used to look with the iron on panel, but it's usually just a discontinuation of the white stripes on the fabric now, isn't it? it particularly looks less like it's sewn on if it's the red rather than the white used as the sponsor panel. edit: I take it back. it does indeed look like iron on panels on stoke and sunderland when looking closely. not good, i agree.
I loved Nicola and all he did for us, but am beginning to think that he may have reached his peak for us. He could only carry on with an endless amount of (someone else's) money. He in fact almost predicted his demise by saying (after sacking Adkins) that people should be moved on at their peak before the downward slope (he even said it applied to him as much as anyone else). Not sure he really thought it would apply to him though. We are now with a board that hopes to address what most people complained about...lack of consideration for fans and the element of fear at SMS. Only time will tell if this regime will be successful.
Lets be honest here about Cortese. He was superb for us but as I have seen someone else say, he never had the odds stacked against him. Until this summer we'd never realistically faced the prospect of UCL clubs with big money coming in for our stars. How would he have coped? Of course you could attribute the unsettled nature of several due to him leaving, and maybe this would've been avoided if he had stayed. I thought Nicola was great but he had a big club (by FL standards) and big money from the Liebherr's. Now we are mixing it in the top half I would be intrigued to see how differently he'd deal with it. Alas, we will never know.
it doesn't show the average but you can work it out. View attachment 31257 we're unlikely to even hit median.
We don't know yet what this board can do, so can't judge them, but it annoys me when people say (with no basis whatsoever) that they won't share Nicola's ambition. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. NC convinced the players with rhetoric (and the DVD) that we were going to be Premier League and (with a fair bit of money spent) he was right. We have climbed the mountain and are sitting in rarefied air just below the peak. The hardest bit is yet to come. We don't know what KL and company can achieve, but, as you say, we don't know what Nicola could have achieved either.
Didn't we get aap3 in League One? Bit of a difference between getting a sponsor when you're floundering in League One to when you're an established PL team getting a significant amount of exposure. And if the figures were consistent he got us a deal on par with top Championship clubs.
Ignoring the top clubs, it is noticeable that the next highest tranche of money comes from betting sites and a beer...I doubt that they would be considered by our board anyway...their stated aim was a local ethical business. And again apart from the top clubs, the money mentioned is in the few million range, so not enough to be a really useful sum. I would think that to get the sponsor they felt comfortable with the board would be happy to forego 3 million and take 1 million (guess, no idea of actual money).
That figure was lower in the FL. The deal had clauses to rise but I don't think aap3 expected it so quickly. We were meant to be getting Lotus last season, hence the gold all over the front of the shirt, but it fell through and we had to renegotiate with aap3, who were going to get cut loose. Hence why in the kit release promos there were no close ups of the front of the shirt, and when you caught it in the corner of your eye it was blank. The photos looked photoshopped too. So yeah, aap3 went up a bit but they were very much expecting to end their association last summer.
The thing I don't understand is why we didn't just go out and get Apple to sponsor us for £40m a year. They have LOADS of money so they'd be able to spend loads on sponsoring us. That's what I would have done. Lordy, the cynicism on here about our board is breathtaking. We're not a top six team, no matter what we might think and no matter how much we love the club. Take out the top six clubs in the sponsorship list above and the median is £1.45m. I know I'll be wrong as always but in my world (which doesn't include forensic accounting) that could well be the scale of this deal. Vin
Why don't we just give one of the big clubs that space on our shirts as well as all of our players followed by the clothes off of our backs?
Watching the recording of the JPT today our strip kit looked so dated. Please don't bring the strips back
vin, the median would be the mean of the two middle data points (2m and 3m) so 2.5m the mean might be 1.45m though. I take your point. the point about betting companies making up most of the mid range is valid too.
I like it. It promotes a local British business. Which is good however you look at it. And goes hand in hand with what saints is all about these days. Why do people care about how much money a huge foreign sponsor would bring to the club? If the club was all about money there would be a bigger name on the shirt next season. Do you think that this is the biggest name Southampton FC could attract? Also would you rather some gambling sponsor on the shirt? Or maybe a payday loan company? Of course not.
