I'm about to make a point so uncontraversial that people will probably wonder why I bothered posting... I don't want Norwich City Football Club to change their name to Norwich City Canaries or Norwich Canaries or anything really. The reason I bring this up is, as you are no doubt aware, Hull City AFC have done just that. The reason given was to differentiate he club as a global brand. This type of thinking has been done before with Cardiff changing the colour that they played in to appeal more to the Asian market. Both changes are unpopular largely with fans but both have happened regardless, just taking away a tiny part of those clubs former identy and history. This is all happening to peak the interest of people thousands of miles away and even then only casually. I understand the desire to be a "global brand" the more people in the world who watch a team the higher advertising revenues the club can charge. The best example if this is Manchester United, instantly recognizable the world overdue to and extensive campaign by the glazers, I don't car what people say, the glazers are very good businessmen and have but United in an extremely strong position. Being a global brand is profitable but only accessible to a few I feel you would need to compete in and probably at times win the Champions league to do so and only a few will ever manage to become one. As a Premier league team we benefit heavily from the market abroad, where TV rights are sold for a large sum of money, not to see us play but we get a share if the money anyway, would this sum increase if more people in Asia had heard of us? No. Would our revenues increase? Perhaps but likely only slightly as we sold a few more shirts, but if you notice largely our advertising and sponsors are aimed at British based companies who are uninterested in the Asian markets, given that our matches will likely still be watched majority lay by British people I doubt that Ad revenues would increase either. I feel currently Norwich are in a very strong position in the domestic market were lucky in a way to be the only proffesional football club in a county of around 800,000 people, that's a very large catchment area for a football club and the longer we perform well the more interested those people will become and hopefully a generation will grow up following norwich and not Manchester United. For me this is where we should look to expand, notoriety abroad is good, but would also come from doing well in our domestic league, I'm sure there are going to be a few Dutch people looking our way next season. What I think it boils down to is I feel that growing a football club is about more than a gimiky name change and I hope were never walking to carrow road to support the Norwich Canaries.
Agree totally. Sunderland Black Cats was a particularly irritating one - at least Hull have the nickname of Tigers. But I hope we never become Norwich Canaries.
I have mixed sentiments, it's like Newcastle with the st James's thing, those who truly care will continue to identify with what they know, if a new name gets a few extra quid then fine. My identification will remain, its like the nightclub you first visited, peppermint park, or ritzys will always be just that to me. No one wants to see their club sell out but they all want success, it now is a global game and success even relative success comes at a cost. I don't want a change but realistically I would happily watch the Norwich city Canaries compete in the Bernard Mathews(or preferably Delia) dome, if it made the clubs future/present a good deal rosier! I'll still call it CR and NCFC. Bah! P.s. They can stick their billions up their Harris if they think we'll play in blue!(so common and chavy!)
Yes, but the next generation WOULDN'T call it Carrow Road and slowly the history is lost and the club starts to belong to the marketing people and not to the fans. Sorry, but I disagree on this one. I'm probably just an old fart but I think branding is a disease. For example, the university where I teach English out here seems to have almost as many middle management people as they do teachers, and they seem to spend the whole of their lives coming up with meaningless slogans and catchphrases and logos and to know nothing at all about pedagogy.
I actually think branding is very important, just that our brand should focus on being British first as for the smaller clubs that's where the money is. And the British have a way of naming football clubs. No one ever took to the MK Dons. Tbh this was more something I needed to get off my chest, I like that the Premier league is popular abroad but because I feel that they want to watch us and we shouldn't change things because of these markets. I'm not against change, I just don't feel this change is necessary. Also good to see a few people up, I didn't expect any responses until the morning. Currently in Boston in the states, which is, if anyone gets the chance to visit, a thoroughly lovely city.
Not sure about this, but is there not a connection here between this type of rebranding of clubs and the nationality or ethnicity of the owners? If clubs are bought by owners whose chief business interests lie in big markets abroad, you might expect them to be thinking in those terms. Contrast Fayad at Fulham. His chief concern was to prove his "Anglicisation" and show how he is really "one of us", so the last thing he'd do would be to attack any aspect of the clubs historic identity. As long as we remain in local ownership I don't think we need to worry.
Hello Norwich, The unsolicited name change from Hull city afc,to Hull tigers goes against tradition and legacy. Hull city fans have suspected this might be on the cards,for a while now. But the club told us in no uncertain terms,that this wouldn't happen. Of course it has,and we have been lied to. We as fans will try to fight to keep our proud name,the same as it has been for the last 109 years. I would be grateful for your assistance in this fight,and thank you in advance.Please sign our petition below. http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitio...erse-the-unwanted-rebranding-of-hull-city-afc
One way to guarantee us never becoming the Norwich Canaries would be to buy the rights to the name,similarly fans could also buy the rights to the name Canaries to stop that one as well. This was suggested for Hull City but apparently the club have already thought of that.
I have a hard time explaining to my Indonesian friends (I used to work in Indo) that budgies are comic whereas canaries are not. Their reaction tends to be that budgies are beautiful and lots of different colours, so why are they comic? And I can't give a good reason because there isn't one.
Is it corporatisation or Americanisation? Either way, I think it is dreadful action and will be supporting the Hull City fans in their fight against it, sadly I suspect the organ grinder will get his way eventually. One thing I am struggling to get to grips with is.............apparently part of the spiel on re-branding was the importance of a short name, the shorter the better...........so why the donald duck have they made it longer??
I don't think they have, I believe they were Hull City Athletic Football Club, and they are now Hull City Tigers. Americanisation sounds about right though, their commentators will be calling them Tigers in no time.
Commonly known as Hull City - who on earth ever called them anything else? Same as Bournemouth (were Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic, if I remember rightly), but were called Bournemouth.
Oi ! that's 'Hull city association football' club to you Anyway it seems we might have some help... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...e-refuse-endorse-Hull-City-Tigers-change.html
