Mr Popularity AKA Quinn

Today on Roker Report... Niall Quinn - Moan Moan Moan.

Perhaps he's right sometimes about trying to lure fans back, but it's not the only option when trying to accrue new funds at SAFC. We look at some ways that SNQ could lure the fans back, and increase SAFC's profitability off the pitch.

http://rokerreport.com/2011/02/18/how-to-win-fans-influence-people/

Thanks for reading.

 

Very good piece mate.

The off field thing is the biggest thing, we are due a change of kit supplier, having Adidas or Nike would bring in stacks, as they sell shirts all over the world.

The 'category ticketing' thing sounds a plan as well, a kind of loyalty scheme, the consequence of going to more games for a 'casual' fan could be catching the bug and buying a season card.

The sticky one is naming rights.

I HATED Stadium Of Light, but now i really like it.

Some sponsored stadiums sound good, 'emirates' is a great name, as is 'veltins Arena', home of Schalke.

'Tombola Bowl' wouldn't work.

It'd come down to who the company was, and lets be honest, if we didn't like it, we'd call it SOL anyway.

 

got be carefull if we go that route, as some sponsers names wouldn't be quite right





17 ernie england l/b 352 appeaeances 0 goals

 

I can see the benefit of playing at the mommouth erection arena.

For the Toon, of course, not us.

 

Hehe... nice signage Commachio

And thanks for the kind words BruceysBeak.

I think with regards to stadium naming, I don't think it would even need to be a company already affiliated with the club. Perhaps it could be under consideration as a package deal when Tombola runs out though.

 

I'd want it to be a big deal to rename, Euro participation will make a massive difference, as you touched on in the original piece, a multi national is where we need to look for big bucks.

Remember many said they'd call it Monkwearmouth Stadium. They don't.

If it progresses the club, or helps progress the club, i'm all for it.

 

IS it the death of a dream? That is the question facing every Sunderland fan this morning and the man who is posing it is one of the most popular ever to pull on the famous red-and-white shirt, chairman Niall Quinn.
His dream – let’s call it “vision” because that’s Quinn’s own word – is that Sunderland, one of England’s oldest and most famous clubs, could be rallied and remodelled from their post-war slumbers to take on the biggest and best in the Premier League.
Quinn arrived at Sunderland as a player late in his career and proceeded to play his best football there. He arrived in Roker Park’s dying days and moved to the new Stadium of Light in 1997, fired by the passion of the crowd that filled their new 48,000-seater home to the rafters time and again.
When Bob Murray, the chairman behind the modernisation, quit to make way for new investment, it was Quinn who returned with fellow-Irish businessmen backing the club. That initial bubble burst with the Irish economy in 2008 so Quinn, pursuing his vision, found and delivered Texan billionaire Ellis Short.
“The vision is that with our passion, we have a chance of competing with the best,” he said. “In the first season after our last promotion we averaged a fantastic 44,000 and spent most of the season in the bottom three but managed to scrape out of the relegation places in the last few games – that struggle did not seem to bother us at the gate.
“I told Ellis that with a base of 44,000 we could build on that and take on the bigger boys – not with similar investment to the very biggest clubs but with raw passion and emotion. It adds a different component and makes us a big club. It’s what makes Sunderland special and difficult to beat.
“That was my vision, that’s what I put to Ellis and he bought into that. Our rise on the pitch has been steady and until our recent wobble we’ve spent much of the winter in the top six or seven but the gates, instead of improving with the team, have gone the other way, down to about 38,000 this season.
“That can’t continue. If it does, it may be the end of my vision. I’m not sure I could continue to ask the owner to underwrite that.”
What follows next for Quinn is a battle to win back those lost fans – not, he believes, lost as Sunderland followers but lost at the gate. Many have defected to illegal broadcasts of Sunderland home matches, shown in pubs, clubs and bars in the club’s heartland every Saturday afternoon – live – when they were populating the Stadium of Light’s stands in past years. How many? Quinn believes it could be a staggering 10,000 screen defectors for every home game.
“This is not anecdotal,” he assured me. “We’ve done our research. We’ve had Premier League observers investigate what’s going on. There is one typical town in our heartland which has around 50 pubs, clubs, cricket clubs, social clubs and other bars. They found 37 of those 50 were showing our games live, illegally. That’s just one town and I could name another 12 in our area where the same thing is happening.
“If just 30 people are watching in each bar – and that’s a conservative number – you see the scale of the problem.
“Those fans may be saving on a match ticket but they’re still turning up to have their fish and chips, beer or sandwiches. I don’t think all of them can’t afford to watch us.” Quinn is now going on the campaign trail again over the next four to six weeks. He will meet the stayaways and urge them to return to keep the “vision” alive.
“Ellis Short has kept his side of the bargain,” says Quinn. “I’m announcing that Ellis put in another £28million of his own money last season. And yet the crowds will have gone down a further 10 per cent.
“In these next four to six weeks I am going out into the heartland again. I am going to speak to our fans and I’ll get the message out there. There will be no holds barred. The future shape of the club depends on that. The fans in front of those illegal screens or at home watching illegal sites on their home computers perhaps do not understand how critical it is. If I don’t win them back, the club may have to downsize and cut its cloth differently. It’ll be difficult to follow up on the current investment and players may have to be sold.
“Manchester United have just announced turnover of £289m; ours is £64m. We can’t compete financially with that. Our missing 10,000 fans cost us £1.8m over the season so a figure like that won’t make the difference in allowing us to compete – it is those fans being inside the ground and making it a hostile place for visiting sides that makes the difference.
“When United came earlier in the season the ground was full and rocking and in the closing moments Sir Alex Ferguson was screaming for the referee to end it. He doesn’t normally do that...that’s the difference I’m talking about.
“What I want from our fans is their atmospheric input. That’s what makes the place special. If they don’t come back, we may not be the club I thought we were and could be. Me, finish as chairman? I don’t want to ask myself that question but it will mean events have not gone the way we want.”
Critics say Quinn underestimates the economic factors. Sunderland is feeling the recession more than most cities and is still coming to terms with the loss of massive industries.
“People have accused me of just wanting fans’ money in an area where it is just not affordable,” he admits. “That’s not my complaint. If any one of our fans tells me: ‘Look, I just can’t afford to watch you’, I can have no problem with that.
“But we do our level best to make Sunderland good value to watch. We’re right up there in the top places in the table but we are 18th in the league of season-ticket prices. Only two Premier clubs are cheaper to watch than us.
“Among the first reactions to what I said in the programme, a stayaway said we hadn’t repainted some parts of the stadium and the concourses were dreary – stuff like that.
“That’s not the Sunderland fans I know and love...the miners who stood up to Thatcher; the fans who follow us through thick and thin...staying away because the concourses may need a lick of paint? That’s a worry.
“Look, if we get 45,000 season-ticket holders for next season, I will get down on my knees and apologise to them all – but it will have been worth it to get them back in the fold.
“If we fail then I’ll do my best for our existing 30,000 season-ticket holders and our other 7-8,000 regulars – other than that, the club’s progress will have been stunted.”

 

I think that's a very fair an frank piece from Niall.

He emphasises again, before anyone starts, that he's not gunning for fans who generally can't afford it, but he's right, many stayaways CAN afford it, and will spend the week telling there mates how much they love the club.

That 'concourses are dreary' part is staggering.

The fella in question clearly hasn't visited many away grounds in his lifetime, the SOL is 5 star due to many!

We don't go to look at the fittings, other than those on the pitch, Niall has kept up and exceeded his promises to us time and time again, he always has, and always will have my 100% backing, i know a huge amount, if not all of us feel the same.

 

A thought that i've had here, that may bring in some numbers.

Could the club maybe arrange buses from the midlands etc, which could maybe be done on a cheap contract, concession travel if you are an exiled season ticket holder?

Would anyone be interested in a scheme like this?

Might only add tens or hundreds initially, but any motion starts small, and builds.

 

Good article, like the Idea of getting the pubs involved.
I was going to start an article about fans staying away and watching games in pubs in the city I don't honestly understand why they do it allways thought that going to the Stadium was more exciting and surely they can go with out a pint for a couple of hours, and money wise it surely wouldn't be so bigger of a difference in price. I stay up in Glasgow so don't get to as many matches as I would like (Travel time and shift patterns working as a nurse makes it difficult only get 1-2 weekends off a month), however if I lived within reasonable travelling distance I would be a Season ticket holder, I know that there are Lads & Lasses up in Scotland who are season ticket holders and good on them.
If the club good introduce a voucher/loyalty scheme so that the more pay per game that the casual fan attend the better the price this would surely encourage those that can't afford a Season Ticket back to the SOL.
Bit of a ramble on but the basic point is that I think Sir Niall is right to express his disapointment and frustration, and we need to find away around this to really push on to the next level and not to start slipping back

 

Quin has just been on Radio 4 (You and Yours prog) saying he has tried the softly softly approach over the last couple of years re: attendance. Now, however, its narking him. Apart from that he went over the same ground illegal showing in pubs, money second to atmosphere and its influence on winning games etc.

 

I have pasted below his latest reported quotes about the pubs and it concerns me greatly.
I have applied for a ticket for the Sedgfield event becasue I want to hear him first hand. I agree with trying to tempt the fans back. Agree with looking at ways of getting them back.

Very uncomfortable about quotes of "a selling club""Bruce having to sell best players"

If true then something is wrong, we do get 38,000 a game. if not true I dont like threats and blackmail.

Or am I over reacting?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUNDERLAND chairman Niall Quinn is to embark on a six-week crusade to win back the fans – up to 10,000 of them – who have turned their backs on the club to follow the team through illegal satellite broadcasts in pubs and clubs.

The stakes are enormous, for Quinn told the Daily Express that Sunderland’s future as a “big club” is at stake if he fails in his mission. The repercussions would be the end of his vision and Sunderland having to become a selling club.

Last weekend Quinn angered some absent fans after saying he “despised” the stayaway viewers.

He says he believes up to 10,000 fans are watching illicit match-day screenings and he is determined to win them back – or manager Steve Bruce may have to face losing his best players.

“I will be going out to meet the fans,” said Quinn. “I don’t like saying I despise them because I really don’t – but I’ve gone hard on this because I want a reaction.

“Our loyal fans who come to support us are the best. Period. But some of the stayaways have got lazy. Do they realise what is at stake?”



Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/229770Sunderland-target-pirate-TV-fans#ixzz1EJSBOeij

 

Certainly would help with people like me.

 

See article 'interesting read' mate.

Be good to get all the posts relating to this in one place

 

Oh, and he is serious over attendances and illegal pub showings and he is not just here to win a popularity contest... hence title

 

Said on siddals post as well mate, there's an article 'intresting read' we've ended with 3 the same, basically.

Worth trying to get everyone on one, we can all share our views together?

 

Read the same article Syd I agree with Niall about fans staying away but hopefully the part about being a selling club is just shock tactics.

 

Syd,

Din't realise we could do that, good work though mate

 

Whoever the muppet was he obviously never frequented Roker Park did he? I'm sure he was a minority and for me the biggest reason has got to be economy. I'm fortunate enough to be able to buy 2 tickets for me and my son but not everyone can, the country as a whole is still in recession without little sign of improvement over the foreseeable future. As much as i love to see the stadium packed to the rafters, i think Niall has a big job on his hands to woo back the missing 10,000.

The other reason is the culture we have within the city. I took my neighbour to see the Spurs match, he's a Man Utd fan but he'd just become a grandad so we went across the town for a few sherberts after the game and got talking to some mates who claimed that Privelages had been stowed out for the match, great atmosphere, scantily clad girls, etc, etc. While i can see what Niall is griping about, it's going to take a lot to get the punters out of that mentality and i'm not so sure he ever will.

 

Oh the Roker park concorse, cant remember it, must have been the drink