The Daily Mail is running with the suggestion that the ongoing saga of the Tottenham Hotspur naming rights could soon be reaching a conclusion. Specifically, that Amazon Prime is interested in stumping up the magic number for ENIC’s representative on earth, Daniel Levy.
Sami Mokbel for the Mail believes that the deal could be worth as much as £250million – if a ten-year deal at £25million a year could be brokered.
Before I had an opportunity to make my own enquiries, a source close to the club reached out to pour cold water on the idea. The overarching issue is how the Premier League’s economic landscape will look, post the COVID-19 pandemic. What is for certain, things will not simply return to normal in due course. There are likely to be far-reaching consequences of all activity having been suspended for weeks on end.
Whilst it might be in any club’s interests to get a deal over the line, it is questionable that any stakeholder would be in a hurry to commit to the unknown.
Another issue is the Amazon documentary that has been/is being filmed at THFC. Given it covers a chaotic period, will the brand come out well, or will the brand come out looking like a Carry On film that nobody dared to release? If that product were to reveal Spurs as less than fabulous, why would the company filming it wish to then go on to endorse a business that was damaged?
Don’t forget, unless Amazon has footage of Pochettino doing something reprehensible, his dismissal cannot be sugar-coated. There’s also the awful business of the u-turn on the furloughed pay for non-playing staff. That’s going to look even more grim.
Worth a read for those involved in the events industry. The question to be answered, is will events return before there is a viable vaccine, and if that is 18 months away are we looking at a world with no major sport events for 2 years? I hope not. 🤞
— Paul Phillips (@PaulPhillips_TT) April 16, 2020
https://t.co/C7gZmqUyxQ
Given that a proven Coronavirus vaccine might not be available for maybe 18 months, how are football matches going to look and feel on a long term basis, behind locked doors?
If the government began to relax the isolation guidance, would that mean that some daft fans would see an opportunity to “show up” at games and create problems outside stadiums? It’s not difficult to predict the headlines. “Outside the Amazon Prime Arena today, fans clashed with police…”
My source suggested has suggested that thoughts of any such big announcement at this stage were a wild fantasy.
Crown Price Mohammed Bin Salman fits the bill then.
Quite right – how can we be discussing sponsorship for a venue with no events taking place for the foreseeable future?! When the events return, they can look at it then.
When the events return, I’m not sure I understand why companies would not want to sponsor the stadium. It’s going to have a lot of televised events going on in it. World championship boxing fights, massive gigs, NFL and Rugby to name a few. It should be a world record deal just based on this.
Football’s future is about as predictable as balanced as a snow globe in a tumble dryer.
Bankruptcies are a comin’.
A serial killer could buy Newcastle and get a better press than Mike Ashley. They cannot lose.
One of the outcomes could be a big push for a wage cap, though it will be resisted by the clubs like City and United where money seems to be no problem. I saw an article suggesting that Arsenal’s wage bill is unsustainable without Champions League football, or wage cuts by players and the players have refused cuts. Corporate business will be cutting back on buying hugely expensive boxes and people might not want or be able to be in big crowds for a long time. Something has got to give, maybe clubs might stop taking fans for granted, gouging them on season tickets and shirts etc.
Couldn’t agree more. Newcastle are a sleeping giant and the best investment buy of any of the PL clubs that are for sale. I can’t imagine why any reputable corporate would want to be associated with sponsoring the naming rights for a stadium controlled by Enic and Levy.
@£300m, buying Newcastle is a brilliant opportunity to make some real money.
@£250m, having your name above a shopping centre door looks like financial suicide.
☺️
I don’t believe the Amazon naming rights story but the current crisis in football amongst other industries has not stopped Amanda Staveley et al from buying Newcastle.
If you look at how countries like Sweden and South Korea have dealt with this compared to others, it tells you a lot.
Stockholm has about the same population as Manchester, far less stringent lockdown, vulnerable people still being seen and many businesses trading, people seeking medical help for other conditions etc. They are past their peak and new cases declining.
Our lockdown measures have been clumsily put in place. There will be many more deaths because of the policies and advice put in place than the virus will cause itself.
As it is, professors are already saying that of the hospital death toll, probably two thirds not caused by Covid 19 at all but only with it present. Remember 600k people die in the UK every year anyway. Break that down into weeks and months.
The fear of overwhelming the NHS has lead to a panic that will leave a death toll over the next two years that makes Covid 19 deaths look like a wee in the ocean…