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.
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.