The end of the season usually brings about the end of many fruitful relationships. Managers and players depart as contracts expire. You can see these things coming, but it’s not unusual for it to happen. This is normal in football.
Commercial deals are different; they are usually tied up many months in advance, if your people are on their game. Rarely does one deal expire before another is firmly in place. In April 2014, Sevco secured a shirt sponsorship contract with 32Red.
The 2013-14 season still had a month to run, and a whole close season in front of them.
The 32Red deal has now expired and Sevco has no replacement in place.
They are, right now, without a shirt sponsor.
Efforts to negotiate an extended deal with 32Red have come to nothing.
A lot of companies – especially local ones, and that might be the best chance Sevco has – are reluctant to do deals with one half of Glasgow when the other is known to look unfavourably on such a move.
When Fruity Kings were being courted by Sevco in 2015 they declined contract talks for exactly that reason, which means the club’s ability to find a new sponsor on anything like favourable terms – those which match, or exceed, the current one – has to be somewhere between slim and none.
It’s a story I’ve been following for a while now, and this was always a possibility. When Puma threatened them with legal action for breach of contract last year, over King’s decision to deny outlets the right to stock the jerseys, it was apparent to everyone who didn’t have a season ticket for Ibrox or a job at a national newspaper that, far from “outmanoeuvring Mike Ashley” – copyright Keith Jackson haha – it was actually a move of almost suicidal stupidity.
King denied Puma and 32Red the commercial exposure their deals were contracted for.
He prevented them being openly sold.
He deprived them of a launch campaign to attach themselves to, and all the attendant publicity that goes with that.
No national newspaper ads. No billboards. No front of the house displays in the sales outlets.
It was a catastrophic decision on every level, and you have to marvel at the geniuses inside Ibrox who thought this would somehow screw Ashley without having a material impact on the club itself. That was a sheer fantasy.
As it turns out, Ashley has been selling the jerseys openly online. Many thousands of Sevco fans have bought them regardless of King’s appeal. Ashley will get his merchandising money and if he doesn’t he won’t mind; after all, the contract stipulates that the club will pay them the overage. There was no winning that particular battle.
But the sting was always going to come from the knock on effects. To boycott your clubs own strip hammers the merchandising company and the sponsors, to no benefit, for no reason. They weren’t at fault. They signed contracts in good faith, believing they would get all the exposure that comes with doing so. And instead they were caught in the middle.
No wonder 32Red are wavering on a new deal. If Sevco gets one it is highly likely to be on greatly reduced terms, because after all 32Red didn’t get what they paid for last time. Who knows what brainwave of Sevco’s resident tax cheat will shock them next? They must be keeping an eye on the Takeover Panel story amongst others.
The unprofessionalism of the Ibrox operation is incredible. To have allowed a major deal like this to expire, to have put together precisely nothing by way of a replica shirt launch for the next campaign, is incredible. Celtic’s shirt launch has happened already. It was a monster success. The stands at Hampden were filled with the new kits. Not only do we have a new deal with Dafabet but our relationship with Magners is so solid that they agreed to be our back-of-the-jersey sponsors, after being on the front for several years. Neither they nor Celtic wanted to break the partnership; the companies have worked well together.
That’s how you build and maintain relationships across the commercial world.
We weren’t always so flawlessly run.
Wee Fergus actually let one slide once. Back in 1997 – 20 years ago – we had to do a summer tour without a sponsor when the CR Smith deal expired, although Umbro soon signed up for the following campaign. Before that, in 1992-93 we went a full season without having a sponsor – between People’s and the CR Smith joint-venture with Rangers, because of the utter ineptitude of the old board. But even they had the good sense to market the thing right; it was the Year of the Unbroken Hoops.
What are Sevco going to do if they don’t get one here?
Call it the Year of the Unbroken Plain Blue Jersey?
The media might try to spin this somehow – possibly by saying that Sevco has decided against taking money from betting or booze companies – but it’s a major embarrassment and will be a huge financial blow to them if they don’t get something tied up.
I tried to speak with some prospective candidates earlier, to no avail.
Pampers were unavailable for comment.
Cheetos would not take our call.
Dick’s Sporting Goods declined our request for an interview.