Chelsea FC, like any business, listens to their fans. Fans should make sure the club are hearing the right things.
My colleague Kevin Peacock should give himself more credit. He wrote a thought-provoking piece yesterday in which he needlessly lumped himself in with the detritus of ChelsTwit when he said “Your opinion matters to me as much as the dirt on my shoe, and I’m sure it’s likewise. No one cares about my opinion. No one cares about this.” Respectfully, I dissent. I care, and I believe Chelsea FC cares, otherwise I wouldn’t be responding to his post.
Like many of us, Kevin laments the degradation of discourse around Chelsea over the last year, and places much of the blame on social media. Unfortunately, a lower quality conversation does not mean the conversation has less of an impact on real-life events.
Let’s be honest: No one in a position of influence at Chelsea FC reads this site (and we are all poorer for it). Nor do they watch any of the angry shouty man-children recording themselves in their mum’s basement (and we are all richer for it). However, those people at Chelsea FC would be remiss if they isolated themselves from the conversations among fans and the narratives surrounding the club, and did not factor those sentiments into their decisions.
Knowing the pulse of the fans and keeping tabs on the narratives is market research, as essential for running a business as weight training is for conditioning a football team (what, too soon?).
Speaking about everyone working for the club at all levels and roles, Kevin writes:
"Their actions must have been taken in what they believe to be the best interests of the club at that given time. We should support them in their endeavours to achieve what professional people are supposed to do – win."
I believe Kevin’s error is not in his judgment, but in his application.
The tension between the football and business sides of clubs is as old as the game itself. Social media has certainly amplified and distorted it, but did not create it. And just like politicians, parents and business people in every industry, football clubs are still trying to figure out how to do the right things and balance existing and emerging concerns in a loud, chaotic, in-the-moment connected world.
Kevin is correct in saying the professional people at Chelsea FC are doing what they are supposed to do: win. But win what? For many people at Chelsea FC and the industry at large, winning means landing a new sponsorship deal. It means a double-digit increase in online sales in Asia, downloads of the Fifth Stand App or more views on YouTube that they will use in their next set of negotiations with NBC Sports.
Winning games and trophies can contribute to these objectives, but the sports industry is based on making the business metrics independent of the on-pitch product. The MBA’s working in sports sound like their mothers did 20 years ago: winning isn’t everything.
Manchester United fans will tell you all about this. Many of them are convinced their club is run by people who would rather build a multi-billion pound brand rather than a multiple-trophy winning football club. How else to explain signing Alexis Sanchez and Maui Jim just over one year apart?
Giving the customers what they want is just good business, but that doesn’t always make for good football. I am increasingly convinced fan narrative drove Chelsea’s decision to replace Antonio Conte with Maurizio Sarri, in large part because it makes so little sense and has so little justification from a footballing perspective. Other than public sentiment, I can see little impetus – business or sporting – on any side for this particular managerial switch.
This is why many of my colleagues and I spend so much time here and on Twitter on counter-narrative patrol. One of our occasional contributors, Charlie Pizey, called us to account for this over the weekend on Twitter. Charlie correctly identified the targets of our ire and wished we would stay above this fray and the banter therein.
If we were only talking about a skirmish of ideas, I would agree. I would like nothing more than to limit the topics and parties of our conversations to our staff and a select few Twitterati talking tactics, realistic transfers, coaching theory and the like. But the narratives coursing through ChelsTwit and the blog-o-sphere are the essence of consumer demand for Chelsea FC.
There are no good options at the extremes: either Chelsea isolate themselves from the fans’ perspectives and make football decisions in an ivory tower at the expense of the business (which, just as a reminder, funds those transfers), or they factor in the most easily accessible fan sentiment they can find, which hurts the product on the pitch but gooses the products in the Megastore and App Store.
Hopefully, there are people in processes in place which balance those concerns, find the middle ground and serve as a filter on direct democracy. Sitting across from the market research wonk with his Tableau presentations should be someone representing purely the football side of things (546 days, by the way). But we have more cause for concern about who has the loudest or final say in the offices of Stamford Bridge than ever before, in part because of who we have allowed to have the loudest and final say in the Chelsea digital media sphere.
So, please, keep reading writers like Kevin Peacock and follow sporadic contributors like Charlie Pizey. Chelsea fans need to hear about the depth of being a fan that only someone like Kevin can provide. They need that confidence against all the stupidity and as an antidote to the negativity that is out there. I know I need it sometimes, and Chelsea FC needs to hear voices who are informed and influenced by people like him, and not by the #influencers more interested in their #brand than the club.
They won’t be around much longer. And when they’re gone, he’ll still be here, busy supporting the club.