The Everton Board Thread 2014/15

[davek]

'carpetbaggers' 'gangsters' 'plant pot chairman' 'tools' 'small time' 'rank amateurism' 'greed' Well Dave, you've really taken on board the idea of a well thought out attempt at dialogue with the board. Well done.

You missed the point completely.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Anyone believing what's needed now is 'more positive, less confrontational dialogue' with the board of this club, and that we need to help them to a new commercial plan is barking up the wrong tree.

First of all: these people need confronting

You admit you've tried confrontation and totally failed, but yet you consider that anyone who's advocating a different approach to the one you've already admitted got nowhere, is wrong?

You really need to re-assess that stance imo Dave. Out and out confrontation will lead to nothing other than you've already experienced. The shutters will come down, the local hacks briefed with positive club PR and you'll be pigeon holed as a small percentage of cranks. We'd have to be at deaths door on the pitch for that kind of tactic to gain any traction.

So do we wait until the team is on it's arse before attempting to facilitate change? Not for me.

As for your second point, sorry I totally disagree. The stakeholders have no effect over the marketability of the club. Martinez, the players and the football will ultimately dictate how attractive we are to sponsors and it's how we get to them and how we pitch it that's the key. Which is nothing to do with the ownership and everything to do with the marketing dept and those tasked with pitching to major corporations.

 

[davek]

You make some good points, but will disagree with this statement. The Chicago Cubs are a "local team" with one of the oldest ballparks in America, full of character. They haven't won anything in 106 years. But they are valued by Forbes at $1.2BN USD, the 4th highest in all of baseball. Forbes values this single team as worth more than the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates combined, both of which have new ballparks and have won (relatively) recently.

There's a lot more to this story, and surely it helps in no small measure that the Cubs were on cable TV every night across America for many years before the current age of American sports, but this team has in no small part taken its history and image (not a history of winning, let's remember) and built a tremendous brand with it.

I'm not sure that the current board are capable of doing this with Everton, and so there we may agree, but I would not discount the tremendous power of the club's brand.

The world's top 100 sports organisations are littered with Baseball and American Football 'franchises'. It goes with the territory. The north American sports model is much more 'socialistic' than the reconfigured European one we've been living with over the past two/three decades. The U.S. pro sports organisations share in the spoils of profit creation in closed off to external competition, lucrative industries. That's an unreal comparison with Everton's plight. Localism and a quaint old stadium wont get you much here other than a patronising pat on the head. To be shifting a lot of services/merchandise you need competitive success in Europe. That's what gives our elite clubs in the Premier League their brand presence and a financial edge over clubs like Everton. We need investment to make the leap. In other words, we need new owners.

 

[Sharpys top lip]

'carpetbaggers' 'gangsters' 'plant pot chairman' 'tools' 'small time' 'rank amateurism' 'greed' Well Dave, you've really taken on board the idea of a well thought out attempt at dialogue with the board. Well done.

TBF it's well past that now anyway....

There not interested. They can't let us in, As I think we'd be shocked at what we would find.

 

[roydo]

The top 100 sports organisations are littered with Baseball and American Football 'franchises'. It goes with the territory. The north American sports model is much more 'socialistic' than the reconfigured European one we've been living with over the past two/three decades. That's an unreal comparison with Everton's plight. Localism and a quaint old stadium wont get you much here other than a patronising pat on the head. To be shifting a lot of services/merchandise you need competitive success in Europe. That's what gives our elite clubs in the Premier League their brand presence and a financial edge over clubs like Everton. We need investment to make the leap. In other words, we need new owners.

That is exactly why marketing Everton as a brand in the US makes it such a potentially lucrative proposition. I for one think that it is just one creative, positive idea that fans could approach the board with.

 

[davek]

You admit you've tried confrontation and totally failed, but yet you consider that anyone who's advocating a different approach to the one you've already admitted got nowhere, is wrong?

You really need to re-assess that stance imo Dave. Out and out confrontation will lead to nothing other than you've already experienced. The shutters will come down, the local hacks briefed with positive club PR and you'll be pigeon holed as a small percentage of cranks. We'd have to be at deaths door on the pitch for that kind of tactic to gain any traction.

So do we wait until the team is on it's arse before attempting to facilitate change? Not for me.

I said nothing of the sort. I remarked that confrontation is all about timing and that it's futile in one climate but fruitful in another. Not sure how you misread that.

for your second point, sorry I totally disagree. The stakeholders have no effect over the marketability of the club. Martinez, the players and the football will ultimately dictate how attractive we are to sponsors and it's how we get to them and how we pitch it that's the key. Which is nothing to do with the ownership and everything to do with the marketing dept and those tasked with pitching to major corporations.

The owners have a massive input in how we are perceived to commercial partners, not the least of which is by sorting out a new stadium and revamp our image in that way. 15 years they've had. Not too much to expect they could have shifted their worthless carcasses to have dealt decisively with that matter I wouldn't have thought.

 

[SerenityNigh]

That is exactly why marketing Everton as a brand in the US makes it such a potentially lucrative proposition. I for one think that it is just one creative, positive idea that fans could approach the board with.

This I think is the problem we can all agree upon, whether or not we agree upon the solution.





Not that we shouldn't make the effort, but instead we shouldn't be leading the charge.

 

[roydo]

This I think is the problem we can all agree upon, whether or not we agree upon the solution.





Not that we shouldn't make the effort, but instead we shouldn't be leading the charge.

Cripes!

 

[davek]

Davek, I admire your dedication and passion, and I suspect you are completely correct in your assessment of the board (not the brand). However, I question whether a confrontational tactic will work if it is employed from the off.

It's less about the club, and more about the image of any supporters group by other supporters, that vast silent majority. If you come out guns blazing, many will write you off without listening to your points. However, if you come out diplomatic and cordial, you may find a massive undercurrent of disquiet among the fanbase. Then, depending on the action (or more likely inaction) of the board, you have a vast collection of supporters on your side and willing to take the board on.

Currently, I believe there are 4 groups of Evertonians:
Anti-Board
Untrusting of the Board, and unhappy with the board, but not necessarily militantly so
Pro-Board
Don't care

The don't care people will never care while the results are solid, so let's ignore them.

The trick is to unify the first and second groups to try and bring about change. If done correctly, and change fails to develop, you'll find less and less of the third group, and probably even less of the fourth group. At which point a confrontational tact is far more likely to succeed.

It's not about building bridges and establishing dialogue to gain a critical mass amongst our support. It's pretty simple as far as I'm concerned: Everton supporters by and large will put up with another 15 years of this nonsense because they've had their expectations clipped by the owners and their barking dogs in the local media. But those same supporters, if the arse falls out of our established status position in the game, will tear apart any owners of the club who oversee that decline.

Discussions about possibilities for a better future break around that immovable rock.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

I said nothing of the sort. I remarked that confrontation is all about timing and that it's futile in one climate but fruitful in another. Not sure how you misread that.

The fact remains though Dave, whether I've misconstrued what you said or not - that tactic did fail, simple as.

The owners have a massive input in how we are perceived to commercial partners, not the least of which is by sorting out a new stadium and revamp our image in that way. 15 years they've had. Not too much to expect they could have shifted their worthless carcasses to have dealt decisively with that matter I wouldn't have thought.

The stadium failure is a separate issue. Your assertion that the club couldn't attract new and better sponsors now, because of your perception of this boards failure, is pure nonsense I'm afraid. The club could be marketed infinitely better than it is with the right specialist team doing it, and who's name's on the share certificates won't be of prime interest to a potential sponsor when considering what value they could take from the exposure of their brand via a collaboration with ours.

It's all about air time and column inches, and because of Martinez we've already made massive strides in that area this season, with a record TV revenue as a result of our 'product' being much more attractive to TV (and thus the audiences) and hence their sponsors and ultimately ours..............that's how it works.

 

[RaleighBlue]

It's not about building bridges and establishing dialogue to gain a critical mass amongst our support. It's pretty simple as far as I'm concerned: Everton supporters by and large will put up with another 15 years of this nonsense because they've had their expectations clipped by the owners and their barking dogs in the local media. But those same supporters, if the arse falls out of our established status position in the game, will tear apart any owners of the club who oversee that decline.

Discussions about possibilities for a better future break around that immovable rock.

Disagree.

They'll put up with it because they don't see a reasonable alternative. Give them a reasonable alternative to putting up with it, and you'll see movement. Have the board come down harshly on an obviously reasonable alternative, and they'll tear apart the owners for it.

Or we can just wait for the inevitable failure on the pitch to cause a crisis that the club may not be able to recover from. Whichever.

 

[SerenityNigh]

That is exactly why marketing Everton as a brand in the US makes it such a potentially lucrative proposition. I for one think that it is just one creative, positive idea that fans could approach the board with.

I should also add that I don't think the US is the only valuable market--it's simply the only one I know enough about to comment upon.

 

[roydo]

I should also add that I don't think the US is the only valuable market--it's simply the only one I know enough about to comment upon.

Oh sure, but if done right, as the anti-matter to Russian/Arab money, they/you would lap it up. A few documentaries, history, tradition, support of our neighbours, that sort of stuff.

Not saying it would be easy, but we would be the first to position a club in the US on that ticket.

 

[Steve Wigan]

You missed the point completely.

Oh dear..silly me. Perhaps you'explain? x

 

[Steve Wigan]

Take away the slurs. I'm being magnanimous. I suspect that this board is not the correct board to lead us to glory commercially and on the pitch. Simply because they have failed to do so for 14 years. I'm perfectly happy to be wrong in that.

Slurs, etc? I don't care, I only care about Everton, and the board is not Everton, say what you will of them one way or the other.

I also suspect that the board will require a confrontational approach in the long term, but as I say, I could be wrong and am happy to give them the benefit of the doubt. I suspect this mainly because of the cancellation of the AGM. However it's reinstatement gives me hope.

I wasn't sluring you...just surprised that you seemed to prepared to accept slurs on the board from Davek. The way forward is to be respectful of each other, board and supporters, and thats the hard job. If anyone on either side of the fence is proved to be incompetent I'll be the first to say so.