What is the best way for a Premier League club to promote its brand? And what is the thinking behind changes to approach?
After Jack Pitt-Brooke revealed Tottenham had emailed Premier League broadcasters asking not to be referred to as Tottenham, but rather “Tottenham Hotspur” or “Spurs” for short, The Athletic spoke to experts to try and understand the thinking behind this move — and the strategies of other Premier League clubs.
Steve Martin, founding partner of MSQ sport and entertainment, explains the general mindset for top-flight clubs when they are looking to boost their image. “What all these clubs are looking to do is constantly find a way to connect with their fans, bring new supporters in, and try to make it more diverse in terms of fanbase and cultural relevance,” he tells The Athletic.
For Spurs, their note to broadcasters followed a “remastered brand identity” in November in which they referenced the importance of the name, saying “in a world full of Uniteds, Citys and Rovers, there is only one Hotspur”.
In other words, they felt the ‘Hotspur’ element of their name — and the heritage, history and warrior story behind it — was something unique and distinctive, setting them apart. While just a small detail, it highlights how clubs think about marketing themselves — and Martin says it is part of a growing sophistication because they are now commercial businesses, not just football clubs.
“I think the ones that are looking at football clubs as an entertainment property that happens to play sport are the ones that are going to future-proof themselves and find a better way to connect with their audience,” he adds.
He cited the examples of big franchises in the U.S., such as the LA Lakers, as well as mega sports teams, like Real Madrid and the All Blacks, as ones who have successfully done this, as they appeal to a wide demographic rather than simply their core fans. He also referenced the success of Adidas in moving away from just being a sports brand into entertainment, fashion and music.
“That’s why you’re seeing Spurs trying to change the narrative, so it’s not as one dimensional,” Martin added. “Tottenham could make it feel smaller when they are up against a big competitive set in London, never mind internationally.”
For Misha Sher, global head of sport, entertainment and culture at Essence Mediacom, the importance of creating a compelling and simple story was crucial to any successful brand.
“When you think about football clubs, in a world that’s become more international and you’re speaking to a global audience — many of whom are being introduced to your club for the first time — you are constantly asking yourself, from a visual identity to how it’s referred to, ‘What is the story?’ What do you want your brand to be and represent?
“For Tottenham, the location isn’t the story they want to sell. A fan in Korea, for example, isn’t as interested by Tottenham as a place in north London, but they would be interested in the name ‘Hotspur’. They’d think, ‘Oh, what’s that about? I love that, that’s a great story’. People ultimately connect to a story, they look it up and think, ‘That’s cool, I like that’.”
Terry Stephens, partner of Nomad, a brand agency company, who worked with Tottenham on their new branding, as well as with Burnley and the Premier League, agreed.
“What we learnt from our work with Burnley in America is that there’s a lot of people that are still looking for their club and they don’t instinctively go for who’s winning,” he told The Athletic. “They want a story.
“What the guys did at Wrexham, for example, gives them a story to latch on to, Burnley with JJ Watt being part of that makeup gives people a reason to want to connect to it. A big thing we are seeing with football clubs, in particular, is how do you go behind just a club badge, how do you create a brand that can attract people beyond those hardcore (fans) that have been going for 20 or 30 years?”
Stephens said it was a fine line when striking that balance between keeping loyal, matchgoing supporters on side while appealing to new audiences.
With that in mind, his company reintroduced the Spurs monogram, a fan favourite from the 1950s, during the club’s “brand remastering” in November. That also included a silhouette version of the cockerel to create a “more playful expression of the brand”.
In terms of football clubs leading the way, Sher said Paris Saint-Germain had been very clever with their branding since their takeover by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011.
“If you look at PSG, the way they’ve done their brand, it’s all been about leveraging the power and the appeal of Paris,” he told The Athletic. “Paris is one of the most iconic and cultural destinations of the world and they happen to be the only club in the city. It’s not about PSG as a football club, it’s about Paris and this is a football club that represents this city. This has enabled them to make their club more about culture, fashion and style.”
Before the takeover, PSG averaged around 50,000 shirt sales per year. Now, it’s more than a million annually, with stores opened in locations around the world including Oxford Street in central London, New York, Las Vegas and Tokyo.
“The vision of the chairman (Nasser Al-Khelaifi) in 2011 was clear — to make the greatest sports franchise in the sports industry,” Fabien Allegre, chief brand officer at PSG, told The Athletic in 2023. “PSG is unique. It belongs to Paris. We believe football is part of culture, not apart from, and so creating a bridge between music, art, fashion and sport was a key element of our strategy.”
A crucial part of this has been their collaboration with the Jordan brand that began in 2018.
With an envious eye on PSG’s branding, Arsenal are perhaps the best example of a Premier League club who have pushed hard to replicate their success in recent years.
They have been bold in tapping into their rich history while trying to remain as current as possible to appeal to their young and diverse fanbase.
This season’s away kit, for example, is designed by Foday Dumbuya, founder of the London menswear brand Labrum, and aims to celebrate Arsenal’s African history.
Last season’s vibrant away kit harked back to the club’s roots and featured black lines based on a map of Islington, the club’s north London home. For the 2022-23 season they brought out a warm-up shirt in yellow, green and black — the colours of the Jamaican flag — just before the Notting Hill Carnival, and it was worn by reggae artist Koffee during the event. In the 2023-24 season, the women’s team also had their own bespoke away kit, designed in collaboration with Stella McCartney.
This year, all three of their kits have the cannon as the badge instead of the official club crest, with Arsenal looking to make this symbol a centre point of their visual identity.
Arsenal have released so much streetwear in recent years that their fashion attire has become part of their identity. They revamped the outside of the Emirates in 2023 to modernise the look and reflect different aspects of the club, including more representation of the women’s team, a greater reflection of their global fanbase and more contemporary players like Jack Wilshere. Tourists are regularly seen walking around the stadium and taking photos of the artwork on the exterior.
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Kits, and kit launches, have become a big part of a club’s branding strategy as they look to knit together past and present. Shirt sales are a healthy chunk of a club’s revenue.
Manchester United, for example, have used decorated former players, such as Roy Keane and Eric Cantona in recent kit launches, while Gary Neville fronted their Stone Roses collection video which included shots of the current squad — especially their most marketable young players such as Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho.
They have also used celebrities to help boost the club’s image to appeal to a wider and newer audience.
Actor Barry Keoghan, for example, fronted this season’s kit launch, Stormzy helped announce Paul Pogba’s return from Juventus in 2016, while rapper Aitch wore their new kit while performing at the Glastonbury Festival in 2023.
Liverpool have also harnessed the power of celebrity to reach new audiences. Last week they announced their ‘retro retail launch’ featuring the likes of YouTube creator Manny and model Paris Chanel.
That came after Liverpool this month brought out a new design that will appear on all its social channels, website, matchday programmes and digital marketing which is focused around the Liver Bird. They have also created new typefaces called ‘LFC Sans’ and ‘LFC Serif’. Liverpool, who have more than 200million global social media followers, said they wanted to make their content clearer for those using their phones.
Manchester City have also drawn on their links to Manchester culture with their kit designs, since their 10-year, £650m partnership with Puma started in July 2019. This has included an away shirt in 2019-20 inspired by the famous Hacienda nightclub and a Blossoms third kit in 2020-2021, while this season there’s been the ‘Definitely City’ kit, designed by Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. To help launch this, City recreated the iconic Definitely Maybe album cover, with photos of Pep Guardiola playing the guitar and the City players. This proved wildly popular with City’s global fanbase and on the day it was launched it led to the second-highest day of sales revenue ever for the club.
An obvious way for clubs to actively engage with their global fanbase is through overseas tours, particularly when they embrace the local culture. When Manchester City visited east Asia in 2023, for example, their third kit was launched in Tokyo, while Erling Haaland met K-Pop band Blackpink, who have a huge social following, and Kazuchika Okada, a Japanese WWE wrestler and City fan, was photographed in front of City’s three trophies won that season.
Liverpool, who toured the US last summer, wore their new away shirt for the first time during the trip, with the American market a key area for the club’s merchandising business. The tour also offered a chance to connect with their big US following, with 67 official Liverpool supporters’ clubs across the country.
“For years, Premier League clubs have all been wrestling with this problem of how you turn fans into customers, which was Peter Kenyon’s famous phrase,” Tim Crow, former head of international sports marketing agency Synergy, told The Athletic.
“How you do it, and where you do it, is a constant debate and an ongoing challenge.”
(Top photo: Getty Images)