Can We Have an Impact on China?
Jul 15th, 2010 | By KevB8ll | Category: Articles by Nicole Carroll, Blues NewsIn the week that the club flew to the Far East on tour, Nicole has written this article for us.
When Carson Yeung and company came into the club last year under the guise of Grandtop international holdings, it seemed almost inevitable that the club would visit China and attempt to tap into the owners home countries lucrative sporting market.
China isn’t known for it’s football prowess as a country, with its national side only qualifying for one World Cup final, back in 2002. The team went on to lose all three group matches and failed to register any goals on the score sheet.
Arguably, the most popular sports in China is basketball and the NBA is the best supported foreign sports league in the country. The richest celebrity in China is Shanghai-born basketball player Yao Ming, who has boosted the popularity of the sport further since his arrival in the NBA in 2002.
A country with a population of 1.3 billion has room to accommodate more than one sport, and the Premier League is keen to tap into this lucrative Asian market. The country is seen as being a fan of sport in general, and football is something which can be packaged and sold to a welcoming audience.
Blues aren’t the first to visit China, and they certainly won’t be the last. Last summer Manchester United embarked on a tour which included a visit to China, and other top teams, such as the likes of Liverpool, have toured Asia in recent years. Pre-season tours are seen by many clubs as an easy way to promote a club to local advertisers and sponsors who are keen to grab a slice of the Premier League brand.
It seems that Manchester United have somewhat cracked the market too, with their own official message boards hosting forums for Chinese, Japanese and Korean speakers. In fact, it is estimated that in China there are around 23 million United fans, which is probably double the UK fan base alone.
Those figures are startling, and we’d be deluding ourselves if we thought that Birmingham could ever achieve that level of popularity in a country such as China, at least at the moment. With a population of over a billion however, there is surely room to attract a new breed of Birmingham City fans in Asia, which is something Carson Yeung himself acknowledged himself in his interview to Nick Harris which you can read (here).
Yeung states his intention isn’t to try and take fans away from other clubs, but rather to introduce them to Birmingham City. Yeung is a football fan himself, with his 16 year old son being named after United’s Ryan Giggs. As a Chinese businessman, he will surely be keen to see his new venture do well both in England and in his home country.
Bringing the club to China allows football fans to get a bit closer to the Premier League, and allows fans to get involved with what could be their club of choice in the future. A new kit deal with a Chinese based maker in the shape of X-tep also allows for massive marketing opportunities, which could possibly see a Birmingham City shop in China over time, massively expanding our potential to make revenue from merchandise sales.
It wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility to imagine that Blues could see a Chinese player arrive at St. Andrews some time in the near future. A manager like Alex McLeish doesn’t seem the type to bring a player in for the sake of shirt sales, but if a Chinese player with potential was alerted to the coaching staff, I’m sure they wouldn’t say no to at least a trial. If Blues could unearth a Chinese talent who was good enough to play week in, week out in the Premier League, they’d make any transfer fee back just in replica kits.
Back in Brum, any Chinese affiliation could even lead to a knock on effect with Chinese tourists coming to St. Andrews on match day to soak up the Premier League atmosphere. Although this may not seem like a huge source of extra income, it spreads the word of the club to other countries and potentially to any other Chinese businesses who may want to be affiliated with Birmingham City in the future.
Slowly but surely, perhaps our Blues could start to get a name abroad. It surely can only be beneficial to the club, adding an untapped revenue stream could lead to heavier investment in the future, possibly equating to domestic success in the league, whilst building a large fan base abroad. The signs of Birmingham City abroad have slowly appeared, with a picture of a Birmingham City advert in an airport appearing across many message boards.
Perhaps after this tour in China, we can form links for the future which we will reap a massive benefit from. With management who are from the country and who have knowledge of how business is done in the nation, then perhaps brand Birmingham can start to make headway with this sports mad country.
Nicole C
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Nic,
take heart, the answer to your question is ‘Yes’, we can have an impact in China. A different and bigger question is ‘Can we have an impact with the Chinese?’ and I’m sure we can. The Chinese dominate South East Asia both in the business world and culturally and they love to have heros, especially action heros (action=sport=football). Blues will become the ‘Chinese Team’ and they will be loved and lorded throughout the region. That’s not to say that will generate much income, however, business will soon latch on to the BCFC opportunity and I’m sure that’ll open a few revenue streams. And as an example of how closely the Chinese community follows English football I was working in Singapore in 1992 (not the most wonderful period in our history) and was wearing a penguin top around a shopping centre in Bukit Batuk (a small suburb) when an elderly Chinese man walked up to me. prodded me in the chest and announced ‘Trevor Francis!” it made my day. Cheers, TerryC
No we will not make an impact in China and as soon as that is realised by Yeung & Co the better. It will put an end to such foolish tours in the future. I mean it’s ridiculous for Blues to even contemplate going to China this early. If Man Utd and Chelsea made so much money from it then why is it they are both in debt if it’s this massive market?? If it’s unprofitable why bother? If we attract a couple of Chinese people into supporting B’ham City what would that change? They might buy a bit of merchandise but they won’t go to the games. Look after the fans in this country first and foremost that should be the concern and not going to China.
Bluenose john im disappoimted in ur somewhat typicaly negative statement. Your so so wrong. First off chinese are major travelers these days. You seem to be under the delusion that china is a village but compared to China, Birmingham is a village. Also you seem to be totally unaware that football is a global game and the EPL rightly or wrongly, deserved maybe not but its huge abroad and its huge in asia, If we only attract a tiny percentage of followers from that part of the world it would double wat we have as a disappointing fan base back home. Being owned by a chinese group will definately make many that would normally not research us suddenly be interested in us and believe me chinese would pay attention to the fact that one of there own is involved. Maybe you should find out a little more about this country called china before you speak in such an uninformed manner. The knock on potential would be far bigger than you seem to realize. Football in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia is huge also with many locals following the EPL weekly on live TV. China the same many follow live games. Where you think i get my streams from to watch the Blues. I live in Asia and where i live dont give a shit about football as they are an ex american colony and steeped in there sporting culture but even here there is potential for a minority fan base. You really should not make such short sighted comments and as regards concentrating on the local well they diid that and dropped prices and ended up 9th position and still we could not fill a stadium so when do you think that all these locals are going to come out. We used to have good support but now we dont face it. I have no odea why as pig Suluvan has gone and the prices are lower and using pig Sulivan as an excuse is no longer valid he has gone but where are the fans. Dont become a businessman john as im sure you would fail.
It wouldn’t matter if people in China knew about us or researched us more because financially that’s worthless. Likewise in regard to Premier League matches being shown in minority football countries. Watching the matches doesn’t give the club money it just pays a subscription fee to ‘CNN’ or whoever. Also Blues would get the TV money regardless of being big in China or not! Going back to the tour there are over 80 Birmingham City FC off-field and on-field related staff. This includes the head of sponsorship which is completely bizzare because we already have our principal sponsors in ‘F&C Investments’ and ‘Xtep’ while we could get smaller sponsors such as matchday, and matchball sponsors this would be virtually useless. It would put the noses of the local Birmingham based companies that have been sponsoring the club for years in the shade. This could do more harm than good. No the only reason I can presume that we have gone out to China is to help out Yeung. Maybe we are looking for investors to take the club even further? I’m usually a very optimistic Bluenose but having spoken to many business people the opinion is there is no significant money to be made in China.
The answer is probably no. Chinese fans have their own loyalties to leagues, many prefer Spain or Italy to the EPL (Inter Milan is by far the most famous team in China). Plus, Chinese are fans of champions, probably 90% (or more) of Chinese EPL fans support one of the big 4. The only way to change that is to sign a Chinese player and the one they probably could have signed (former Celtic and Charton player, Zheng Zhi) decided against a move to the EPL. For any others, a work permit would be difficult to get due to China’s FIFA rankings positioning.
The trip will probably do Birmingham a lot of good in HK, where I think Yeung’s ownership is making fans pay attention, but on the mainland, its going to be tough. Unless they start giving away tickets, it seems the Bird’s Nest is going to be empty, but I hope the Birmingham fans will put on a good show like the Hull fans who came last year.