Glory Glory Man United!

Manchester United Official Website www.manutd.com

"We're not just a sports club, we are an international brand ...

and building that brand is very important"[1]

Introduction

Manchester United has become, since its foundation in 1878, one of the world’s biggest football clubs, with one of the highest annual incomes. These incomes are based on commecial sales and business deals from all over the world. Simple items such as Man.Utd. shirts, training gear and footballs, but also mobile phones, loans, travel arrangements and Man.Utd television, they are all part of Manchester United. Besides having the name of being the pride of the north (in England) because of their achievements on the pitch, Manchester United has become more than that. Over the past couple of years the club and its followers have seen their passion, their club, evolve in so much more. With the coming of the millions in the world of football, no big club has seen these millions go by. From Real Madrid to Bayern Munich, from Juventus to Manchester United, players are being sold and traded as if they were masterpieces of say Van Gogh or Rembrandt. With these new options for the club, Manchester United has developed an even bigger group op fans with an even larger amount of money that seems to come with it. According to Deloitte & Touche’s annual research, Man Utd made £167.03 million in revenue in the 2002/03 season, putting them ahead of European rivals Juventus, AC Milan, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. Last season, United’s match day income alone came to a staggering £67 million, more than three times that of the Italian clubs[2] A major reason for this is the internet and all its possibilities. According to Reuters these incomes come mainly from money-spending Asians[3]

            Backing up this immense football club/company is the clubs’ official website www.manutd.com and it is exactly this media form that is of huge value to Manchester United. Football and media have staggeringly grown into an undisputable partnership. Being the most popular sport worldwide, football news fills thousands of newspaper pages worldwide each year. The recently entered age of new media has had a major influence on this partnership. Most important of all is the access it provides to anyone with a computer. The developments of the internet have included so much more participation over the past few years and major companies (which also includes Manchester United) immediately jumped into the new found world of fan culture, gaining millions of consumers and fans. Participation therefore, has become the key word for so many organisations. Quoting Henry Jenkins: “Now, fans may interact daily, if not hourly online. Geographically isolated fans can feel much more connected to the fan community and home-ridden fans enjoy a new level of acceptance”[4] Being a football club, Manchester United relies on its fans more than anything and therefore a system of well thought and structured options is now up for grabs for the millions of fans worldwide.

            In the following pages I will try to give a secure outline of how the website can contribute so much to this football club and moreover, how it adds up to the already existing sense of belonging to this ‘family’. In detail, this means a look at the forms of intermediality present on the site (television finds its place along forums, news and clips) Also, which types of advertising can be found on the website and how can these be placed within the context (why are certain concepts preferred over others etc) An important aspect is the impact that the site and its advertising has on other types of media. I already mentioned the mobile phones, the loans and television channel which, I believe, all have their place in the company (or brand) that Manchester United has developed into. Thirdly I will try to answer the question of the functionality of it all, is it merely entertainment that the site provides, do they want to inform you with news? Furthermore there is the fan culture. With having the largest amount of fans worldwide (From the US to Asia to Europe to Australia) they all share the same feeling for THEIR club. A quick look at the website already showed the number of fans worldwide that contribute to the site, the club, the tactics etc. Manchester United can be seen as the perfect mixture of corporate know-how and public appeal. Finally I will try to sketch a picture of the sense of identity the site offers and how this construction is built. All these aspects together will construct an answer to the question to what extend www.manutd.com attributes to the worldwide fan culture of the club as it exists nowadays.

Intermediality

One of the most appealing aspects of Man Utd and the website is the variety of media they offer the fans. Since the end of the 1990’s Manchester United started to broadcast games, interviews, previews, reviews etc through their own television channel. MUTV [1] it’s called and it can be purchased through cable (similar to for instance Canal+ in Holland) Pay tv is among one of the multiple forms of media that manutd.com holds. MUTV is reflected on the website in MU.tv, where fans (or better: members) can watch clips of interviews with players or the coach and clips of match highlights online. To do so you have to become a member of which there are different types. From the basic free stuff to paid-for-memberships, every type has its certain extra’s for the fans. Manutd.com also keeps up with many newspapers on a daily base. Most of the time the articles they select are of course related to Manchester United itself, but for instance with the ongoing European Championship they extend their reports to a national football level. Besides tv and the newspapers, the fans can also listen to the radio online. On Saturday’s or Sunday’s when United is playing, fans who aren’t able to watch the game can listen to live commentary through the net.

            These matters all imply that United is there for the fans. The psychological aspect of having everything you want and need when it comes to MUFC (Manchester United Football Club) in just a few clicks away has been a very smart move. Now, these practices will not be any different from other football clubs; every club wants to offer their fans everything they want and by doing so trying to gain even more fans. The key aspect here is the way in which a traditional sport, with traditional clubs has become a multimedia, worldwide brand and at the same time maintaining the image it already had (!) So by looking at the aspects of intermediality, Man Utd is fully aware of their following that is scattered worldwide. The television and radio give fans across the globe access to what MUFC would like to think of as the best football club for the people. It’s all about bringing MUFC to the people.

Advertising and Marketing

Many football clubs do not like describing themselves as a business. But Manchester United was one of the first clubs to redefine itself as a business. Its annual turnover is estimated to be $368 million. It was also the first football club to become a public listed company. During the 1990s, its stock market value peaked at US $1 billion. The club employs over 500 full-time staff[1] It also encompasses a diverse range of business activities, including financial services, merchandising and licensing, catering and conference facilities, events and media management, a radio station, a publications business and its own digital TV channel. Attempts to send MUFC across the world also include a vast amount of advertising. From advertising can be said that its main aim is to sell. In Power Play, Boyle and Haynes describe the advertising rhetoric behind sport clubs as being clear that the company is seeking to transform the one-to-many communication of televised sport and that the process of ‘immersion’ is illustrated by a club’s website[2] The product that must be sold can be either something tangible as a football kit or a ‘sense of belonging’ Of course the second ‘commodity’ is not tangible as shirts, footballs, mobile phones etc. but is just as important, maybe even more important for the eventual total income of a company. With the internet being a major part of social life, even the abstract goods should be seen as commodities just as much as the goods sold in stores. Besides winning the support of the fans (which is priceless), there is more of the abstract to win over. Manchester United Football Club is therefore just as big a company as one from any other branches, trying to sell their goods. Millions are spend to become the best, the most popular and the richest club of the world. Through advertising this can be retraced to several striking examples. With every example, some additional information provides the necessary knowledge to understand why I’ve chosen for these examples. The first example is the annual reference to the USA Summer Tour. MUFC travels to the U.S. every year to play some friendly matches. However, these matches prove to be much more than they seem. Some months beforehand, manutd.com changes their welcoming page in a ‘MU goes USA’ page. When you go to www.manutd.com  you will first of all land on their welcome page. This page changes almost every couple of days or sometimes weeks, usually referring to an actual event. With the USA Summer Tour they offer special trips to the US for their fans. Also, it is a perfect way to tickle the Americans and remind them of the attractiveness of football. The USA not being a football mad country like England has developed massively on that part. Especially the US women’s football team has lifted the popularity of the game. With their worldwide successes (Olympic Gold and two World Cup titles, with the 1999 WC title in their home country as major marketing and media event as culminating point) the US women also paved the way for European clubs to come to the USA. With their advertisements, MUFC, addresses a varied audience from football fanatics to the yet-to-be-fully-persuaded Americans. The actual website then has both banners and a separate USA section. Throughout the website the USA Summer Tour comes forward as being the summer priority.                        

The next example concerns mobile phones, loans and credit cards. I will put these different aspects together for I believe that they all represent the same underlying idea/reason. Today, people can get mobile phones, ring tones, logos and so on from almost everything they want. Popular television series (i.e Buffy, Friends), singers (Britney Spears, Robbie Williams) and Hollywood personalities; they can all be ‘ordered’ worldwide via ring tones, voicemail messages etc. It is all about identity and the need for people to distinguish themselves from others by showing what they chose to represent them (I will come back to this in a minute) It is no different with Manchester United. Several advertisements on the site refer to the MU mobile phones on which you will receive text messages with scores, news and so on. Together with this are the more financial related advertisements like the MU loans and credit cards. What is so important with this example is that when it comes to finance, people want trustworthy companies or banks to take care of their money. The fact that MUFC offers their fans the same products and services as any other real bank or insurance company offers us a clear view in the deep trust the fans have in their club. Here it is not the football club that has to play every weekend that they trust their money with, it is the brand Manchester United that deserves their trust. Comparing to Holland we see the same with for instance Ajax Amsterdam. ABN Amro is one of the club’s major sponsors and the bank offers fans special Ajax accounts, Ajax credit cards, special children’s’ offers and more. The bank is associated with the club and vice versa. Back to United it shows that the same goes with the products and services they offer. Besides the advertisements to expand their so-called territory, like in the USA Summer Tour, a priority seems to offer security to the fans.

Interesting fact: Manchester United is now planning a Chinese Summer Tour for the season 2005-2006. It should be noted that Manchester already has 10 United shops in China alone, United ‘flavored’ restaurants and United football schools (besides the millions of fans over there) United are taking matters into their own hands and it can be looked upon as one of the better business plans.

            The last example is the more commercial and wide ranged MU Store which you can visit not only online but which has an actual store in the city of Manchester (with a huge amount of square metres which makes you look at the Ajax fan shop in their Stadium with some pity)  “Visit our MU Shop!” several banners portray. Whenever MU will play in different shirts as is the case at the beginning of every new season, advertisements are to be found in all the different sections of the site. Fans and members can be the first to purchase these exclusive shirts, even before they hit the stores. Again, the special position the Man U fans have acclaimed is being put forward through advertising. Everything you can think of (provided with an MUFC crest) can be bought or ordered in the shop, again providing tools to either build or strengthen your identity whether you are young old, living in England or abroad. Following the hometown example, the company also opened a Man Utd store in Asia. To give an example of the overlapping sections of this football club: Just after Man Utd opened their Asian shop, they signed a never-heard-of young Chinese striker and (online) sales increased with more than 100%. It is all part of the deal and advertising helps gaining more and more profit for the companies (I’ll come back to this in a later section)

            An additional note goes out to the Unicef banners that are spread over the website. From somewhere in the mid-nineties Man Utd has been on several Africa trips which differ immensely from the USA Tours. Where the latter is drenched in commercial motives, the Africa trips were always to gain more and more attention to the lack of social services and hygiene and the ongoing extreme poverty. Unicef’s Chairman of Unicef UK explains the co-operation on the site: “The global respect and adoration in which Manchester United is held will continue to help UNICEF with its work on behalf of children around the world. Manchester United's global reach and appeal will continue to go a long way to benefit disadvantaged children throughout the world and make a real difference to their lives” [3]

  The social awareness these days has, with thanks to the accessibility and power to spread news in a clink, become a must-take hurdle for any kind of major company. Show people you care and your fans and consumers will see it too.

Finally, in addition to both the intermediality and advertising I would firstly like to address Harries’ statement on defining the new dimensions of intertextuality[4] in which he takes the music business as an example of the interrelationship of cultural forms. Harries explains how the music business has developed from a disks and tapes world to a  soundtrack, t-shirts, cards and so on multi-merchandising branch. This example has the perfect outline for the football world as we now it today. Ajax has its own kiddie accounts, Manchester United offers loans, mobile phones and trips abroad and David Beckham advertises all his commercial deals[5] The list can go on and on. Bottom line: football has become a big marketing and commercial world in which advertising sells the products and the values a club (or player) wants to spread.

            One may ask to what extend Manchester United fits the description of a brand. The examples of the financial products and services already provide a part of the answer. The name Manchester United has more than one association. Fans add value to the name. It represents (for them) the best football team in the world, with top-class players (with its own youth players as an important asset), a stadium (Old Trafford) that breathes tradition and ambition. Manchester United is therefore a symbol for all the above, and the fans (plus consumers!) attach psychological meaning to the name. Tybout and Carpenter wrote an explanatory article on creating and managing brands in which they dissect the word ‘brand’[6] Different types according to them are functional brands, image brands and experiential brands. Applicable on Man Utd are both the functional and image brand. Because of the wide range of marketing areas as I explained before, Man Utd proves to be both.  Functional brands (according to Tybout and Carpenter) are bought by customers to satisfy functional needs[7] (as with the credit cards, loans, insurances). Image brands focus on the consumer that uses the brand. Characteristics of the users represent the value of the brand in the minds of the buyers[8] Like Nike or Reebok is an image brand, so is MU. Their shield (as logo) is to be found on every product. People buy t-shirts of Man Utd with the names of players like Giggs, Van Nistelrooy, Christiano Ronaldo or Keane on their backs because of the name and the shirt. Like Nike sneakers used to be cool to wear in the 90’s, so can it be cool to wear a

Van Nistelrooy shirt because of his achievements at one the most popular clubs. With the blurring of the branding boundaries and the type of company, Manchester United becomes some kind of experience. The internet, advertising, marketing, products all add up to the picture a fan has in his head.           

            A clear example of how Manchester United is related to several brands itself was the switch of shirt sponsors in the beginning of 2002. Sharp and Umbro had been shirt sponsors for more than 30 years, fans did not know better than Sharp and Umbro BEING Manchester United. When in 2002, United decided not to prolong their contract with them, but instead went along with Nike and Vodafone, many fans were upset. Some considered this switch to be ‘too popular’ and therefore handing in exactly some of what is one of United’s strong points: tradition. However, with Nike and Vodafone new worlds opened up and through the advertising (Vodafone being the mobile phone provider, with banners and advertisements all over the website[9]) fans started to benefit from these brands. Manchester United as the brand it is now had two more brands that carried their own symbols and psychological meanings with them. MU once more extended their empire. The deal with Nike alone is worth over

500 million US dollars over 13 years according to Forbes and the Vodafone deal 50 million US dollars for 4 years.[10] Forbes also claims that for these mega companies United is not a football club but a global sports franchise. Interesting is that, also concerning the already mentioned USA Tour, Manchester United decided to stop their contract with Carlsberg as being the club’s beer and instead choosing Budweiser, a brand which is popular in the States (PepsiCo was being used in their Asian campaigns) Forbes ends with an all-saying statement:

“The club has a playing side with revenue from ticket sales, a media side to manage broadcasting and Internet rights to its matches and stars, and a merchandising and commercial side, which collectively aim to turn fans of the first into customers of the second two”

With the coming of the multimillion sponsor deals and the accessibility of the internet, meaning a worldwide audience, ‘Manchester United The Company’ keeps growing, like a tree gaining more and more ramifications.

Functions

Some of the site’s functions have already been (briefly) mentioned. I’ve talked about the news items the site provides on a daily base and the entertainment factor that has its reflection in the various multimedia options (clips, Mu.tv). A good look at the site however, offers several functions.

Important to start with however is the co-operation of Man Utd with Dimension Data[1], the company that United closed a deal with in 2002 to re-launch their site in order to “communicate more effectively with its fan-base and develop new products and services that will enable fans to participate in the "Manchester United experience", regardless of where they live” Manchester United appointed Dimension Data to deliver an integrated customer relationship management strategy. Interesting fact: another client of DiData is Vodafone, one of United’s biggest sponsors. 

 Having said this, the first function that came out of the new approach is the entertainment function. On the Dimension Data site they’ve published a case study about Man Utd and DiData[2], putting United in the ‘Sport and Entertainment’ industry. Knowing this, the function may be obvious, although the word entertainment here beholds more than the entertainment function a popular gossip site (as example) like E! Online has. Any regular dictionary describes ‘to entertain’ as something (a person or activity) that amuses, interests or gives pleasure. Manutd.com does all, even though each fan might find one description more suitable for them than the other. Fact remains, the variety of options is more than sufficient to satisfy all different types of fans. This is where the entertainment and information function seem to blend in with each other. The newsbar and archives that manutd.com first of all have an informational function, but at the same time serve as entertainment (depending on the topic of the news item) The (regular) visitors and members are (in a way) consuming the items the site provides. The available wallpapers, picture stories, audio and video clips are for entertainment use, plus the well-known structured forums.

            I don’t think the strict division between these two functions is necessary. As I’ve already mentioned: what can be entertaining to one, can be everything but to the other and vice versa. Same goes with the information function. Besides the factor of personal taste, there is an undeniable overlap between the two.

Another aspect of the functionality of the site has been the recently developed ‘accessible to all’ site. Man Utd launched a ‘separate accessible version of their website, manutd.com/access. There's been lots of publicity surrounding this website and it even picked up an award. This accessible version doesn't offer as much content as the main website but it has all the accessible features you could dream of: resizable text, ALT tags, screen reader optimisation etc.’[3] However noble this initiative might seem, the article is not too happy about it. According to the author Trenton Moss, what Manchester United has done goes against the whole concept of web accessibility. The positive press coverage they're getting for this website is actually damaging to the promotion of web accessibility as a whole he says. I wonder what reasons Manchester United used to explain this move, other than the attention they get from it. A fully accessible-to-all site might not gain the amount of attention the acces-site has received, but it certainly would function as a complete site for all users. The main functions on this site should not be different from those on the main site.

Aspects of encoding/decoding may not seem present on the football club’s website, after all, aren’t there only Reds fans present. The opposite is true however. A brief look in the news archive of the site shows you the 100% Reds-related news items containing more than once anti-Arsenal, anti-Chelsea news. Not in the most obvious way of course, but a Red fan will not decode the message other then ‘them against us’ Examples enough to back this up and I’ll give two to explain the dominating reading the encoded messages contain. First example concerns the always controversial David Beckham. After his undeserved red card during the World Cup against Argentina[4] he became a pariah on the English football pitches. Manutd.com covered his reception by for instance the Leeds, Aston Villa, Newcastle fans every week on the website. United fans, already ware of his status, now got the feelings about their star player rubbed..no…slapped in the face. With the site as one of the reasons, the United fans not only grew increasingly passionate about Beckham, but at the same time resented the other clubs even more. Another example covers the section ‘transfer rumors’ in which the site gives the fans the insight on possible new players. Often, United is linked to for instance a Liverpool player (as was the case with Stephen Gerrard). However, Gerrard was quoted as saying: “I’ll never play for United!” Further reading served to be more explanatory, but one can ask what the reason behind such decisions to publish the rumors might be if the outcome is negative anyway.

DiData’s approach definitely worked in bringing the fans several functions through which they can completely merge with the spirit of the club. United’s choices prove once more to be as deliberate as can be.

Fan culture and Identity

Fan culture of any kind of sports club is always related to the right type of branding. People want to be associated with a club because of its image. In England, there is a well-know division between the north and south. In the north people consider the southerners as being posh and arrogant, whereas the southerners see the northerners as dumb people. In football, this can be seen as well with the local and national rivalry between certain clubs. What’s interesting is the amount of fans that have created their own culture without the majority of them not having set foot in Manchester in the first place. Like mentioned before, the biggest group of fans can be found in Asia. Through branding, Manchester United has reached them too and they seem to relate to whatever message MU wants to send out. A good example of fan culture and branding that had a commercial reason behind it al was the signing of Chinese striker Dong Fangzhou[1] which I already mentioned briefly. The new signing was published as big news on the website, Chinese fans went mad and the 10 Man Utd stores in China increased sales immediately.

            On the website, this fan culture takes in prominent place throughout the different sections. With this type of broad participation, the possible motivations for fans may vary (see functions) Most important is the sense of belonging. Fans create their own culture by commenting on the games their team plays, their wish list for future players, reacting in forums and so on. This culture also captures the feelings of having some kind of influence. An interesting section of the site is called ‘The Boss, The Player, The Fan’ where (obviously) Alex Ferguson the coach, any player or ANY fan gets to have his or her say on different topics. The fact the all the millions of fans are all meant with ‘The Fan’ indicates not only the importance of the fans by MU, but also the sense of being and belonging to MU. Let us not forget the immense debt the club owes the fans. Old Trafford is filled with 67,000 fans every match, but there are 50 million more fans worldwide that want to ‘be’ there to. This has enabled Manchester United to create an interactive, on-line football community that will become the ultimate match and club experience for all its fans, on match days, during the build up and then the after-match analyses.  Maintaining their position could not have been done without the fans worldwide that have turned into United-consumers in the meantime.

To come back to the identity issue and its relationship with sport I would like take a take a closer look at Power Play where Boyle and Haynes establish a relationship between sport and identity, with an important role for the media. They say that ‘the media is important, in the sense that that they help to foster a wider feeling of collective identification among members in the social group, and may even put different members in touch with each other. In turn, support of clubs connect personal identity to collective identity, larger groups which enjoy a shard passion and sense of loyalty to a team or club, a city or even to a larger political or cultural entity such as Scotland or England’[2] In their explanation they use the word media in the ‘old’ sense (i.e tv, radio, papers). Interestingly, what they say about the media reaching a wider audience that shares the same identity can be seen as the predecessor of the state the media is in now. With the coming of the ‘new’ media (the internet), the sense of identity has been lifted to a higher level. A quick look at the football and Manchester United madness in China or Japan explains it all. Without the internet, the traditional English club with its cross-over traditional-modern image would never have reached Asia as easy. Football fans there now have Man Utd as part of their identity, as part of their belonging.

Conclusion

Manchester United has gained their global prominence in both the business and football world through some ingenious tactics. Top class players, top class fans and top class business strategies. Through the years, the company has grown to a height, only a few other football clubs can hold on to.

            By means of advertising and marketing, the brand Manchester United got its place in all the continents worldwide (especially Asia). The United name became more and more well-known and the united players like Cantona, Beckham and Giggs gained, besides their million dollar deal contracts, Hollywood status. The coming of the internet only multiplied these effects. Now, access was there 24/7 and the community started growing rapidly. With over 50 million fans worldwide, Man Utd is the biggest club in the world with the highest annual income (which grows more and more each year). The club went to the stock market and their corporate character gained more importance.

            The change of sponsors was looked upon by some fans as losing the tradition, but in the end, the fans came out as winners. Top brands as Nike and Vodafone became part of the world of Manchester United. Another major deal was closed with Dimension Data, a company that altered the old website and were appointed by United to re-launch the site with the utmost attention to the fans. DiData did so developed new products and services that enabled fans worldwide to participate in the Manchester United experience. Fan forums, a message board, online radio, online match coverage, wallpapers, ‘Have Your Say’ possibilities for fans, mobile phone offers and a financial service, Manchester United finds its place in every aspect of the fan culture. They want to integrate in more than only the football mind and attempt to do so by various means.

            Manutd.com is a perfect asset to the successful football club. It attributes to the sense of tradition, respecting the history of the club and looking at the future. With help of business partners they’ve accomplished to create a sense of community in which each fan counts and is respected. The high participation level of the site only adds up to this all and therefore the ‘Manchester United Experience’ is one of great proportions. With the still improving digital possibilities, the sky seems to be the limit for Manchester United Football Club. Andy Anson captured it all by saying “We’re not just a sports club, we’re an international brand…” Manchester United have proved to have found the perfect blend between corporate know-how and holding on to tradition, therefore having not only won over the business world but also the hearts of millions of fans worldwide.

            Glory glory Man United![1]