The View from Away – Branding West Ham United

I am on vacation in Northern Canada (water, rocks, trees, moose) this week. On the flight up, I had a chance to just sit and think about what it takes for a team to become truly “big.”

I first thought of the “big 6” in England (Man City, Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and that other club). Each one of these clubs is worth a LOT of money. Manchester United is worth (as of May 30th) $3.8 billion US dollars, Manchester City is worth around $2.7B, Chelsea is worth $2.2B, Arsenal is worth $2.5B, Liverpool is worth $2.1B, and Tottenham is worth $1.6B. Oddly enough, the next most valuable club? West Ham United, but at a distant $616M. So what sets these clubs apart from West Ham?

At first, I started thinking about assets. In terms of assets, outside of Manchester City, the big 6 differ from West Ham in one significant way: each one of them own the ground they play on. That as a physical asset should directly drive up the value of the club. In the case of Man City, while they do not own the stadium, they do operate the stadium (including all operations and maintenance, but also, they take ALL the revenues from the building).

Here is where our club differs. We are renters, not owners. Our worth is not in the physical buildings, but in the club itself. However, before we get too far down that path, being the owner of the building is rare in North American sports. Many buildings are publicly funded and used as means to attract clubs to play in cities.

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Obviously there are exceptions, but this is where West Ham struggles. We don’t have a purpose-built stadium for football that we control Until West Ham United takes control of (or somehow becomes owner of) Her Majesty’s East London Palace (#TheEasternPalace is a way better name than the Olympic Stadium) , there is an issue with us controlling our destiny. However, there is more to our state than our physical assets.

Five of the top six (with Tottenham becoming more so) has a perceptible brand image that has a world-wide status. It is hard to go to a football match in the US without seeing Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U, Man City, or Liverpool shirts on at least some of the spectators.

In recent years, Tottenham has also become a more recognizable brand. However, the claret and blue is NOT so well-recognized. Whereas the top six make very good money for their shirt sponsors, again we see West Ham as a distant cousin to their deals, only now bringing in £10M a year for the Betway deal, and less than a million for the shoulder patch.

What holds West Ham back from becoming a big club? Winning. Not just winning games consistently, but the ability to grab silverware in some valuable competition. Many of us mock Tottenham’s lack of trophies, but our last FA cup victory is long in the rear view of history.

For West Ham to grow up and become a bigger player in the world of football, its necessary to go out and win a cup. While we are currently the holders of the Betway Cup, the FA Cup must become a priority this year. Winning breeds interest, sells shirts, increases tourist fans (yes, those are important), and gets the club more opportunities to play in Europe (Wednesday nights under the lights as it were).

With this being year 2 of the Pellegrini era, finishing above 8th should be a goal, but a truly important task for West Ham is to win a trophy and get attention. While we remain a very loyal core group of fans, the next measure of success is a solid cup run with a victory at the end to interest more fans. Anything less than that decreases our opportunity to build the brand and fails to improve the fiscal value of the club. That will be the only thing that will drive up the value of the club.

Many folks believe that the board only wants to stay at a certain point and profit from the club. Surely the best way to profit is to increase the value of the club and sell it on later. Right now, for the owners to do this, they must invest and generate value through the brand increasing in value.

This is what I would suggest is behind the willingness to lose money at this time. It is an investment in the future. Even if they don’t sell, they increase the value of their investment, but eventually, the call of a valuable club in London will get the attention of a larger group of investors that might make an offer that is too good to refuse.

On a separate note, Las Vegas is coming. ExWHUEmployee and Dave Walker of The West Ham Way are bringing their event to Vegas , and others are on the way over from the UK for a match on the 17th of August. Myself, fellow writer Jeremiah, and a few others are now planning on being there, so for more detail hit up The West Ham Way in the USA webpage. I would love to swap stories and have a beer with as many US fans as we can get out there.