For those who are unaware, the Sloan Sports Conference is a kind of sports-themed Web Summit held at MIT in Boston. We are not on the ground at the conference (it is unsurprisingly expensive: $575 for the two-day event) but we can only hope that the event places far less emphasis on being founded by vacuous bullshit than Dublin's digital jamboree. We assume so, given that sport is the most important human pursuit on Earth.
We assume so, given that sport is the most important human pursuit on Earth.
Arsenal's largest shareholder Stan Kroenke spoke at the event yesterday as part of a panel discussion entitled 'Evolution of Ownership'. The discussion promised to "provide a behind the scenes look into how owners, senior executives, and partners in the league offices manage these impactful decisions to continue to grow the sport and improve the bottomline". (The use of the word 'impactful' subverts our initial hopes of there being a lack of bullshit).
Naturally, a discussion along these lines looked at football in an economic context, with buzzwords like "franchise", "moneyball", "brand" and "acquiring a controlling interest" cast around the stage like helmets after a war.
But sports teams are entities with quite contradictory goals, as the BBC's South American correspondent has summarised quite well, saying that "football clubs are a business which exist to win trophies and not solely to yield profit".
Such complexities were addressed by Kroenke, and his takeaway lines are sure to irritate the Arsenal fans who pay more for their seats than fans of any other club in Europe. He emphasised the realities of needing to run a successful business, but if Arsenal continue to underachieve and fail to challenge for the league, you feel that this line from Kroenke will prove to be the current Arsenal regime's epitaph:
If you want to win championships then you would never get involved.
He went on to add that "I think the best owners in sports are the guys that sort of watch both sides a bit. If you don't have a good business then you can't really afford to go out and get the best players unless you just want to rely on other sources of income".
Kroenke also owns the St. Louis Los Angeles Rams, and when asked what his involvement at Arsenal has taught him, he had this to say:
What did I learn specifically [from England]? You learn very quickly what that brand means.
"We have a gentleman who comes to Arsenal games, he flies his helicopter from South Africa, Cape Town to London quite often [to watch Arsenal]. It’s just an example of what a brand can mean, and what we can do in sports.
"We’re all working on that and that’s the big opportunity. Michael Jordan showed it - you can get paid a whole lot more if you can extend your brand. Manchester United showed it. They established benchmarks that people had thought heretofore unattainable, but their brand extension made people want to pay for it.
Some might argue that the gentleman flying from Cape Town might be doing so out of affinity and sheer, mad passion, but sadly those kind of intangibles hold no truck at these slick conferences.
Elsewhere, Kroenke highlighted his favourite thing about Arsene Wenger:
Billy Beane, one of his heroes happened to be our manager at Arsenal, Arsene Wenger. Arsene has an undergraduate degree in economics and has always had that analytical thing going on.
When the obituary of Arsene Wenger's managerial career is written, we somehow doubt that many of these pieces will highlight his mastery of economics.
The fact that Kroenke has spoken at this conference, despite being consistently silent at Arsenal AGMs, has further annoyed Arsenal supporters:
Frightening stuff again from Kroenke. Doesn't say a great deal (silent Stan), but when he does, just makes you feel sad. #AFC
— John (@Johnboy270783) March 12, 2016
Kroenke also said that fans will not put up with bad WiFi at stadiums. We think he means journalists, we have found Premier League supporters to be campaigning on other matters recently.
[City AM]
