Have we reached an impasse?

BenLynch29 said:
I respectfully disagree with your conclusion. It is true that a lot of the American support is very nominal in nature, the club isn’t doing anything in America to build its brand or engage its supporters here. The popularity of English clubs here can be traced right back to the TV deals - until 2-3 years ago, the EPL was the only league that had any sort of regular TV coverage in America. Even now, Italy has none, La Liga has none (although Barca & Real Madrid have coverage on a 3rd tier channel most people don’t get), France has none, and the Bundesliga coverage is both new and poor and virtually 100% dedicated to Bayern Munich. Honestly, the Mexican league has better TV coverage here - on Spanish speaking channels - than all the European leagues except the EPL.

Regardless, I do believe two things:
(1) with the size of the population, there is a very significant number of people willing to engage Celtic in a significant meaningful way that would be valuable both to the club and potential sponsors. Even if this is only 100k in a country of 300M+ people, that’s still a huge opportunity if each one could bring in $100+ each per year.
(2) if the club were to more aggressively market itself over here - getting matches shown in pubs, getting cross promotional sponsorships with other Irish/Scottish brands and events, and even permanently signing a couple USA national team players (*cough* Weah! *cough*) - the popularity of the club would explode. Of particular benefit IMO is the club’s roots being founded by priests to feed starving Irish-Catholic immigrants and the lineage with the Celtic Foundation’s current work. I think that mission would resonate with a lot of people over here, and there are a lot of perhaps ‘casual’ fans that might be willing to support the club in monetary terms if this story were more well known. As an aside, I didn’t even know the background myself until after I had already attended a match at Celtic Park, and nearly everyone I mention it to is equally ignorant.

The American audience, except for expats, aren’t ‘born’ into the Celtic family like you are in Scotland and Ireland. We need to be converted. But with the ties to both Irish and Scottish cultures (and the Irish culture is HUGE here) as well as the uniqueness of the charitable roots, Celtic as a club are very marketable here and have a ceiling much, much higher than what is commonly assumed.
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Hey Ben, I'm definitely open to persuasion and would gladly advocate that hypothesis.

I'll bend to your superior knowledge of the North American Market, I'm basing my own hypothesis on my family in Connecticut who "support" Celtic but only in the sense of heritage. They're not particularly interested in our brand of football and their support is of the tokenist variety.

I'm all for Celtic aggressively attacking that market, but there just seems to be too many alternatives to compete with at the moment.

I'll gladly nominate you as our North American spokesperson and I genuinely hope that the interest in "soccer" will provide us with future talent in the playing side, as well as the fanbase
 
Spherical Planet said:
Hey Ben, I'm definitely open to persuasion and would gladly advocate that hypothesis.

I'll bend to your superior knowledge of the North American Market, I'm basing my own hypothesis on my family in Connecticut who "support" Celtic but only in the sense of heritage. They're not particularly interested in our brand of football and their support is of the tokenist variety.

I'm all for Celtic aggressively attacking that market, but there just seems to be too many alternatives to compete with at the moment.

I'll gladly nominate you as our North American spokesperson and I genuinely hope that the interest in "soccer" will provide us with future talent in the playing side, as well as the fanbase
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North America is massive to celtic
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We have through history a good connection, scots/irish.. it's a positive thing to promote in america. we also fight the darkside, lots of Star Wars folk will identify with that.. that could eventually involve the chinese .. :/ .
 
ironically, i thought at times the bunnet had no idea, but he laid the foundations and saved the world from the darkness, OB1
 
lcafiero said:
You kind of have to be nuts to go outside in Las Vegas in June, yet here we are. I am going to try to make this, but you can bet I'm staying indoors the entire time :D
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Follow these interviews some are funny and are defo good for your introduction to scottish football and their characters.
 
The governing bodies also have a part to play in this. Hindering our clubs by making them play midweek league and Scottish cup ties the day after they get off the plane having just returned from a 2 thousand mile round trip after playing against sides like shakhtar karagandy takes it's toll. They are part of the problem. Another part is that there's no real old firm competition. When there was that competitive edge to our game it was possible for 2 clubs from Glasgow to appear in a European final within 5 seasons of each other. At that time I can remember the pundits saying no Scottish club would ever compete in a euro final again. This also leads on to the next point where Glasgow rangers destroyed that competitiveness that existed by cheating. Unless we have quality opposition domestically we will always struggle against clubs who do.
 
boab1916 said:
North America is massive to celtic
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See there ya go. Even as an American I wasn’t even aware of this. I’ve known about American CSC’s for a long time, but I haven’t given them a lot of thought as there aren’t any within several hundred miles of me.

Though I will say, now that there’s an annual Jan break in the league schedule, I think this event ought to be moved to the first week of Jan. :cool:
 
Winter gerzy said:
The governing bodies also have a part to play in this. Hindering our clubs by making them play midweek league and Scottish cup ties the day after they get off the plane having just returned from a 2 thousand mile round trip after playing against sides like shakhtar karagandy takes it's toll. They are part of the problem. Another part is that there's no real old firm competition. When there was that competitive edge to our game it was possible for 2 clubs from Glasgow to appear in a European final within 5 seasons of each other. At that time I can remember the pundits saying no Scottish club would ever compete in a euro final again. This also leads on to the next point where Glasgow rangers destroyed that competitiveness that existed by cheating. Unless we have quality opposition domestically we will always struggle against clubs who do.
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From what I can see, the SFA has actually been pretty reasonable at accommodating teams (mostly Celtic due to the number of our Euro matches) in rescheduling our fixtures before/after European dates. When we’ve got to play twice a week, which is most weeks, it’s ideal that we have 72 hrs between kick-offs. It’s rare that we don’t have that, and the clubs in EPL actually have it much worse in that regard as the TV companies hold much more power regarding scheduling there due to the money involved. I can distinctly remember both Chelsea and Man United having less than 48 hrs on occasion. Thu/Sat or Sun/Tue fixtures. Or the ever popular Mon/Wed combination, although I think that last one has been eliminated.

As to the competition... there’s nothing Celtic can do about that. But I do think the quality of the league has improved in the last few years. Rangers had an easy route through qualification, but they actually ‘Progrèsed’ to the group stage this year. :D And Aberdeen haven’t been easy outs in qualification either, though it’s doubtful they will ever make the group stage unless they get their new stadium and all the financial benefits that come with it. Give it a few more years, and I suspect Rangers will be making groups regularly and potentially giving us a good run in the league (by rights they should already be mopping the floor with all the other teams except us due to their resource advantage).
 
commodore64 said:
celtic tv,, free abroad?
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This is actually a brilliant marketing idea. Financially it makes zero sense (and there may be league issues with regards to this as well) unless it’s part of a broader strategy. But I think if it was free, viewership and following would go through the roof. The key, then, would be monetizing it via sponsorship opportunities and increasing commercial revenue streams.

I’ve often wondered what would happen if the club turned off the pay-wall every March 17th for St Patrick’s Day celebrations throughout the world as part of a broader Irish Heritage celebration. Enlist all the Irish Pubs throughout the world (which are PACKED to capacity in most places) to show that day’s match - or if there isn’t a live one, then show a recent match or a classic match (2012 Barcelona?).

Would be a GREAT advert for CelticTV and the club more generally, and I suspect there would be a spike in social media following and CelticTV subscribers in the later half of March.
 
buy into the pub culture, promote every game, invite brewer sponsors, free haggis and neeps, job done :)
 
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