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Clever Chelsea gets Mickey on its team

Posted in Marketing, Oliver Milman, Latest reporters' blogs July 17th, 2007 by Oliver Milman

It doesn’t do much to fend off accusations of it being a Mickey Mouse club, but Chelsea FC’s link-up with The Walt Disney Company is a bold step in the name of sports commercialism.

The deal will see Chelsea branding at various football (sorry, soccer) initiatives run by Disney. An annual “educational exchange programme” will also take place, with young footballers being ferried between Florida and west London, no doubt accompanied by twinkling camera flashbulbs and glad-handing executives.

Football/soccer academies run by UK clubs in foreign countries are nothing new. However, the purpose of these schemes, before Chelsea’s latest venture, was simply to recruit overseas players at a young age. The expense was recouped by the subsequent transfer fees received or trophies won.

However, Chelsea has almost dropped any pretence of footballing reasons for its Disney jaunt. This is a pure branding exercise for the perennially untapped US market – no amount of token “educational exchanges” can gloss over that fact.

Sadly for budding footballers in Florida, Chelsea would be perfectly satisfied if the only decent ball juggler unearthed within the shadow of the Magical Kingdom was Pluto the dog. The club has a stonewashed jeans-clad Russian billionaire to finance big-money purchases – why would it need to painstakingly groom promising American youngsters?

You have to admire Chelsea for its audaciousness. Under the paper-thin veneer of a sporting exercise, it has gained a foothold at one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions in the globe’s richest nation.

This may well also be an illustration of football clubs becoming increasingly aggressive in their marketing strategies. Previously happy to court overseas fans via globe-trotting pre-season tours, teams are now bombarding loyalty-transferable fans with various digital, merchandise and club television strategies.

How much further will this go? Donald Duck literally branding terrified youngsters with club crests like cattle?