Or Premiership merchandise 
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Yes, thatās probably the case. I expect thereāll be an announcement of some kind though. 1. They need to announce Amart is not continuing and thanking them for their support 2. Announce either search for new major sponsor or that Fujitsu will be the sole sponsor. The 2nd announcement is less likely, but the 1st will almost certainly happen.
Clash jumper based on pics from Rebel Sport
Disclaimer: The collar on Retails was like this last year, and yet the PIs were the same as the Home collars
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This is probably the best clash strip weāve had. Granted, itās not exactly a high bar, but kudos to the club for changing it up.
The current clash jumper is an abomination.
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That looks good the way youāve done it. I love the website and the podcast series
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They need to find $2M for the co-major partner. Then they need to grow merchandising. Thatās what a really good commercial teams job is.
Thereās no way the Board would accept the CEO making the recommendation to wave away $2M piece of sponsor property away without a really good reason.
With the players CBA growing 20% over the next 3 years, Essendon needs to find another $3M just to get back to balance the books. It canāt afford to give us value in its guernsey.
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Weird that they couldnāt just use white text for Fujitsu on the frontā¦ Had to throw in a red box. Anyway, itās better than all that have come before but still meh.
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Last time I checked white was not one of our colours? If it was a test match for 5 days then I get it.
Well thats a better display of it, and its definitely better then all the clash jumpers weāve had before. We basically get the inverted Black Sash on red weāve been after, and its properly defined too. Iām o.k with this one.
They found the loophole around the constitution rule that the sash must always be red, by including it in the middle.
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Any of the boys looking for one with cotton wool padding or has the Arizona trip paid off?
The club doesnāt need to do anything other than focus on winning games of football. Itās the entire purpose for the organisation to even exist.
Nothing the club has done over the past 7,000 days is ever good enough for āusā fans. Loose quotes like āThe media team must be full of unpaid Uni interns, theyāre so poor at their jobsāā¦ āThe fake floor in the Hangar and the turf on the Marvel size oval is far too firm and both cause soft tissue injuries.āā¦ āXavier Campbell just focused on his beer company while running a footy clubāā¦ āThe commercial team and current CEO are idiots for giving up $2M worth of assets even though I have absolutely no idea what they are doing behind closed doorsāā¦ Give it a rest, take a step back, zoom out.
If the club focuses on footy and starts winning finals, none of this matters because it all sorts itself out. Membership goes gangbusters, merchandise sales increase, ticket sales increase, desire from prospective sponsors increase and creates healthy competition.
As I mentioned in a post above, Performance-driven elite level sport can be critically impacted by its key stakeholdersā¦ Coteriesā¦ Sponsorsā¦ Gov/League Investorsā¦ Fansā¦ just to name a few. I am part of the system, and I can tell you from experience that itās such a fickle balance between so many competing demands, with so many of these parties claiming their way of āsupportingā is the most important. Worst of all, Sport in general fosters such a strong emotional connection with its stakeholders that logic often doesnāt follow. I think you will find that the most successful CEOs recognise this and are superb at effectively managing ALL the stakeholders in a way that actually helps the club succeed on the field.
Amart $2M sponsorship hole or not (just to be clear, nobody on this forum has any ā ā ā ā ā ā ā idea if this actually exists or not), the club (staff, coaches, players, every single person within the four walls) will be infinitely better off for developing and maintaining an uncompromising attitude for winning games of football, and winning them well.
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Iād prefer the staff responsible for merchandising, member services, digital content etc focus on the jobs they were hired for.
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being an embarrassment on field would make selling jumper sponsorship harder I reckon
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I donāt think we are embarrassing enough to offset the massive supporter base, attendance, marque games etc
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Probably the missing link is the barista at the Hanger cafe. Sheās focused on developing and maintaining an uncompromising attitude for winning games of football, but I question if sheās committed to the āwinning them wellā part.
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RED
Its embarrassing the Hall of Fame and Bombershop the club had over 20 years ago was bigger and better than what we have now.
We have regressed in every way, we have become a tin pot club off the field.
Maybe online shopping has done away with having a large merchandise set up and im being harsh which Ill accept, but its amazing how tiny the Bombershop is now compared to not only the shop we had in the early 2000s after the redevelopment but even the shop before it in the late 90ās seemed bigger and better stocked!
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I donāt entirely agree.
Football is a business, like it or not. It takes $60M+, and growing to put out 4-5 football teams across all the leagues Essendon fields teams in.
Yes, of course football is THE focus. That means all the resources and the most capable people should be employed by the club in the footy dept roles to give us our best chance of success. It needs the best senior executives and a really strong Board to create the best high performance culture for the organisation to follow to create a successful environment. Critical.
It also requires the Club to keep growing as the costs of the industry escalate. It means it needs to compete against the best sporting clubs in Australia for corporate partners to ensure Essendon can support the footy dept finding. It needs coteries, sponsors etc to generate the resources needed.
This āfootball focusā at Essendon is an unfortunate but necessary term being used by Essendon to explain how Essendon will focus on addressing years of poor decisions and a terrible culture that has developed over decades. Bad decision after bad decision. Standards slipping, acceptance of poor behaviour. Bad culture. It developed and festered the last decade. Thankfully these wrongs are now being addressed and the culture is being rebuilt. Football focus is a message of intent dedicating itself to change. Its listening. And itās now acting. New Board, CEC, Coach etc etc. Weāre seeing evidence of this starting to play out in Arizona this week. Early days but good signs. Long road but good progress.
That doesnāt mean the ācommercial focusā should be deprioritised. Thatās what many donāt understand and being in sports management, Iām surprised you donāt grasp this. If you have a highly successful CEO who is able to make great decisions relating to the footy dept, and foster a great culture, then you donāt need to tell every Tom, Dā¦k and Harry āweāre focussed on footballā. Youāre focussed on football but equally focussed on ensuring itās well resourced.
Refer Brian Cook example. Heās no less focussed on the culture and commercial side of Carltonās business as its football dept. Heās built a Business Plan (god help us if Vozzo mentions this, he will be criticised!) and rolled it out across the Carlton FC. But, he makes good decisions in football. Heās built a strong culture. A great team around him. Heās fixed injuries!! And thatās what separates him from Xavier in our case. Cook makes good footy decisions, the footy dept thrives and people think Carlton are no doubt āfocussed on footballā.
Essendon has no money, itās screwing its coteries and high net worth supporters via fundraising to bridge the budget each year. It hasnāt focussed on building non footy revenue to support the footy dept growth. One might argue if footy was delivering, it wouldnāt need to chase these stakeholders. True. But both are true. If it did footy and commercially brilliantly weād be like Richmond and Collingwood. But, we havenāt really done footy or the commercial stuff well for a decade.
Anyway, Iām in the minority around here who expects Essendon to be an industry leader both on, and off field. To be focussed on football and focussed on its business (but keep this silent!). To be the best at everything. Abd if it can, like all great clubs, it will win finals and the commercial side of the business will capitalise on this by being industry leading off field. As Richmond arguable are.
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And just lastly.
I think Xavier and Essendon are guilty of poor messaging over many years. Itās guilty of overusing corporate speak and being too ācorporateā focussed in its overall messaging to the industry. Further, Xavier and the Boards inability to make great decisions for its football department have created a sense itās not āfootball focussedā
As Colin Carter, X Geelong President said a year or so ago. Great Clubs get between 7-8/10 of its decisions right across an entire organisation. That feeds into great culture and that fosters optimal outcomes on and off field over a sustained periodā¦ Poor Clubs he said, make 4-5/10 great decisions across an entire organisation.
Itās not about being footy focussed. Itās about making great decisions across the entire organisation that creates on field successā¦ā¦ And off field success to support the on field program.
How about our clothing, huh?
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