 Welcome to ToffeeTV I'm joined today by John Blaine from the Everton Matters Business Matters Podcast from the Blue Room and also Chairman of the Everton shareholders Association. I am yes. You know what's that? Is that just the title or? Well you know you go back well let's go back a year or so yeah so what did Mr. Sherry buy you know he bought most of John Woods and Arthur Abercrombie's and Robert Earl's shares and obviously quite a few off-bill and that gives him is nearly 50% when he buys the rest of them he'll have I guess nearly 70% the rest is the so-called Minority Shareholders and they're the people that the shareholders Association which is the oldest in the world tries to represent and you know I'm a member I apply for election to a committee and there's about 12 12 people on that committee and then that committee decides who the German is who the treasurer is who the Secretary is and so on and that's me yeah and obviously being in an organization it gives you a lot better say in how or you know not a say because obviously we're not stupid enough to think yeah I don't think we have a say yeah per se but but what we do have is it has that kudos of being the longest established shareholder Association and certainly when something really important needs to be addressed most notably I guess in recent times three or four years ago when we fundamentally forced the football club into reinstating general meetings when things are going fine they seem to be at the moment everything's nice and quiet but yeah yeah absolutely we in theory get some access and certainly I met with fire machinery last year with Bill Kenwright and I guess it hadn't been the shareholders Association that wouldn't have wouldn't have happened so yeah okay we'll leave fire machinery that's going to be on another video on Peyton so make sure you check that out we're gonna talk about we're going to about Wayne Rooney but not just not way really such as you know the football but the brand and what that means forever because he's obviously been at the club now for a couple of weeks yeah it feels like a bit of a whale wind couple of weeks and I think I think personally because let's be honest I'm a bit of a moaner and I have been for a while people say moaner but I'm I just like to think I'm a perfectionist I've seen issues at the club you've seen and I've listened to the podcast and when I listen to the podcast I'm always nodding thinking yes I'm glad three really intelligent men are saying things that they start nodding as soon as we say let's get down to business but I'm glad that they're saying that you're saying the same things that I've been saying things for a while and you know you straight away you felt that Wayne Rooney's presence at the club meant meant things were happening straight away there was an extra pressure on on the club to get things right pressure in what way well I felt like there was a pressure straight away to make sure that straight away there was a press conference yeah and that had obviously been forced upon them because of of the amount of applications by the media to have interviews with Wayne Rooney so there's an automatic pressure there on the club to change things that previously they would have done in house and I'm starting to I'm starting to think that can the club keep up with those pressures not just media but merchandise and communications ticketing and because these are the things that you talk about all the time and obviously we all feel that in the past ever haven't done so well and this might be the this might be the thing Wayne Rooney's the fact that it might be the thing now now pushes the club into the the the the those those teams above us that seems to do those that have that presence yeah I mean I don't know whether pressure is the right word really or even forced okay I'd like to think that as soon as the football club realized that it was going to get such a name because you know this guy is a worldwide branding his own rights isn't he you know and the thought that we as a football club would think we're gonna sign this guy and just show the little you know you know a little thing with a with this the company secretary you know you sign a piece babe and that's it just doesn't seem right does it of course but that but pressures good it's good pressure raising your game is is is needed and and I think in your question really was the most important bit demands from the media that we want to see this guy we want to ask questions we want to talk so I think the days of the only time we ever see Everton doing stuff like that is on a Thursday you know before you know Premier League weekend are probably gone I hope we exploit it because it will knock on into improving the brand getting some brand awareness clearly selling more merchandise and so on I think we talked on that on the last podcast didn't we you know he's got his own collection the Rooney collection but you say you're a perfectionist that one of my colleagues I think was Roger he said but was selling t-shirts with his name on the back but that means people won't buy match shirts because they can buy a t-shirt instead and so I think what we will have is subtlety like that yeah which you will perfection is making sure that we optimize everything yeah you know and if you look at the the very disappointing things we've had recently with the streams for the preseason games we shouldn't even consider underestimating you know the interest go an exponential which is what it's done so far yeah well that yeah and that heightens everybody's game and undoubtedly some people step forward and prove to be better than we thought they were within the club and presumably some will won't be up to that up to the challenge yeah I mean you mentioned me it's nice and there I mean the stuff they've brought out for Rooney is it's not great I'm not gonna but I'm not complaining it's not great but what it is is there was an immediate effect and they felt like they had to I mean one of the gripes again I'm a perfectionist and this is just just the way I am is is that they didn't have like his kit and his name and his number ready straight away and I think the club have got to get better things like that and you know because even though it was only two or three hours it is making the most of that that immediate impact because it isn't gonna last forever you're right and and providing merchandising you stop by communication as well before and then I know it's a bit bit bit amusing that the end of each of our podcasts we you know we do the it's not what you do it's the way that you do it but that's really important and you know the gestation of Wayne coming back to the club was quite long I think it was like a best kept secret wasn't it yeah you know and clearly you would hope that they anticipated that they scheduled it they did the timing you know the way we've done some of the other signings it looks orchestrated which is terrific keeps us in the public eye and then you do want to be able to say you can go down to the store tomorrow and you can get your Wayne Rooney shirt with all the Premier League badges and all those other things so yeah I if you keep calling yourself a perfectionist I just think that to me is one-on-one that's bog standard stuff that if you expect a spike in interest in your football club or your brand or your commercial whatever it is exploits it and you know those impulse purchases are just that yeah that there would have been people who would have bought stuff who won't now yeah and then that has a knock on to your shirt sponsor a knock on to your shirt manufacturer who think we didn't get full value for it so where do you think that will go the mate and I think because there's been a lot of talk I mean the kickback deal has not been perfect let's be honest it's been it's ups and downs I think that when it first came in we all appreciated that we could get a lot more items and then it suddenly started sinking in when you the feeling was well it's great getting good items but you can't get them where you want them necessarily I think we missed the trick when we when we had the American players and Tim Cale that we never pushed into the American markets and Australia but again this this deal for me just shows what we're not doing at the moment and obviously there's about two years left on the kickback deal so we're doing that will go do you think they'll look to bring it in-house or do you think they'll look to get a better deal that starts pushing that because I've been looking you I know you've been looking at the fanatics that have taken kit back over and I thought when fanatics took over I thought yes we're in for a pushery in the States there's been very little I mean I still find it weird that kit bag still called kit bag here when it's supposed to be owned by this big company you know and they do have kits now fanatics on their American website but you can't personalize them which I almost feels all right again it defeats almost the the the papers because if you go to the kit bag site and see what you can get then there's what almost a thousand products or something okay product might just be the share with a different name on it though there's all almost a thousand products on there and there's 50 odd on fanatics now I'm assured by the club that everything you can get on kit bag today you'll be able to get on fanatics so it's when yeah yeah I think the club thought that would have been done by now yeah I did check this morning case you asked me and I've been told the store pushing fanatics to make the whole of that catalog available on you know on the other dot-com if that's the case then this is a nothing conversation because people who go to fanatics.com will see everything you can get from an Everton perspective but how long will it take that's a good question it's the last couple of years your question is are we gonna take it back in house I hope not yeah but I'll be wrong from a business point of view the S would say and we could argue all night yeah he's not here though so I get to give you my view and to my mind you know because I'm an outsourcing person by trade if you're not getting full value as an outsourcing arrangement then you're either doing it wrong yeah or with the wrong partner we don't need to own all these stores we don't need to have huge warehouses of stock we're trying to shift at the end of the CS okay but what we should have is a better arrangement from a commercial perspective then we appear to have now and then we should we shouldn't forget that when that deal was struck eight years ago we were a completely different football yeah then you know we were losing money we had half a dozen retail stores they were costing us money rather than making a profit and it probably looked a good deal when we did it and people shouldn't really take advantage of hindsight however that notwithstanding I was astonished it was for ten years well that was I was gonna say that yeah no one psychic no one's got second sight yeah so that was a long long time but I'm also surprised how long the sports pacer contractors as well so you know we're still perhaps being a bit cautious here and not being confident that the next when this thing comes up for renewal we'll be in a far better place than we are today so what I hope we're doing and doing it already is lining up replacements and giving fanatics last shout which is basically this is what we want this is how we want it to work if you can satisfy our our needs you get the contract yeah if you can't we're gonna go to somebody else it's one of the problems of of a deal like this and because we don't get a tremendous lot of value out of it it seems okay well let me just ask you the first question do the club feel like it's not their problem and people say well we can't get the share team we can't get the share there because of the feeling that will ultimately they've took as much out of the deal as they can when I could I challenged the chief exec on how does this work you know and you don't understand commercial really sensitivities all that kicking but it's a best-kept secret we get about 3 million quid a year yeah that's profit yeah you know so you know you run any business and say I'm gonna make three million pounds profit how much turnover would you need to attract three million pounds profit and that's the amount of money that it would you know we were running ourselves and that's what he tries to explain every time we have an AGM when he's doing the accounts that we count back in the outsourcing revenues and all those sorts of things three million pounds is quite a lot of money if you go buy how many shirts we sell it's a huge amount of money because it's not just shirts it's merchandise in the round is it enough no why is it not enough because our brand's on the up yeah and that the markets changed anyway on the back of the Premier League becoming more and more successful and that's where I think we've been stymied a bit with that 10-year deal so it needs to be a lot better than it is at the end of the day contracts when I do them in my day job or in the past when I've done them on my J-Dob the time it takes is 9 to 12 months so we're not talking already to either fanatics to try and make the deal more flexible for us and generate more income or indeed to consult with potential competitors to them then we've got some work to do because we're a bit behind it you know and normal indications that you've dragged your feet a little bit when you extend things like this by a year or something which just means you've timed out yeah so hopefully we'll see the world you know becoming a better place because we'll get more money yeah I say have to buy yeah yeah and I've seen on the flip side as well as well I mean there's more there are more stores getting the jersey certainly in America I've seen a few more places but I've actually I had you listening I was listening to the podcast and you were talking to New York and it's up at 90 and it's actually was that the one that was talking about it but it's actually got like six stores in in New York it's a massive it's a massive like football shop I've spoke to the owners before and they've actually told me that it the price they were getting us to buy in just wasn't worth it they could have bought it beforehand but it's just the price but you have to feel them now because of Wayne Rooney they feel his value as a premium because it I mean they sell I think they sell it at $90 whereas fanatics are selling it for $75 which is about I think it was 57 pound so they they looking at $90 and thinking we would rain Wayne Rooney on the back it's suddenly worth and where are they buying them from from home bro they're buying them from I think they still buying them from kit bag or fanatics it's just that this is what I mean this I've done a bit of research in the past about this and and that was always the biggest problem it was the biggest problem was wasn't that you couldn't get this year to just walk it back by asking for this year's it wasn't worth keeping keeping them in stock because it wasn't worth the name wasn't big enough well that's an example then of perhaps how the deals constructed in the sense that you know presumably umbro sell wholesale prices to kit bag fanatics they then sell them for retail if they then send them selling them to other retailers then they've already bedded in their retail profit and then it's profit on profit yeah and if you do it slightly differently and you license the imagery and so on therefore someone's buying the license which is the point Paul would make and then you'll let anyone sell it was prepared to pay the license yeah which is what the likes of man United but the likes of sports direct will do that if you go into sports direct you'll see evidence crest on anything basically exactly but that leads me on to me next point because obviously it's preseason time some we're talking about exposure but some are brand building do ever have to get better at doing this now this preseason is it's a it's not really you can't really talk about this preseason because it's a very short one it's all gear that do the aerobally but then we have to be better at going on these tours because I always felt sailing on the mues we were very reluctant to get involved in those tours because it took away from the football but we're seeing this week Tom and man United Liverpool over in Singapore Arsenal being in China and Australia do we have to start committing ourselves to go into these countries sailing I think America and I know a few is now that I go on about it a lot but I think that's where the market is you know we did a show a few weeks ago where we talk about wrongly the car could be in on the Chelsea pitch but our first question was why is there a Chelsea pitch in LA why isn't there an Everton pitch in LA somewhere you know these stores will start taking our shirts if we're a more visible brand with because those teams sailing above us at the moment are huge I mean I was in the States you know in June and I seen those six teams above us in all different kinds of sport shops whether it be in the night stores whether just being general sports stores whether being soccer stores but I never seen Evan in any of them when I was there but everyone above us was there but they have always seemed to have a visibility in America yeah I who knows I just don't know why but two questions there isn't it we'll talk about the preseason stuff in a moment I just don't know why we don't have the presence that I have to believe is because we don't push it hard yeah I just have to yeah you know I can understand Manchester United Worldwide brand blah blah blah yeah maybe even that other shower yeah from across the way for historical reasons Man City knew they've won the Premier League at Tottenham okay well they got going for them that we haven't other than they're based in London and yeah so if they have higher profile than we and I guess your suggestion from a reason holiday that it's much higher yeah then we're not doing it properly only and that requires investment and time and effort and so on you know and we do lots of great community work yeah and again we talked about this on the podcast don't we about you know the Tanzania thing yeah it was almost never in the community type thing rather than ever football club thing and we do have to be a bit brash I guess and a bit bold and a bit commercial and say to the manager I guess we're going here as it generates lots of money you talk about Moise I mean the ICC when it was in the States you know in Martin as his first Moise organized yeah with brother yeah but that was because something that someone dropped out yeah it was Galatasar like that's right so someone drops out all ports in the storm and I was actually in Bill's office talking to Bill when the call come through and Bill said yeah go for it yeah sort of thing and we did great yeah on that tour yeah because when we're there on the pitch if you like we do great stuff yeah you know everybody in Miami and what have you because I was East Coast side they knew we were there yeah they knew so we just need to be proactive we really really do and we should be looking at which markets do we think are going to be those markets particularly we listen to scooter more at Premier League and stuff like that work because the income is going to come for the Premier League from foreign TV rights as much as the UK or England and just target those places try and get ahead of the curve you know but the states are so huge yeah there's plenty to go around yeah if Africa is going to be huge then hit Africa far East sounds like it's tied up by others yeah but far East also comes with it this way you get back to is this the most appropriate brand on the front you know a betting company that's quite small and things like that so you've got to look at the markets it becomes circular yeah you do the right things your brand increases in awareness therefore you and so on and spiral up I think Tottenham perhaps just riding on the coattails of that yeah moments because sky keeps talking about the top six when they're talking about the top seven and that will help as well but we just need to do more do we need to I mean because a lot of teams now are going not only preseason but postseason talk is it about visibility because I think it is above visibility I think sailing in America we've already got loads of fans in America and they'll go come but we I've some clubs have got obviously the likes of Liverpool and stuff they'll go to a city and you know or even if it's just a little small thing you know they take some X players over fans will turn up in mass I think we need there's a club to go somewhere so all our fans can turn up in mass because we seem to have a lot but they're all dotted around the whole country for me I'd like to see evidence every summer or certainly every other summer go to America at least once take the the ladies team take the under 23s team take evidence in the community and really hit a city for a week and make a huge deal out of it and get the commercial aspect but the community aspect the ladies team and the youngsters obviously make a big thing of it so everyone has to hone in on it for a week and we're not just there when it's not just a quick in and out you know coaching sessions and really and it's insane if it's in one of these cities as well that are a big football city say Seattle which is a huge football city some of that gives a good obsession with Seattle never even been to Seattle it doesn't matter though it's a big football city yeah yeah you know one of the you know Kansas or one of these real football hotbeds blitz it blitz it for a week get all coverage out of it you know get people like Wayne Rooney get other other top players you know in the doing a little bit of coaching even if it's just for the TV and really have a go so that people start to see and leave a legacy as well you'll leave a pitch like Chelsea left the pitch in LA leave something behind so that people go there and go lose that you know and and I mean page that's what I love to say I don't understand why that hasn't happened what I'd like to think and you know again if you've been listening to podcast we keep banging on about chief engagement officer yeah definitely and that's not communications guy that's not a guy just talks to the media that's a guy who lives and breathes the brand he'd be the one do what you just I could do this to honestly put myself forward but he do that at board level we've got to do this yeah you know because I'd like to think that I mean clearly we're sure he doesn't sit at board he's not even a member of the white I've said on the party doesn't qualify you know he's not born not manufactured blue is it so but yeah that the person who has that passion to say we can do this now part of the answer to your question is why aren't we in the Far East doing these little mini tournaments because we don't get invited yeah why don't we get invited because we don't have the profile why don't we have the profile because we don't do stuff so let's force people to recognize this brand it's a bit cheesy or a bit too commercialized it brand but fundamentally people have to want to see now at the moment this guy will make people want to see us just because of who he is 15 million followers on Twitter he puts something on Twitter 15 million people see ever put something on Twitter 1 million people see it yeah that's 20% increase because we sound way really probably so that is something we really really need to exploit and you only get one crack at this you know and and the machinery said it and people keep repeating it and the reason they keep repeating it is because he was right we have a small window of opportunity yeah and you know that was in January it's now what July seven months later I'd love to believe that there's people in rooms having meetings planning to make sure that we exploit all the opportunities in front of us but then the little thing on the shoulder goes yeah but if that was happening we wouldn't have messed the streams up yeah that's what I was gonna say and this sort of as well this will come to me my last point I suppose they've done okay since Ruining I don't think they've done brainly they've done well at some things like and these are silly things that the reveals were great the reveals have been great but things like things like when he scored goals right they've got the videos out there straight away on on you they're not very good on YouTube honestly believe me they're not very good they don't use YouTube at all I don't understand why they used they love Facebook ever and they do it really well but because they haven't got good numbers on YouTube they don't use it which again to me just silly if you haven't got good numbers on it then try and get good numbers this one we haven't got good great great numbers but we keep trying you know there's guys out there who can tell you how to get great exactly and we get old all the time and our numbers keep growing but they've been getting the videos out there so that they've been getting pushed around social networks left right in center all these big accounts then start using that video because it's the proper video it gets the band around there and people keep seeing they keep seeing the kids keep seeing the sponsor they keep seeing who makes the kids it all helps so from that point of view I think they've done well but like you said the streams and I listened to the podcast for three games for all three for for anybody to have any kind of trouble that's not good enough and news made a really good point saying have they underestimated I think that's exactly what they did it must have done I've had a private you know a DM conversation where a guy knows this stuff and he said to me that the service provider who provides it ripple effect or whatever yeah yeah yeah yeah okay yeah but but they provide the same service to man United for ten times the volume yeah so they clearly have the technical competence to allow 30,000 of us all to turn up five months before kickoff and get through but like anyone knows if you buy a service they say right Sky Sports you know yeah what channels do you want yeah you can't say I want these three channels then complain you don't get the fourth one yeah so we must have given them an indication of what to expect and yet we fired out an email you know in the afternoon to every presumably I go on yeah so every single season ticket holder said don't forget you can watch this game so we tried yeah that's a lesson learned and I'm sure you know there's been some harsh conversations about it but we can't allow that to become the norm and therefore you know in my day job you know we do what would be a measured over reaction which means we think 50,000 are going to turn up size it for 100 yeah you know because you can't afford to have that tripping over yourself and don't run out of shirts yeah have them available yeah you know programs whatever it's all got to be there and go back to your Seattle question that you know Leicester and Liverpool and Tottenham and all those guys city they will all been paid to go to those yeah of course yeah maybe we have to pay first yeah and if we're gonna pay like let's totally blitz our brand and once we've got a presence then they'll come to us yeah yeah so it's like the joke isn't it you know for the stadium on the banks of the Royal Blue Mercy you know build it and they will come yeah you know we have all these debates about whether it should be 50 or so it'll be full yeah don't underestimate this brand just don't underestimate it the potential is pretty much unlimited because we're coming from a low base and now we've got momentum let's just maintain it start puffing our chest out when we say this all the time we don't we don't do that enough just puff your chest out and start telling people you're here you know because there's been other things that we'll talk about on on our conversation with Fad Mishiri make sure to check that out if you haven't listened already John does the podcast ever and business matters with the Esk and Roger it's very very good but if anyone wants to listen to delve into the business side of Evan it's absolutely perfect just to listen to John and the Esk have a little little argument we don't always agree no not always but shouldn't have to thanks for watching toffee TV we will see you later