 Welcome to Toffy TV, Everton have announced a multi-year extension of their partnership with FFANATICS, the company who bought kitbag, if you don't know, we went down to the Royal Live of Buildings, Everton's headquarters where Baz spoke to Sasha, Ryansef from Everton and Danny Downs from FFANATICS. We are here at the Royal Live of Buildings, I am joined by Sasha Ryansef, Sasha, please to meet you, and this is Danny Downs from FFANATIC, please to meet you, Dan. We are here to discuss a new deal that Everton have signed or an extension to the current deal, Danny, just tell us a little bit about the relationship between Everton and FFANATICS. I think Everton fans will remember the old kitbag deal which was retail, e-commerce and merch. We have extended that deal through FFANATICS which is now the owner of what used to be kitbag and we have been able to deliver something that is an enhanced deal to the club. And what we are really confident is going to be an enhanced service to the fans as well. Sasha, how important was it for Everton to continue the relationship with the company that they trust? Well, as Danny just said, it is an enhanced deal for us. FFANATICS are a much bigger business than they used to be. They are a truly global business and I think the importance of it for us is to expand into different geographies to ensure that all of our fans are well served wherever they are based, whether they are in Liverpool, London or Coil Olympa. And therefore we felt that was exactly the right deal for us to extend. It also takes us to the new stadium in Bramleymore Dock and we are working very closely with FFANATICS in terms of the design and the fit-out of the retail space in the new stadium as and when it comes about. And overall we are looking forward to a long-standing relationship. Danny, about this store at the new stadium is it going to be a bigger and better thing than Evertonians have possibly seen before? Absolutely. I think it's fair to say we've done what we can with Goodison, with the constraints and the footprint that's available. What we really like about Bramleymore Dock is that it's a stadium that's going to be fitting of the club, its history. It's a stadium that the club deserves. What we need to do is we need to deliver a store and an experience that the stadium and the fans deserve. So we think they're going to get the best match they experience. Hopefully they're going to get the best on pitch. But actually when they come into the store we're going to deliver something that not only Everton fans haven't seen before but fans anywhere else have seen before either. I suppose a lot of fans will be asking the question in terms of maybe Danny can answer but I'll ask it to Sasha first anyway. In terms of being able to get kids in other places other than the local area. I know that you can buy them online at the moment but we get a lot of feedback for what we do with people saying it's difficult to get older this year. So has that been important as well in the decision to extend the deal? I think it is very important. It's pretty much part of being a family, an Everton family for us. It pains us to see if a fan can't get hold of a shirt in say Australia to pick up a geography. That's where I think it's such a good fit for fanatics because whilst they're a global business they're also local in terms of their distribution networks and therefore they will be able to serve our customers better. I think Danny will explain it in more detail perhaps in terms of the vertical integration and the model that we have. But to briefly touch upon that we are enhancing the deal both in terms of the value but also in terms of the services that we can possibly get out of fanatics and therefore we very much hope that we won't get any problems or any issues with distribution and the availability of kids and other merchandise going forward. Excellent, Dan do you want to give us a little bit more background then on to how that's achieved? I think if I hear you right there are two challenges that you regularly get and that we regularly get. One is Everton fans here in nationwide and then there's Everton fans around the world so whether those are fan clubs in North America or Australia or even further parts of the world. Fans here by and large have been served traditionally as you know through Everton One, Everton Two and Everton Direct. What we can do is we can strategically partner with distribution networks whether that's our own distributors into stores or whether just having a shoulder to shoulder relationship with somebody like a JD Sports and get it through there and have them deliver the product nationally. It's becoming more strategically important for us to be aware of who else is out there in the market and how they serve fans because we have such a broad network of rights and partnerships and everybody wants access to that so we need to figure out how we do it. In terms of fans globally we are investing pretty heavily in a distribution network which has distribution centres across North America. We're going to open a second distribution centre in mainland Europe. We've got a distribution centre in Hong Kong. We're going to open one in Shanghai or just outside Shanghai in Shenzhen and then we've got a couple of distribution centres in Japan and that's just before the year is out. What we're going to do is then embellish that with really strong carrier management relationships so that fans wherever they are can get access to products more conveniently, more cheaply and more readily. For people who might know how big fanatics this is, this isn't just because people will automatically I suppose think it's kicked back under a different name but it's much bigger as you've just said but it's much bigger than that now isn't it? It's evolved. Fanatics is a two and a half billion dollar business so it's the largest retailer of licensed sports gear so if you just think sports fan gear we sell more of it than anybody else in the world and so that is now the home of what was kicked back and the reason why we were so attractive to fanatics and why we've become so important is because they want to become a global business. All of the brands and clubs that we deal with, they want a global footprint, it's why they tour the world, it's why the NFL plays games here. They want to connect with fans in not just their home continent but in the two other major continents depending on where you are. So are we and so what we're trying to do is give everybody an out of the box solution which says it doesn't matter where our fans are they'll get the same level of service. Fantastic and Sasha, one of the strap line I show on when you've done the Everton Business Matters podcast was to do smarter deals. Does this represent a smarter deal for Everton Football Club? I very much hope so yes and as I say it's a different deal from what we had before, it's enhanced and it takes us to the global audiences that we may not have been able to access before. It's enhanced in terms of value as well and it takes us on a long term path towards the new stadium so it also fits together and yes I think it is smart but who am I to judge? Well there you go that's it, thank you very much Danny for your time and thanks very much Sasha for your time. Diolch i'r afi, Baz talking to the big haters at Everton and at Fanatics. Looks like a good deal doesn't it on the surface. We had Kid Bag for ten years then it was like eight years and then it became Fanatics and we signed an extension obviously. If you'd asked me a couple of years ago Baz about Chewie Sarah but with Fanatics I would have just said no. I would have pulled the plug after five years but we carried on with them and I'm thinking we might have just reaped the rewards of it or might be reaping the rewards of it because this company are huge and when we sat down with them and have a little chat with them privately the ideas behind the business are really interesting and really compelling. Yeah and you're absolutely right the Kid Bag thing was although it was innovative at the time it wasn't a great deal there was numerous problems you know and it just wasn't very good at all really to say the least on people but we're quite angry over it weren't there, some of the stuff that went on and you're right if you'd have said to me a couple of years ago what would you say? We stayed with the easy but they've been saying no get out as quickly as you can and get something new but since then obviously Fanatics have bought Kid Bag out. Fanatics I didn't realise how big they were until a few months ago and you should have seen and I had a look into them and this is a billion pound company throughout the world it supplies NFL, MLB, NHL, all of that. FBI, MLS, Formula One, England so you go through Real Madrid behind the supply show it was really interesting when we were asking about things like how easy is it going to be for Evertonians to get kids because... Well that's the top and bottom of it isn't it? That's it, that's all people care about it. At the end of the day I smash and Sasha Ryan said kind of indicated this that it's a better deal than it was so therefore it's gone up so that's good, monetary value's good but it's ease of product. Can people get it where they need to get it? That's all that matters isn't it? At the end of the day we can sit here and talk about all this deal and that deal but all people bottom line is can most people think can I get my kids a kid four weeks before Christmas when you've had that run of early on run? That's all people care about isn't it? Can I get them when the kids come out and they sell out quickly and it's like not getting a shock? Not getting them in for six weeks. That's all people care about, forget about the numbers forever that's all people care about and speaking to them they basically said to us now with the way the fanatics are doing things they should never run out of kids and we'll hold them to that. We will hold them to that because they said they supply chain the way they do things the way that they do a lot of things in house they were talking to us about the deal they just signed with NFL where there's essentially it's NFL signed to deal with Nike and they basically make all the kit and then you know for Nike so they should never run out of kit. So Nike just put the tick on? Well I imagine Nike designing and then fanatics go and make it. They said they've got a big factory in Tampa so they're two hours away in America but they said they've got manufacturing abilities in the UK and Europe, the Far East. So what that should mean is hopefully fingers crossed people live in Australia, people live in the Far East, people live in America shouldn't now have to worry about. And again we'll hold them to this as well shouldn't have to worry about ever being overcharged for a kit, ever worrying about shipping. If you buy from EvertonDirect.com it should come from America, not coming from the UK. And that's not only an issue with the prices because I've seen how much it is to get the shades on the stage. That's things like if you buy a shade and you get it it doesn't fit you. Being able to change. And now you have to send it all the way back to England. So I'm hoping number one that means it'll be easy to get online so a lot of Evertonians will buy directly from the club because they think it's going to help the club. But also if the cheaper to manufacture and cheaper to ship in places like America the more stores in America will take it on. Because I think that's been one of the big problems as well because I think there's this idea that other shops couldn't sell it. They could in the last few years and we've seen that in the UK, JD and a lot of airport places. But in America there's only a few select places that will sell it because it's so high. So places like up and 90 I think in New York would sell it because it's a shop that I think they've got five or six shops in New York. But it's like 95 to 100 dollars and then once you get the name on the back that puts people off buying them so we can bring that price down a little bit. So that somebody walking to a shop and we've said this so many times who isn't an Evertonian and goes oh I like the look of that chair and just buys it. Cos that's what you want isn't it? That's what you want. Well you've just bought as far as I'm aware you're not a Cubs fan are you? So you've just bought another round with the Chicago Cubs by the way. That wasn't my point, your point was you've seen sort of your life and you bought it. So that you know when I'm through buying that I'm not saying you would do it but people in America might go that kit's great or the far east or Australia that kit's great and then what's the story behind them and you just don't know do you? But if you've got a place for a sharing country you used to say there isn't like I'm low or a Brazilian so I love a Charleston or I don't want an Everton kit. I'm not massively affiliated to them but while he's playing I want to jump on that and that helps. Another thing you would talk about as well is that these of which like almost like the throwaway fashion as well so if you go into Primarch whatever's flavoured in a month you'd probably be able to grab a t-shirt with that on now and it is that throwaway fashion. They were sort of something similar with that if you know we have let's hope some period of success or localised success in terms of someone scoring goals or whatever. They can do a run of stuff or commemorate something or whatever. It's just make sure and they can do it quickly. That's the big thing. The ability to bounce on it quickly, get it turned over and get it out, get it while it's hot kind of thing. And I suppose the big thing for me was the amount of times that they mentioned the new shop at Bramleymore. That was a big thing for me of how much of an impression they wanted to make with this new super store at Bramleymore. That will be a big thing. Deliverpools shop when you go past Amphil now looks really good. I suppose that was one of the first things they mentioned was you know when they were some multi-year we pressed them on it. They weren't sort of, it sounds like more like a rolling content in a way. But the fact that they spoke about the stadium means it's going to be at least you'd think five years. It's the minimum of this deal. And then there's not the shop. They say we want to build something for the shop. In other words I imagine they want like a flagship store huge shop that Evertonians is somewhere where Evertonians can go and there's lots of products and there's an ease to it to do things. And maybe there's other characteristics, you know you own a lot of the modern shops now and there's something very interactive about them. You know there'll be like huge video walls and things you can do and maybe I don't know maybe a little cafe in it as well. I imagine there'll be a lot of cafes around there anyway but you know maybe even an area where you can go and buy the latest NFL top or NBA top. So that's suddenly like it's not just an event experience and it's an all over fanatics experience. So I mean that's just that stuff isn't it. But that was getting mentioned all the time, the new stadium, new stadium, new stadium. So they were very excited about that and they were very excited about the whole deal. So it all sounds very promising and hopefully listen the bottom line as you can just get a kit. It comes it doesn't end up with a Man City tag on it or something like that. It's very individual to us because that was another thing they spoke about as well. Fanatics now have the capability to turn out a lot of their own merchandise for a club and make it license and deals. Something I spoke to them about was in America they have license and deals with Disney. So they have club merchandise with the likes of Marvel and Star Wars and Disney characters on which is great for the kids honestly. It's great for the kids. So there's those kind of things as well and hopefully as we go forward we'll start seeing more of that kind of thing. All of everything that helps and the ease of it is good and you know Sasha and I have said a few times about it's a better deal. You know you'd like to think that he's the money man, he's the man. One of the men in charge with getting better deals for having football club and you hope that as we go forward this plays out for you know to be a better deal for having. Obviously the proof will be in the pudding of course it will. But for some people who are probably thinking this is a safe option and this is kickback and all that. This is chalk and cheese to what kickback was compared to that deal that was signed ten years ago or ever. This is a totally different deal, it's a better deal and they're a much much bigger company than kickback ever way. So you've got to look at it that way but you're right, none of that matters really. The only thing that matters is that when people want to buy Everton there it's nice that they can get it and they can get it quickly. Let's not confuse this also with a kit deal. This is a whole thing but a kit deal I imagine will be coming later on so we don't know anything about that. The other thing as well is that they use the snike and stuff so we might give Everton a bridge if they chose to go with different wife and mum bro a bridge into those other big organisations as well. Yeah they've got good relationship with those companies. But wait and see, this one's a good one. I think you know Sasha was saying it's about getting smarter deals, better deals, smarter deals as we go forward. So there you have it, let us know your thoughts, hopefully there'll be no worries over kits. I'm still waiting for that new range of training kit, the short though. Still can't get them, you need to sort it out. I did ask them. Let us know your thoughts in the comments, we'll see you later.