Paul Barber – Chief Executive Officer, Vancouver Whitecaps FC
February 21, 2011
You have remained involved at Tottenham. Can you explain the decision taken to split theshirt sponsorship between domestic and European games?
I came off the Tottenham board back in the summer of last year, so I’m not directly involved with the club any more. I think Tottenham’s decision to split their jersey sponsorship was a good one commercially. To have the brand profile and support from two very big companies is also valuable, as it extends Tottenham’s brand across the world, grows its fanbase, and supports the club’s wider commercial objectives. It was a very smart thing to do.
If the finances worked out, would it be better for Spurs to have a single shirt sponsor for all competitions, or does it really not matter?
I don’t think it matters, actually. I think Tottenham are benefitting from having a partnership with two major international brands. It exposes the club to customers of those brands and to a wider international market twice over. Overall, Tottenham are benefitting not only financially, but also in terms of the marketing of their brand. Spurs are led by a very innovative and dynamic chairman in Daniel Levy, who is one of the best in the English Premier League. For him to use this opportunity to extend the Tottenham brand is part of the great thinking that goes on at Spurs and that is necessary for the club to compete at the highest levels year in, year out.
You are in a great position to judge how much UEFA Champions League football has developed Tottenham as an international brand. Is there greater awareness of the club now in Canada?
Yes, definitely. One of the big challenges for me at Tottenham was competing with those clubs that had already established a bigger international presence than Spurs. UEFA Champions League football makes a world of difference to the club and that has put them on to a new level within the game. To see live Champions League games broadcast into Canada is just fantastic, and it’s great to see Tottenham as part of that and finally being in the position they deserve to be in after many years of hard work by everyone at the club.
You also worked for the Football Association. How is working for a federation different to working for a club?
Football federations are, by definition, very political. They work through quite complex structures and hierarchies. They’ve got a lot of important governance work to do and a huge number of issues to deal with daily. Inevitably, they are slow moving and can seem to be ponderous. Clubs, on the other hand, tend to be faster moving and less hierarchical, therefore quicker to make decisions. It’s the same here in North America, as it is in the UK. We have very close working relationships with our football associations here in the province of British Columbia, at a national level in Canada, and with our league in the United States. They are great supporters of the game, but they also have their own structures and processes to work through, so it’s a very similar environment and we work together to deal with the challenges.
What can the European market learn from the USA, and vice versa?
I think the importance and the focus on the game is greater in Europe than it is in North America. The 90 minutes of action on the pitch is critical to fans in Europe. It’s what they go to the stadiums for. In North America, fans like the complete experience. They like the 90 minutes of football, but they also like to be entertained before, during, and after that game as well.
That said, there are a lot of customer service attributes in North America that could work well in Europe. I know that fans in Europe have been long concerned that they are not seen as customers, but simply as people that turn up to matches week in and week out, regardless of facilities and amenities that are provided. Here in North America, we place a much higher emphasis on customer service and that’s something that I think is a big positive for the game here, for Whitecaps FC, and for football as a whole.
You have been a non-executive director of English county cricket club Hampshire. Are there lessons you take from that sport to Canada?
Well, we already have cricket here in Vancouver, which surprised and delighted me, because it’s certainly my second favourite sport. I think North Americans would find it hard to believe that it’s possible for followers of cricket to sit through five days’ worth of action and still not have a result! That’s quite a different concept to what North American sport is all about. That said, cricket is one of those games that is fantastic once you understand it and appreciate some of the finer points. Whether cricket can grow in North America is highly debatable, but it’s certainly a great sport in many countries in the world, and I still love watching it.
Are there lessons that cricket can learn from football, and from the North American market?
Increasingly, as with all sports, I think marketing is critical. I’m biased, but I think highly-developed marketing and communications skills are now critical to anyone leading a professional club. The one thing I really appreciate and admire about all of the North American sports is the way they market their particular sport to their customers. Just the sheer effort that goes into presenting sport and the media coverage that supports sport here is pretty phenomenal. Hampshire’s chairman, Rod Bransgrove, has been a visionary in this regard, providing great facilities for fans and hiring great people to deliver an excellent match experience at The Rose Bowl. Yet, cricket generally could do with upping its game, in terms of match presentation and in terms of fan and customer service. There are some lessons there, for sure.
You have enough on your plate establishing soccer in Canada – could you ever see cricket taking off there?
In those areas of North America where there are large ex-patriot communities from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and of course the West Indies, cricket has great potential of growing. Here in Vancouver, where we are very multicultural, we are lucky enough to have a cricketing presence, which is fantastic.
Whether cricket can truly compete with the big North American sports in the way football is at present, is certainly more debatable. I doubt it, to be honest, but just the other day, I met an American here in Vancouver, who had lived in England for a while and got to know cricket. It’s now one of his favourite sports. I think that if you can understand the sport of cricket, then you can very easily become a fan.
How is working in the sports industry different to other industries you have experienced – eg banking?
I think the key difference is that a lot of sporting decisions are based on emotion, and it’s very easy to allow emotional reactions to overtake sensible decision-making. That’s one of the key challenges when you work in sport. You have to separate individual good and bad results and daily media hype – valuable as it is – from running the business. You’ve got to make sure that you run any professional sports club on sound commercial principles and disciplines, wherever you can. That’s difficult sometimes because emotions can and do run high on the back of good or bad results, and the media coverage and scrutiny is more intense than in other businesses, so there are certainly unique pressures to deal with – but it’s great fun!
What do you find most useful and interesting about the concept of iSportconnect?
iSportconnect is an extremely useful way of keeping up to date with the latest news from across the sports business world. The short, sharp electronic headline format makes it an easy, quick and valuable read.
Paul Barber’s 
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