MANCHESTER UNITED’S COMMERCIAL Director Richard Arnold does not believe that the club’s troubles on the field will impact on the support the club has off it.
Arnold, who is responsible for the management and growth of the Manchester United’s sponsorship, retail, merchandising and new media businesses, was speaking at the 2014 web summit today.
The 41-year old outlined how United approach social media slowly, in an effort to ensure they fully understand it, but that approach has paid dividends with the club the most ‘liked’ and ‘followed’ sports team in the world with over 650 million fans.
However, instead of costing the club support, Arnold says that last season saw the club engage with it’s supporters more than ever.
“The primary aim is to be successful on the pitch. Everything we do on the pitch and off the pitch is aimed at that,” Arnold told a packed Sports Summit stage at the RDS.
“So the more successful I am off the pitch, the more successful we are at generating money and the more money we have ensures that we always have the best players on the pitch. Those two things go hand in hand.
“The flip side of that is that the drama of sport is part of what keeps it really exciting – for the first time in a long time we experienced a disappointing season last year – and, actually, what we saw was the engagement levels went off the chart in terms of our fans.
“The support, everything from the decibel levels in the stadium where we were measuring jet engine take off level noise at big games to social media.
“That stimulation of the uncertainty of sport, if you think about why do people watch soap operas – ‘what will happen next?’ – the hanging music and then the next episode.
“In sport, we’ve had 130 years of what will happen next, who will the big stars be and that uncertainty is what makes sport really exciting and that generates engagement off the pitch.”
