Andy O’Sullivan is a seasoned commercial venue executive. His current role seems him work with a number of internal teams and partners to deliver best in class Stadium Membership Sales, Event Day Operations & Service, the Event Day Fan Experience, In-Venue Catering, Third-Party Event Holder Commercial & Operational Plans and Non-Matchday Venue Hire Sales.
(NOTE: these are some excerpts of a longer interview we’ll publish in due course.)
“If you don’t have people really driving the message, you’re never going to get your message across. It can’t always be the one voice; it must be a shared vision and a shared approach.”
What does the idea of ‘soul’ mean to you in a top Premier League football club such as Tottenham Hotspur Football Club?
A football club has a soul. Soul can be generated from a couple of things; first there’s the history of the club, that has to form part of the soul of the club and you’ll have seen some of the work we did on weaving our history in to the design for the new stadium. Also, each time there’s a new leader at the top of a Club you have to create, or you have to have a culture that leader is looking for, a map has to reflect on the soul of the club at that particular time. So I think there’s two different ways, either derive one from the history since the founding of the club, and the second one is each time there’s a new owner the soul of the club can change a little because the owner might have new or different ideas.
When fans talk about ‘the soul of a football club is on the terraces’, well is it anymore? There’s now a leaning for fans to want to go back to standing. Many do not believe it is unsafe, but they do believe it creates a better atmosphere and that atmosphere forms part of the Club’s soul. If you take a Club like Barcelona, when they opened their current stadium it was the only place where they could speak Catalonian, so they would sing just that on the terraces. Does that represent the soul of a club?
How can sports venue leaders work with the idea of soul?
It’s about listening to and working with your fans as the soul of the club emanates from the terraces. We’re a very public business and they will very publicly tell you when you’re getting it wrong and as we live in a world of social media you only ever get told you’re getting it wrong! Of course, if there are no fans on the terraces, the game becomes soulless. TV companies won’t want to feature the game as much as they do, and it loses its magic for the fans. With no TV exposure, you have no need for partnerships or sponsorships. The soul of a club is therefore primarily in the fanbase.
What are the main challenges we face today/tomorrow in keeping the soul of a club alive?
Society is such now that everyone wants things in an instant. People don’t just want instant feedback they also want instant access. As we move forward, clubs will have to continue to improve content and communications with their fan base. I think there is an expectation for clubs to be more transparent, the generations of Gen Z and Millennials are truly the generation of truth. There is a tendency to believe many things they read on social media or Wikipedia. My daughter’s a big social media user, I think I told you she she’s done an Instagram page for our dog that has five and a half thousand followers!
You’re seeing players and club officials and leading officials being ridiculed online and there just doesn’t seem to be any control. I think that if that continues then there’s a chance that the operatives at the club and the key players will tend to become more distant from fans and there is a real danger of losing the soul of the club. You’re in danger of the players becoming out of reach.
Our traditional alliance to a single club is weakening. One of our premium customers brought his son to a Spurs game in full head-to-toe Lionel Messi Kit – Barcelona. I said he’s clearly a keen football fan. His dad said ‘No, he’s a Lionel Messi fan’. He was eight years of age. This is how things are changing.
How about people who work for the club, the soul in the working culture?
If you’re not passionate about what you do, work is hard. If someone’s passionate, that means you train on attitude rather than aptitude. You can teach them what they need to be taught if they have that underlying passion. Most of the people that I’ve worked with within this industry, have an incredible passion for sport, it really does help to have this.
We’re now doing a management training course that’s being delivered to get some consistency at management level, instill our core values and we’re now trying to become more aligned with the overall club vision.
I think there’s some challenge with the next generation because they’re not jobs for life people. They’re not interested in that. My take on what we’ve achieved in the past two years is sensational given everything we’ve been through in that period. I can’t be prouder of the team I work with who are really trying to push this vision forward. If you don’t have people really driving the message, you’re never going to get your message across. It can’t always be the one voice; it must be a shared vision and a shared approach – and I think they’ve done incredibly well.
We’ve certainly got to a point where everyone now talks about #SpursWay. I’m pleased with what we’ve been able to achieve and I think the true test is getting people back inside of the Stadium. I’ve every confidence that as we come back to live crowds, the culture, and those beliefs we embedded, that behavior won’t have changed. It won’t have changed because even in this down period, we remain engaged with our audience, we show we care and if we can show them that we care, ultimately, they will care as well.
This interview is one of 60 I’ve completed this year with a mix of past customers and other leading industry figures. Do connect with me on Linked In or get in touch via our website if you’d like to know more about the research findings and/or explore how to drive your business forward…with soul.
You can book me to speak personally at an event or meeting, online or (circumstances allowing) face to face.