Tradition, but not just for tradition's sake

Debate rages between the modernisers and traditionalists in football. There are those who are willing to rebrand their clubs in an effort to secure extra commercial benefits - whether that is through a change in the kit of a club (as in the case of Cardiff City) or a change in the clubs name (as in the case of Hull City/ Tigers). In both of these cases, the new owners of these clubs claim the rebranding helps them to secure greater access to lucrative Asian sponsors and fans. But fans responded furiously, upset that their clubs' histories and traditions were bring cruelly discarded and that they, as die hard fans, deserved to have their voices heard and that these traditions deserve to be protected in their own right too (as in a leading editorial in this Saturday's Times). And not to say that they are wrong in voicing this opinion, but it would seem to be that this argument is like a red rag to a bull and that it would be better to place their argument in commercial terms. Their argument could be that, just as with the success of luxury European brands in Asia, so can these teams build successful brands based on an image of tradition and history. The new branding can always be integrated sympathetically over time through away kits and nicknames, marketing and mascots.

But as with Cardiff's new kit, I suspect that the drive for rebranding will win through, as commercial priorities force smaller clubs to be more bold in their changes than the larger clubs, just as young professional rugby clubs all started adopting new names to compete with the likes of Leicester Tigers and London Wasps, or how IPL teams adopted solar branded names, along the US sports model. In an increasingly crowded sports market place internationally, the drive to adopt successful practices from other sports will almost certainly continue...