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tags: Football
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# Future Football: global challenge
In this document we propose a confidential strategy for developing an open innovation platfrom for sustainable manufacturing - using the example of Football as launch platform.

The Football industry is

> Today's global sports industry is worth between €350 billion and €450 billion ($480-$620 billion), according to a recent Kearney study of sports teams, leagues and federations. This includes infrastructure construction, sporting goods, licensed products and live sports events.

Football is known in many regions of the globe as “the world’s game” and its popularity in recent times has shown few signs of waning. Buoyed by an increasingly diverse array of participation at the grassroots level, and spurred forward at its highest professional ranks by bankrolling owners and lucrative media rights deals, this relatively simple, yet beautiful game has continued to excite and enthrall billions of people around the globe. Nonetheless, there are a number of challenges and opportunities facing the industry today that warrant further examination.

> In recent years, the sport of football, also known as football in North America, has managed to further entrench itself as “the world’s game.” Buoyed by an increasingly diverse array of participation at the grassroots level, and spurred forward at its highest professional ranks by bankrolling owners and lucrative media rights deals, this relatively simple, yet beautiful game has continued to excite and enthrall billions of people around the globe. Its premier tournament, the FIFA World Cup, has grown into the largest, single-event sporting competition in the world, with an estimated 3.2 billion people tuning in to watch the 64 matches that were played in Brazil during the summer of 2014 (FIFA, 2014a). The English Premier League (EPL), considered by many to be the most popular professional sports league in the world, recently agreed on a television deal that will distribute over $7.3 billion in revenues to its member clubs over the 2016-2017 to 2018-2019 seasons (Premier League, 2015b). The grassroots level, too, is experiencing growth, with nations that have been reluctant to football’s influence in the past now boasting some of the sport’s highest participation numbers (Johnson, 2015; King, 2014).

> In 2014, commercial sponsors partnering with the World Cup contributed $1.6 billion in revenues to FIFA, while broadcasting rights to the tournament fetched upwards of $2.4 billion. Adding in its other sources of income, FIFA raked in close to $5.7 billion in total revenues during the 2011-2014 budgeting cycle. This total set a new record of earnings and represented an increase of over 26% from the $4.2 billion that was accrued over the 2007-2010 period (FIFA, 2010, 2014b).

> FIFA also positions itself as a key player in the quest to provide everyone with the equal right to play. Having seen the ways in which the sport can overcome social, political, and economic barriers, FIFA founded the Women’s World Cup in 1991 and embarked on a recent “Say No to Racism” campaign in an effort to eliminate inequality and prejudice from the game. Ironically, the women’s game has taken off in past decades, particularly in nations such as China and the United States where the men’s game has been slower to catch on. As a result, the sport is now providing a platform for female athletes to showcase their skills and cultivate followings similar to those enjoyed by their male counterparts (Kim, 2015). For its part, FIFA earmarked around $200 million in its latest budgeting cycle for improvements in women’s football and other solidarity projects (FIFA, 2014b).

> Although the World Cup stands out as football’s premier event and dominates the sporting headlines once every four years, the various club systems that exist across the globe are what truly cultivate and carry the sport on an annual basis. According to global management consulting firm, A.T. Kearney, the worldwide revenues derived from the ticketing, media, and marketing efforts of professional football events amounted to a staggering $28 billion in 2011 (Zygband, Collignon, Sultan, Santander, & Valensi, 2011). To put this figure in perspective, the 2011 combined revenues of the four major North American sports of football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, along with the more global games of tennis, golf, and Formula 1 racing, totaled $32 billion (Zygband et al., 2011). The fact that football alone was able to generate just $4 billion less in annual income than a combination of the world’s remaining, popular sports speaks volumes to the level of affluence on which it operates. It also highlights the importance of the club game in supplying the demand that is regularly craved by consumers and corporations around the world.

> Nearly 79% ($22 billion) of football’s total revenues in 2011 were attributable to European club football, with Europe’s top five club leagues—the EPL (England), Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain), Ligue 1 (France), and Serie A (Italy)— accounting for nearly half of this sum.

> Nowhere was this trend more visible than in the record-breaking kit deals that Manchester United was able to obtain prior to the starts of the 2014 and 2015 seasons. The first of these was a $560 million kit- sponsorship agreement with American car manufacturer, Chevrolet, which saw the company’s chevron logo earn a prominent place across the front of Manchester United’s game-worn and replica jerseys (Baxter, 2014). “Chevrolet as a global brand is really trying to strengthen our position in a lot of emerging markets,” said Megan Stooke, Chevy’s director of global marketing. “When you look at the fan base of Manchester United, one of the world’s most popular sports brands, we saw a great alignment in those markets” (Baxter, 2014). The deal, which runs through the end of the 2020-2021 season, is not even the most rewarding portion of Manchester United’s kit. That honor belongs to apparel magnate Adidas and the 10-year, nearly $1.3 billion deal it agreed with United to be the official manufacturer of its kits through the 2024-2025 season (Bandenhausen, 2015). With these, United will rake in close to $200 million a year for allowing the Chevrolet logo to be emblazoned across its Adidas-supplied jerseys for the next several seasons. As seen in Table 1, many of Europe’s other top clubs also take advantage of exorbitant kit deals in order to bolster their finances.