A question for those who meet with club regularly on behalf of fans.

[General]

Do you have any information on why the club still charges fans for video content?

Do you know why they've persisted with this now we're in the premiership and a lot of highlights and games can be streamed more readily?

On a personal note, I also feel inclined to ask if you could express my disappointment also as a fan of circa 20 years at having this barrier to exclusive content in place and was wondering if you could bring up my annoyance/disapproval of this scheme and how it alienates me from the club and it's players at the next club/supporters trust meeting and give feedback. Hopefully productive feedback to which sees ideally this content become free to fans again.

I know this has been discussed before but it still severely annoys me and impedes my interest in the club.

[Lighthouse]

This comes under the STF rules that they all  have to abide by. 'Screw The Fans'

[aaronmcguigan]

But if it is exclusive content, why expect it to be free? It's not a barrier as much as having to pay for a shirt or having to pay for a ticket.
They can choose 2 avenues, making it all free and using the site content as advertisement and promotional material; or choosing a paywall and using it as revenue generation.

I don't see how it alienates fans given the majority of clubs do the same, but maybe there are other ways a club can connect with its fans other than through the medium of online content . Teams like Arsenal have a digital membership which includes the price of all online content into a current membership so maybe that's an avenue to go down, for example a discount on online content if you also have a membership.
And if the club grows the fulhamtv brand then maybe expand it into proper decent content with programs involving presenters, ex players etc ; funded by on screen advertising 👌🏻

Bit of a stretch, but money talks , and judging by the prices of kits, tickets etc; I doubt the club are prepared to drop any revenue stream for any reason

[Lighthouse]

But if it is exclusive content, why expect it to be free? It's not a barrier as much as having to pay for a shirt or having to pay for a ticket.
They can choose 2 avenues, making it all free and using the site content as advertisement and promotional material; or choosing a paywall and using it as revenue generation.

I don't see how it alienates fans given the majority of clubs do the same, but maybe there are other ways a club can connect with its fans other than through the medium of online content . Teams like Arsenal have a digital membership which includes the price of all online content into a current membership so maybe that's an avenue to go down, for example a discount on online content if you also have a membership.
And if the club grows the fulhamtv brand then maybe expand it into proper decent content with programs involving presenters, ex players etc ; funded by on screen advertising 👌🏻

Bit of a stretch, but money talks , and judging by the prices of kits, tickets etc; I doubt the club are prepared to drop any revenue stream for any reason

They make huge mark ups on shirts and stuff they sell which is fine. Ticket prices everywhere is out of control. But the content online is mostly communications trying to make the club look better and selling it to the fans. Talking to new signings or showing goals or training sessions are just adverts. In the long run it just becomes more noise that fans will end up not paying for.

[WhiteJC]

we are not "fans" we are customers

[General]

But if it is exclusive content, why expect it to be free? It's not a barrier as much as having to pay for a shirt or having to pay for a ticket.
They can choose 2 avenues, making it all free and using the site content as advertisement and promotional material; or choosing a paywall and using it as revenue generation.

I don't see how it alienates fans given the majority of clubs do the same, but maybe there are other ways a club can connect with its fans other than through the medium of online content . Teams like Arsenal have a digital membership which includes the price of all online content into a current membership so maybe that's an avenue to go down, for example a discount on online content if you also have a membership.
And if the club grows the fulhamtv brand then maybe expand it into proper decent content with programs involving presenters, ex players etc ; funded by on screen advertising 👌🏻

Bit of a stretch, but money talks , and judging by the prices of kits, tickets etc; I doubt the club are prepared to drop any revenue stream for any reason

I've bought two club shirts in my time.. wear them to matches until they wear thin and buy them accordingly.

I wouldn't have brought it up if financially I could justify the cost.

Tickets and watching games live are far more important and in my mind show eye are better value for money as you get the full match day experience and see the team play in person.

Dropping the revenue stream that didn't exist in the entire clubs history until a year or two ago.. where other clubs offer video content for free and where income has skyrocketed due to increased earnings from being in the premiership from TV revenue, Greater attendance figures from both home and away fans and an increase in prices of tickets/season tickets and matchday apparel or kits.

I think it's the only genuinely offensive and disrespectful thing the club do now to fans.

Over the years the lack of content and frustration around this has led me to feel undervalued by the club, gain interesting insights into the club and it's work and has more likely contributed to me being less engaged financially with the club.

The fee of however much a month has contributed to me feeling less part of the club and has acted to decrease the interaction I want to have to the club and subsequently had hindered my relationship with the club to being more active and engaged to less so and has acted in a way which to leave me less engaged with the club and therefore less inclined to buy tickets. Which is quite a big statement considering I had two season tickets got over 15 years and have such an active interest in this forum and trying to keep up to date with the goings on with the club.

Hate the fact new signings first interviews in particular are behind paywalls.. you'd think they'd want to leverage the interest gained by signing new players and at least make those free.

All in all I find it disgraceful to the point im asking if this can be mentioned  (again?) At a supporter/club meeting.

Don't see what's wrong with it being mentioned.. don't see why anyone would oppose it if it was brought up and especially if it meant the content became free!

[General]

we are not "fans" we are customers

Be wary of going down the infamous kodak route with that flawed logic.

If you really want to continue with that logic then I can sort that financially for you..

Currently a fulhamfctv subscription costs £4.49 or so a month.

4.49 x 12 = £53.88 per year.

The price of less than one ticket for however many games?

Maybe 1 and a half tickets for the least attractive games.

The lack of access to information as a fan and it being behind a paywall has at the very minimum contributed to my value of the club and influencing my purchasing of tickets.

I'd say a conservative estimate at the moment was that If I was more emotionally engaged with the club (a fan) and players then I would've attended another 5 or more home games last season.. and in half of those I would've bought half time snacks and at all of those games I would have bought a programme.

Programme - £3.50
Food and drink - £7

On food and drink alone the club would've almost made more off me than the cost of the prescription in those five games. Let alone adding the price of the ticket. Now double that, because I usually go with a friend or member of my family at the bare minimum.

So in being less valued and unable to maintain or build a relationship with the club or feel valued by the club just so they can bank £54 per year, from me alone they've lost the price of 5-10 ticket sales (and none of the games were sold out so it is lost revenue).. going to average that out at £30 per ticket.. if you think it's less then by all means say so.

So £30 x 5 - directly in ticket sales from one fan they've lost £150 on ticket sales. Indirectly closer to £300, just on tickets.

Add to that £15 per match on food and programme for two roughly- a conservative estimate

£15 x 5 - £75

So £375 lost from one/two fan for a scheme which they make  £54 per year from.

Explain the logic in that then financially?

Happy to explain the kodak business model and how it tanked if youd like.

On top of that, I've spent money on season tickets for 15 years, and the games will be easily streamable in the premiership along with full highlights to games on sky.

I want to maintain and keep the relationship to the club, hence why I'm bringing this up.

The reason why fans are important is that you need to create a product which appeals to people emotionally. Without that emotional connection to a club or being a fan the club isn't as well supported and loses revenue - after all the key is developing a product which appeals to fans.

This isn't a wholesale product.. it's am events business if anything and the product is as much as emotional attachment and idea over anything else.  FFC TV hinders that relationship building mechanism.  I've never supported fulham because they've the best team or constantly offer the best ticket prices.. but I do support them because until recently theyve been a club that values history, their fans, being a family club, a friendly club - everyone's second club and one which tries to play football the right way.

Understanding and building underlying relationships with those that respresent the club is key.

[valdeingruo]

I know that we are not in the same league (even though we are 😂) as Manchester City but they have an amazing YouTube channel. Lots of content, behind the scenes stuff, tunnel cams and more, most of which are 10 mins or more. If you go to our channel everything is around 2 mins or less and up until recently one of the first things you saw were two year old match recaps. I will say the quality and frequency of posts have gone up but even if we got half of what City does I'd be happy. If the club wants to expand it's fan base (which invariably all top flight clubs do) social media, YouTube in particular is a great way to do that.

[hovewhite]

This comes under the STF rules that they all  have to abide by. 'Screw The Fans'

correct!

[aaronmcguigan]

I agree, General, the question needs asked, but I can see the logic in charging for the content.
However, as Andersons11 pointed out, the content available in comparison to other teams is absolute garbage. It should be high quality material, behind the scene footage, competitions, tunnel cams, social media linked content between Facebook, twitter, instagram , whatever else.

the content provided doesn't make me want to pay for another month, doesnt make me feel closer to the club, doesn't make me want to purchase from the shop or the club sponsors therefore in its current state I don't see the purpose of it, but as others have alluded to; its potential of both connecting to the fan base as well as promoting the club in a natural and financial way via this media is huge and as of yet untapped

[General]

But if it is exclusive content, why expect it to be free? It's not a barrier as much as having to pay for a shirt or having to pay for a ticket.
They can choose 2 avenues, making it all free and using the site content as advertisement and promotional material; or choosing a paywall and using it as revenue generation.

I don't see how it alienates fans given the majority of clubs do the same, but maybe there are other ways a club can connect with its fans other than through the medium of online content . Teams like Arsenal have a digital membership which includes the price of all online content into a current membership so maybe that's an avenue to go down, for example a discount on online content if you also have a membership.
And if the club grows the fulhamtv brand then maybe expand it into proper decent content with programs involving presenters, ex players etc ; funded by on screen advertising 👌🏻

Bit of a stretch, but money talks , and judging by the prices of kits, tickets etc; I doubt the club are prepared to drop any revenue stream for any reason

'Exclusive content' ;- what rubbish.. that's just rephrasing it to make it sound more commercially valuable. The club was creating the same content for 'free' before charging a subscription. Plus it A) adds value to the brand to do and B) was and ready paid for by the club and as a result by fans who pay for their association with the club.

Charging an extra fee in a specialist way is simply a way to create a pathetic revenue stream on top of providing a product which it makes sense for them to do as a club anyway and which should and has been incoperated into any financial model we have.

Some clubs offer unique content just to collect details for marketing purposes - that's just as easy if not better way to drive revenue growth than this.. and the content isn't event that much/good. This month so far the only unique content is the first interviews of new signings.

It's ridiculous.

[General]

On top of all of this they're even attempting to hire a media content manager for the academy I assume to build more content.. so perhaps they're paying £20-£25,000 to someone straight out of university to do the job..

Just to cover that wage for the academy content at a salary of £20,000 you need around 340 subscriptions to break even... without taking into account extra support, equipment and another salaried person to do more work for senior team.. whilst that seems easy and you'd expect the number to be obtainable whilst I have an interest in the academy, if I'm being honest most people wouldn't have that significant an interest in the academy until the players start integrating into the first team setup.

[aaronmcguigan]

I only used the word "exclusive content" as that's how you phrased it. In house interviews with new signings, (where you will find similar interviews by sky etc online) and exclusive interviews with famous fans people haven't heard of isn't really exclusive content . Like I said , their content could be far better than the lack of effort at the moment. I see no difference between the content they offered when it was all free compared to now, and to be honest , you expect a minimum level of service when you pay for something I guess.

Either give the consumer value for money, or return it to free service. Either way, if offering a service, (free or otherwise) make it something the customer wants and something the provider can benefit from

[General]

Bump. To coincide with PR own goal post.

[hovewhite]

All of this comes up now we've got back to premier league.All of a sudden the club instead of giving something back are taking more and more.
Increases everywhere.
If you buy beer and food in the ground this year how much does it go up?
These guys that represent the fans!there young well paid (probably)
And it doesn't matter and don't think the club care either.
To a lot ot of clubs like Fulham in London you will get tourists that have loads of money.

[MJG]

It's been raised and will continue to be raised.
My own feeling is it will stay, they are happy with numbers but want to increase the content. Hence the moves to increase the team that work in the media.
As many know from from next week I'll not be on the board of FST anymore so you would need to contact them directly with specific points you or anyone else wants to raise on this subject.

[wheelerdeeler]

Personally think there should be a mix of free and premium content. For example having new signing/post-match interviews and short match highlights be free, but have full match highlights/full games, and other stuff behind a paywall. We probably don't have the resources to do it, but I'd love us to effectively copy what Man City do with their Youtube channel. Have a camera in the area before the tunnel before/during/after games (not sure our tunnel is big enough to do an effective "tunnel cam), do their "Inside City" stuff etc.

[nose returns]

we are not "fans" we are customers

en saying it makes it sad.we used to be fans or supporters of a club that is is what we were. but in many places you are correct you are a customer, or client. you do not go to the game, you have a match day experience. i like it best when the music and announcer are quieter and there is nothing but half time scores and highlits at half time. everything else pointless flud=ff that makes it worse

[Southcoastffc]

I must be the only person on here that is (a) happy to pay and (b) doesn't want any more content. I pay for it purely for the highlights, mostly from games Ive been to just to watch the key moments back. I also really like goal cam. Everything else is generally crap IMO. The player/coach interviews are predictable, meaningless clichés, usually in crap English. The behind the scenes stuff, like Neeskens' diary the other day, is pretty pointless because I get far, far more insight behind the scenes from the players' individual social media accounts. The club should just stick to the basics IMO: match footage and photos. Maybe some technical analysis, like players' pass completion stats etc. If they want to do more it should be candid, no holds barred, not scripted and sanitised like it seems now.

:plus one: Totally agree.  And while I understand why there is no commentary on the non-first team games, silence (or crowd/coaching noises) would be better than the inane muzak that accompanies them. 

[aaronmcguigan]

I must be the only person on here that is (a) happy to pay and (b) doesn't want any more content. I pay for it purely for the highlights, mostly from games Ive been to just to watch the key moments back. I also really like goal cam. Everything else is generally crap IMO. The player/coach interviews are predictable, meaningless clichés, usually in crap English. The behind the scenes stuff, like Neeskens' diary the other day, is pretty pointless because I get far, far more insight behind the scenes from the players' individual social media accounts. The club should just stick to the basics IMO: match footage and photos. Maybe some technical analysis, like players' pass completion stats etc. If they want to do more it should be candid, no holds barred, not scripted and sanitised like it seems now.

I think that's a decent balanced view. There are some happy to pay a fee to get the basics but i think if the club are actually using it as a way to connect to its fan base, or if it is advertising it as exclusive content, then it needs to up its game. You could follow all the players on instagram and you get far more insight into the club, it's players and player relationships . The content provided seems a bit too Americanised to use a bland generalistic term. its well polished, well rehearsed and very safe.

Showing me Neeskens diary behind a paywall while Neeskens posts it on instagram, is like a player filming the match and putting it on instagram while you've paid your subscription to watch it on sky sports