Foreword
Brand Finance NFL 2024
brandirectory.com/n 4
Laurence Newell
Managing Director,
Brand Finance Americas
What is the purpose of a strong brand: to attract customers, to build loyalty,
to motivate staff? All true, but for a commercial brand at least, the first answer
must always be ‘to make money’.
Huge investments are made in the design, launch, and ongoing promotion
of brands. Given their potential financial value, this makes sense. Unfortunately,
most organisations fail to go beyond that, missing huge opportunities to effectively
make use of what are often their most important assets. Monitoring of brand
performance should be the next step, but is often sporadic. Where it does take
place, it frequently lacks financial rigour and is heavily reliant on qualitative
measures, poorly understood by non-marketers.
As a result, marketing teams struggle to communicate the value of their work
and boards then underestimate the significance of their brands to the business.
Sceptical finance teams, unconvinced by what they perceive as marketing mumbo
jumbo, may fail to agree necessary investments. What marketing spend there is,
can end up poorly directed as marketers are left to operate with insufficient financial
guidance or accountability. The end result can be a slow but steady downward spiral
of poor communication, wasted resources, and a negative impact on the bottom line.
Brand Finance bridges the gap between marketing and finance. Our teams have
experience across a wide range of disciplines from market research and visual
identity, to tax and accounting. We understand the importance of design, advertising,
and marketing, but we also believe that the ultimate and overriding purpose of brands
is to make money. That is why we connect brands to the bottom line.
By valuing brands, we provide a mutually intelligible language for marketing and
finance teams. Marketers then have the ability to communicate the significance of
what they do, and boards can use the information to chart a course that maximises
profits. Without knowing the precise, financial value of an asset, how can you know
if you are maximising your returns? If you are intending to license a brand, how can
you know you are getting a fair price? If you are intending to sell, how do you know
what the right time is? How do you decide which brands to discontinue, whether to
rebrand and how to arrange your brand architecture? Brand Finance has conducted
thousands of brand and branded business valuations to help answer these questions.
Professional sports and football in particular fosters some of the most recognizable
brands globally. Top teams and organizations such as the the LA Lakers, the English
Premier League, Dallas Cowboys, and others boast brand strength similar to that of
Coca Cola and Google which truly puts their caliber into perspective. Many of these
top brands earn sizeable sums through broadcasting, commercial and matchday
income with a significant chunk of commercial income being derived from corporate
sponsorship, a market which continues to grow each year.
With such significant money on the table and the rise of new opportunities across
the industry, the necessity for a clear understanding of all aspects of football finance
is crucial to the success of all stakeholders in the industry. We trust you will find the
insights generated in this report informative and useful in your endeavours, and we
look forward to continuing the conversation with you in the future.
