THE TOP 50 BRAND INDEX
(Download the PDF)
I know many of you might not care about this, but I quite like these sort of listings, as even though we’ve been going through tough times in the last few seasons, we really are seen to be a big club when it comes to world rankings.
Consider last season, where we were ranked the 21st biggest club in the world, for instance.
That’s the WORLD.
Which is pretty impressive, if you consider we’d looked likely relegation candidates for a while.
Of course, much of that ranking came about purely because of our place in the Premier league, but we still came higher than many other Premier league clubs.
The brand loyalty must surely have had a lot to do with that, as we have a very good fan base, but that can only take you so far.
Which is why we’ve now fallen to 41st in the top 50.
That’s to be expected given that we’re not in the Premier league anymore and indeed only Newcastle are ranked higher if we’re looking at English clubs outside the Premier league.
I could debate if Newcastle are actually a bigger club than us, but it’s completely fair to say they get bigger attendances at home, which must equal more income.
But then I look at some of the clubs that have overtaken us and it makes me want to weep.
We look at the top 10 and it includes the usual top 6, of course.
Then there’s Everton at number 13, who are worth the best part of 2.5 times what we are according to the index.
If ever there’s a club that are pretty much on a par with us, I’d suggest it’s them, but regardless, that’s how it is.
Then we go a bit further down and West ham are rated at 14, followed by Leicester City, Southampton, Stoke City,
West Bromwich Albion, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Swansea City.
Really?
Which is the annoying part.
None of these clubs are on a par, in my opinion and except for perhaps Sunderland, none of them have a following as large as ours by a long chalk.
So ultimately, the brand loyalty stuff doesn’t matter so much and it’s all about the money.
Which is fair enough, as that’s all that matters these days.
Those lesser clubs are in the Prem and we aren’t, it’s as simple as that.
Still, the good news is we can easily jump up this table by twenty places.
All we need to do is get promoted.
Which all means Tony Xia’s purchase of Aston Villa could very well prove to be extremely prudent, especially if we can do it first time.
