New Everton matchday store opens on Saturday

About time! Criminal leaving retail space unused all this time. Just exactly how long was it closed for?

Might take some of the pressure off the main shop on match days which can only help.

I wondered why they closed it as a retail space a couple of years back.

We need to fuck Kitbag off, fuck Umbro off and do a deal with a big American firm like Under Armour, New Balance or Asics.

We need to take back the day-to-day running of our marketing and retail and start earning some decent funds.

We have had huge players at Everton from the States and we could easily blow up to be one of the biggest clubs Stateside with our history of American players. All that we need is a nice kit with a manufacturer that is known Stateside.

Umbro and Kitbag are a total joke. We are useless at marketing as a club anyway, we always have been. We have to make a change soon, it will be for the better.

We are useless at marketing as a club anyway, we always have been. We have to make a change soon, it will be for the better.

Good news, Anthony: they have already made that change... and it does look better. Something gleaned from the 2015 Accounts is a cunning restatement of last year's commercial activities that seems to have gone under the radar... Here are the different components of 2014 Turnover (from Note 2 of the Accounts):

Broadcasting: £88,465M became £84.756M
Gate receipts: £19.339M became £16,797M
Sponsorship, advertising and merchandising: stayed unchanged at £8.436M
Other commercial activities: £3.337M became £10.522M
Total Turnover (2014) stayed the same at £120.511M

Note: these are changes to 2014 numbers since last year's report... not the differences to 2015. But the changed categories now continue as a revised baseline for the 2015 numbers just published.

So, at a stroke, the much-maligned commercial effort improved threefold!!! Fantastic achievement, don't you think? Seems one of the tricks was to recategorize programme sales, which has now been dropped from Gate Receipts, and presumably added in to Commercial Activities.

The explanation?

"The Club has reviewed the turnover disclosure note and has amended the classification to ensure they represent a more accurate presentation of turnover. This review has led to the 2014 figures being restated accordingly."

So, no specific details... aka the Accountant's Shellgame...

Michael my biggest concern is with the merchandise side of things, hence the reference to Umbro and Kit Bag. Have you ever tried to buy a kit for a kid? If you have and you were able to get a full kit (and I mean a full kit, shirt. Shorts and socks, all at once and all in one transaction) then you are a lucky man. Each time I go for my two boys there’s always a reason why something is out of stock.

Also, putting the boys in Everton tracksuits etc means they are wearing some of the most naff Umbro items I’ve ever laid my eyes on. The shop is full of awful, cheaply made, over-priced items that even my kids do not want.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though Michael. As I’ve explained in my comments, we have owned Tim Howard for years, do we use him to gain a marketing edge in the states? I think not.

We owned Tim Cahill, did we use him to brand us out in Australia? Again, no we do not.

We had Le Tie, Landon Donovan, Joe-Max Moore, Kevin McBride... for me, a big opportunity wasted to exploit some huge countries where football is rapidly growing. We could have patterned a brand of TC4/17 for Tim's massive fan base in Australia, or a whole goalkeeper range for Howard (a national hero) Stateside.

These ideas alone could have catapulted us to becoming the team Americans and Australians chose to follow, increasing merchandise sales in countries that simply dwarf ours.

We may be on the up but for me we are slow to seize huge opportunities most of the time.

With regards to the quality of the club merchandise, I picked up the full goalie kit for a friend's daughter's birthday present (she’s a massive Tim Howard fan), and was charged (I think) £92 for the full kit. That’s with name, number, Premier League badges etc.

I thought it was a bit steep for something so flimsy and cheap. The girl in the shop also advised me to never, ever put it in a tumble drier!!

Haha exactly Mike, £92 for an Umbro top, shorts and socks set, have you ever heard anything so crazy? It’s an outrage, made in China, rubbish quality and the kids' kits look like pajamas, in fact my kids have pajamas I bought off a stall in town that look better than our kit.

Also a massive Tim Howard fan.... I’d guess there’s millions of them in the States who have always wanted to part with their hard-earned money for some Tim Howard soccer merchandise.

Anthony 5, to take advantage of those assets you named you need a bit of passion, interest and creativity, none of which exist amongst the Everton hierarchy. They are more than happy to sit back and count their pennies from the TV deal, gate money and the pittance they get from kitbag, Chang, Umbro etc..... Their motto must be "Laziness Pays".

To be fair to the shop in town, Anthony, I phoned up the day before and ordered it. When I got there, it was all ready waiting for me. Because of past experience with our merchandising, I made sure I opened the bag and checked everything was there, name was spelt correctly etc. Glad to say all was ship-shape.

Mike Galley (#6),

The tumble dryer comment is fair – it will crack and peel the print off the shirt in the tumble dryer, so that will be why. I never tumble dry my myriad of football shirts.

£92 for a full kit though is ridiculous.

Anthony (#3), Asics aren’t an American firm.

Anthony is right, there is a genuine opportunity here in the US to capitalize on BY FAR the most recognizable American MALE soccer star in this country. (Kinda sad that I have to clarify male... our women soccer team runs circles around the men. Funny, my high school was like that too.)

Yet I haven’t seen really any effort made by the club here at all. Like, at all. There are grassroots Everton fan clubs that promote and raise the profile but, without having Everton gear available at Dicks Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, Soccer Post, Sports Authority etc, it’ll never matter. The "yutes" of today all wear Chelsea and Man Utd or Real Madrid or Barca (buncha glory-hunters, these American 11-year-olds!) when I honestly believe that a good chunk of them would default to Everton to support our favorite 36-year-old goalkeeper. Or at least give us a chance.

NBC plays almost all of our matches live too, so we have that exposure. I’m not saying it would be easy, but it really seems like the opportunity is being lost. Tim Howard’s Everton career is probably this season and then next so running out of time. Maybe we can sign Gyasi Zardes when he leaves to keep the American faithful happy!

Gyasi Zardes Wikipedia Page

Tim Greeley 12;
Thanks for the insight state side my friend.

Colin Glassar 8;
Could not agree more.

Mike Galley 6&9;
Great news on our club store coming through for a blue at last.

Eric Miles 11;
Thanks for clearing that up, you touched on the most important aspect of the whole debate!