Tom Hicks Surprisingly Out of Touch with His Team’s Fanbase
A futbol-following FrontBurnervian and I have been trading emails about how asinine Tom Hicks has been as a club (co-)owner. It’s one thing to interview a potential new hire as head coach. It’s quite another to make those discussions public, undermining your current coach and ticking off every supporter. Of course, unless some financial wizardry happens right quick, Hicks might not be around for the aftermath.
6 Comments to “Tom Hicks Surprisingly Out of Touch with His Team’s Fanbase”
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Hicks and Gillette don’t understand that UK football fans are totally different from your average North American sports fan. These guys are passionate about their teams. In Liverpool you’re either a Liverpool fan or you support that other team whose name shall not be spoken.
H&G had a real opportunity to get the fanbase on their side but they’ve blown it
Wow; I guess the same remarkable business acumen that has kept the Rangers so consistently bad and has gradually drug the Stars steadily down to mediocrity also works overseas. Hicks and Gilette are in over their heads at home and abroad when it comes to sports success.
He didn’t understand the business of soccer either. I think he and Gillette thought they could come in with borrowed money, make a few capital expenditures, build a new stadium and get out with a nice, fat profit. Like the Bush Consortium with the Rangers. However, a big club like Liverpool requires large expenditures ($50mil plus) every year to bring in new players. Furthermore, Hicks had grand designs on a US style stadium, full of club suites, yet Liverpool the city is like Cleveland of the 70s and 80s. There isn’t much commercial activity to pay for all those expensive suites.
Hicks and Gillette won’t own the team a year from now. They are piddling about with the proposed new stadium, which has received no outside support for funding. Without that source of “American-styled” revenue, it is not financially viable, and they will sell. There is already a buyer, Dubai Investment Corp, that will overpay and attempt to resurrect the scousers. As a hater of all things Liverpool, that saddens me, as they deserve each other. As a fourth grader, I do enjoy the abbreviation of the buyer as the owner of the club.
The Glazers never got the Man.Utd fan base on their side and have somehow survived so far. Until SAF retires and they plunge my beloved club to depths we haven’t seen since the 80’s.
I’m a bit surprised that a large scale stadium akin to the emirates would not work w/ the red scum but oh well. I hope they continue to implode from the owner on down to the youth team.
It’s a shame to waste such a nice stadium on the Gooners, but West London can clearly support such a place. A stadium like Emirates can’t work for the puds, as they still would have to build it in Liverpool. The locals would steal the construction site blind before it got off the ground. More likely, Hicks will spend just enough to open a new chip stand on the Kop end of the existing stadium. Take a page from Malcolm et al and spend a little money, Hicks. Just not enough to threaten ManU.