The people of the City of Kingston upon Hull, in East Yorkshire are a forward looking lot, they are currently in the process of bidding for the UK's City of Culture, the City has hosted Rugby World Cup matches and bid to be a host city in England's recent failed effort to host the 2018 World Cup Finals, but none look to the future more than the fans of Hull City AFC. The fans of this famous old Northern Association Football Club are in a battle over re-branding with the club's 74 year old owner Assem Allam after he announced that he is going to rename the club Hull Tigers!
On the face of it, it seems like a way to increase revenue streams from overseas markets with a shorter punchier name. However, it appears to be more of a personal vendetta against Hull City Council. Mr Alam's reasons for the re-brand is all a way of removing the word City which he associates with the City Council rather than an exercise in revenue generation.
Shortly after Allam saved the club, he attempted to buy the Freehold on the Kingston Communication Stadium that the Council hold as the owners of the Stadium. The City Council built the KC Stadium with public funds for approximately £43 million in 2002 after selling stock from the successful Kingston Communications company.
However, speculation is rife that his offer fell well short of the Council's valuation of the Stadium. The Council rejected the offer expecting Mr Allam to come back with a much improved offer but he severed ties to the Council claiming he would build his own new stadium on the outskirts of town at Melton. It is suspected that this would lead to the Council rethinking the original low ball offer as it would leave them with a White Elephant stadium with one tenant in the Rugby league side Hull FC who have never filled the KC Stadium to capacity.
However, the Council did not come back to the table. After the Council didn't come back Mr Allam's bluff was called on his intention of building another stadium which would have cost as much if not more than the KC Stadium's original build price. This left Hull City AFC in a situation where they cannot generate revenue because it has no collateral.
Since severing ties with the Council, Allam has called the word City lousy and common, despite going on record as saying:
“People ask me where I'm based, I would say I'm in Hull and everyone would automatically say 'Where is Hull?' When Hull was promoted, nobody said 'Where is Hull?' They would instead say Hull City.”
He has said in the media that he thinks that other City teams will follow the example of Hull Tigers and drop the City suffix giving the example that teams such as Manchester City would could become Manchester Hunter.
The basis of his idea for shortening the name is from an article in the Journal of Financial Economics, and later mentioned in the Harvard Business Review, which talks about the punchiness of shorter business names in the Global market pertaining to stock portfolio investor behaviour and human choice dynamics of publicly traded stocks.
However, it has absolutely nothing to do with global recognition and brand dynamics, and that any link to sporting world is just not there in the article that has given him the seed of an idea.
Every independent expert says that shortening the name is no guarantee of increasing revenue. Indeed, it is on-field success that has sparked the rise of Manchester United as a Global Brand just as the Premier League was started and rolled out to the world's television audiences. The same can be said for the other superpowers of World Football, the Chelseas, the Arsenals and company… they all have large worldwide fan bases due to on field success not short punchy names.
The “City Til We Die” group made up of a number of different fan groups held a cordial meeting with Mr Allam two weeks ago which was felt to have been a success. However, guarantees that market research would be carried out before any changes would be made to the Club's name have all been thrown out by Mr Allam a mere ten days later.
In recent interviews when asked about the claim that he would carry out a study to see if his re-branding would increase revenue to the club he stated:
“No one on Earth is allowed to question how I do my business, No one on Earth. Let's kill this point. I know how to run my business. Nobody will question this or that.”
He also claims that less than a few hundred of banner waving loud shouting fans won't dictate what is best for the Hull Tigers. Yet, despite this claim a recent petition to stop the re-branding was signed by almost 25% of Hull City fans not a very vocal 1% as Mr Allam claims. Other polls have shown that almost 90% of fans dislike the re-naming but many are just apathetic to it but don't particularly like it either.
What is interesting though is that despite Mr Allam's claims that the club is already called Hull City Tigers and he seems to be totally unaware that it is the business name that is registered at Company House and although he also claims that the Club has always been called Hull City Tigers during all its 109yr history this is also incorrect. The Company name Hull City Tigers has only been around since 2002.
During all this rants in the media claiming that the club is Hull City Tigers, the Football Association have been very quiet about the whole affair. However, it is up to the Football Association to allow the change in a Club's name and one that they will give serious thought too.
No club has ever changed their name before voluntarily. That is not without folding first and then re-emerging as a slightly different name such as Leeds City becoming Leeds United in the 1920s.
As it is many fans feel that the Club's name is just a more desperate ploy to get fans to pressure the City Council to agree to Mr Allam's plans to buy the KC's freehold for peanuts.
