Pre-season is a weird time for football fans. It’s this massive run-up where not a lot happens and everything happens. The players return to training and the clubs use that for content on their social media channels. New kits are launched (even though they should be released every two years like Brentford do; well done Brentford, that is sensible), new players are signed and paraded, new managers are unveiled and paraded. Fans are incessantly looking at social media for the latest transfer news and rumours. Everyone starts putting together hypothetical lineups. It’s a giant hype train that you cannot stop yourself from engaging with, if you are a football fan. I’m most definitely not immune from this. I’m one of those people that is constantly looking at Twitter and everywhere else looking for the breaking news about what player might be going where. Pre-season is like the movie trailer to end all movie trailers. Or like a trailer for the greatest ever sitcom, that will never end.
And then there is the pre-season tours. Not only are they hugely lucrative for the clubs participating in them, but it also presents a wonderful opportunity to increase your global audience, especially for some of the smaller teams. The ever-increasing global audience for Premier League football and the TV monies that result mean that supporter associations for all manner of clubs are showing up all over the world. Even teams like Brentford, Fulham and Nottingham Forest are showing greater exposure in some key areas. So, these pre-season friendlies are beneficial for growing the profile of the league and its teams in some very key regions; they also allow those who would have to travel thousands of miles to see these teams play during a season to see them up close in their own backyard. Even more so, for fans it gives a glimpse at what the team might play like in the upcoming season, particularly if they have a new manager at the helm. I am firmly in the camp this summer; I am eager to see what system and style of play Mauricio Pochettino puts in place and how well they are able to execute it.
Like almost everything, pre-season has become a great financial and business opportunity for clubs looking to expand their market, as well as working to get the players match-fit for the new season. This is one area that really doesn’t bother me. It still gets the job done and might even help to get the players in a really good place. And if clubs can attract new fans and commercial opportunities in a new market then why shouldn’t they pursue them. We moan about the commercialisation of football a lot, and whether the game has been lost, but if clubs don’t find these ways of making money, besides simply having wealthy owners, then the Premier League would not be the global enterprise that it is; seen worldwide as one of the best sporting leagues in the world, watched by a global audience of billions. And yet, it is just the trailer for the main show. And I can’t wait for the new season to begin.
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