Most Clubs Still Don’t Understand Brand. That’s Why Fans Feel Nothing
Why most clubs are still mistaking content for connection.
Took a break. Needed it. First stop back was a family office summit in Lake Como. Fancy setting. Same questions. What can we buy, who’s for sale, what’s the angle. Same circus. Just better gelato.
But credit to a few of them. They were actually listening. Not just 'how do I buy a club' energy. More 'what else is there in football that people are sleeping on?' And some of them even clocked it. Gen Z don’t care about ownership structures or league rankings. They care about energy, identity, connection. Authenticity.
Football’s full of opportunity if you stop looking at it like a fixture list and start seeing it as a brand landscape. But that shift still isn’t happening. Too many are just copying each other.
And here’s the core problem: clubs don’t get brand. I mean actually get it.
Not branding. Not activations. Not the moodboards with fake grit or your shiny new social rebrand that looks good in a deck but means absolutely nothing when it goes live on Monday morning. I’m talking about brand. As in: identity. Energy. The reason people feel something when they see your badge. Or don’t.
Deloitte’s Football Money League says the top 20 clubs cleared €10 billion last year. Real Madrid broke the billion mark. Everyone clapped. But revenue and relevance are not the same thing. And there was nothing particularly innovative about how they did it. All they really did was double down on the propco side of the business. Made the stadium better. Optimised matchday income. Smart, but hardly a cultural revolution. You can make money and still be irrelevant.
Too many clubs treat culture like a checklist. Book a studio shoot. Sprinkle in a trending song. Throw in an AI gimmick. Something random, like a lasagne. You know who you are. But there’s no feeling in it. No idea holding it together. Just content for content’s sake.
A lot of you are still mistaking output for brand. You think a fashion collab and a typeface update makes you meaningful. You think shooting a kit launch on 16mm film makes it iconic. It doesn’t. It just makes it expensive.
And yeah, I’m going to keep saying it. Maybe just to prove a point to myself. Another rollout drops. Another campaign pretending to be culture. I see it and think, still not it.
Maybe I’ll show you what I mean. Actually do it. Build it. And when you copy it, I’ll know. That’s fine too.
Until then: fans feel nothing because you stand for nothing. Your story is weak. Your identity is confused. Your ideas are recycled. Gen Z can see straight through the gloss. They know what’s real.
Palace hiring a creative director was a major headline. It went viral. And I was all for it - for the culture, for Kenny. But nothing real came from it. Either he wasn’t backed, or they never cared to change, or both. Which says everything you need to know about how clubs view brand. The hire isn’t enough. It's the creative direction. The storytelling. The narrative. That’s the part that matters. That’s where connection lives. That’s where identity is built.
Meanwhile you’re still posting "Tuesday training ground fits" like anyone cares. Players turn up half asleep in matching sweats that every man and his dog already owns. If that’s your club’s creative peak for the week, pack it in.
Brand isn’t built in Canva or PowerPoint. It’s built in your taste. Your instincts. It’s the stuff you don’t post. The restraint. The intention. The feeeeeeling.
If your whole model is: sign someone, drop a kit, hire a production company to make it look slick - cool. It'll look decent. But if the idea's hollow, it’s still nothing. Just a strand of content you paid too much for. Or too little for. Honestly, too often it’s just the marketing lead being handed 'brand' on the side, with zero backing. No time, no proper budget, no actual belief from the top. So of course it falls flat. You never gave it a chance to be anything more.
Truth is, barely any clubs get it. You could count them on one hand globally. Most of them got it right once and haven’t followed it up. Even the strongest examples lack consistency or haven’t hit since. There are maybe four or five clubs globally who’ve done anything of real brand substance. Deloitte might show the revenue, but the relevance is still missing. Most of you are looking at the right data and drawing the wrong conclusions.
Madrid didn’t renovate. They built a venue for global dominance. Bayern aren’t trendy. They’re just good at knowing who they are and never straying from it.
Also, let’s stop pretending content is brand. It’s not. It’s the result of brand. If you haven’t done the work behind it, it’s just noise in high definition.
Been quiet. Not sleeping though. Too hot in London and too many bad ideas floating around.
Felt like I should mention the Club World Cup here for a second - but there’s honestly nothing to say. And that kinda says it all. Might catch you at Wimbledon though. Strawberries and cream anyone?
I don’t just write about the future of football, I help shape it. If this hit a nerve, I’m probably already thinking about how we could build something together.
Thanks for reading GAMEPLAYER.
Through CAOS, GAFFER, and over 100 football contracts, transfers, brand deals, and equity-driven partnerships, I’ve seen power shift from clubs to investors, brands to athletes, and legacy to culture.
I break down what matters. Private equity takeovers, athlete-led media, billion-dollar sports IP, and the future of merchandising and streaming.
This isn’t just commentary. It’s about who’s making the real moves and what’s coming next.
A football club's identity comes out of the geographical community its based in. It's deeply weird that people seem to have forgotten this.
Thanks for this. Amazing cheers from Athens city of Panathinaikos