Business Advantages of Supporter Community ... - Supporters Direct

community ownership, the community benefit society structure offers a
number of routes to finance that other clubs cannot exploit. Furthermore,
the additional buy-in of fans means that supporters’ trusts and supporter
community owned clubs can also generate significant sums in donations,
something that is also explored more fully in Briefing Paper No.3.
Volunteering
It was very notable that out of over 1700 supporters, the vast majority of
those who volunteered were at supporter community owned clubs. Overall
volunteering levels remain very low, however, and this is an area that all
football clubs should look to develop. This would benefit their own business
as well as involving supporters more in the day to day running of clubs,
something that can help build understanding and trust as well as skills.
Resilience
There is some evidence that those who run supporter community owned
clubs feel that they get given more leeway by supporters because of their
ownership – attendances being maintained when the team is performing
poorly for instance. It is extremely difficult to make any hard and fast or
quantified generalisations about this in comparison to other clubs, however,
as club’s circumstances are so subjective to particular conditions.
This ‘resilience’ is in part reliant on greater trust, openness and transparency
in the running of supporter community owned clubs, something that
underpins a better regulation of football ‘from below’ referred to in
Supporters Direct’s other briefing papers.
Supporter Satisfaction
Although the statistics are not wholly reliable and the survey was not a
representative sample, there were key differences between the satisfaction
levels of supporters of supporter community owned clubs and others in
almost every other area, which at the very least suggests improved business
practice in relation to supporters at those clubs.
The testimony from those that are involved in running supporter
community owned football clubs about the business benefits they feel that
they get reflects other research commissioned by Supporters Direct. This
is particularly notable in relation to the Social and Community Value of
Football work, which highlighted the importance to long term strategic
relationships of supporter community ownership as well as the additional
buy-in from various local communities.
Business Advantages of Supporter Community Ownership 49