Don't Forget Your Tickets
Don' Forget Your Tickets is a podcast devoted to the unsung heroes of the spectator sports and events industries, the Ticketing Managers. We explore who they are, their well-guarded industry secrets, and how they entered the field. Beyond that, we delve into a broader ticketing realm, inviting experts from various fields to share their insights and stories. Our primary aim is to add value and highlight deserving individuals.
(The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com)
Don't Forget Your Tickets
Paul Barber OBE (interviewed by Clare Kenny) on Football's Future and Club Sustainability - A Live Special from Emirates Stadium in London
Discover the transformation of modern football with Paul Barber, the dynamic CEO and Deputy Chairman of Brighton & Hove Albion FC. Sharing his unique journey from dreaming of being a player to becoming a top executive, Paul provides a rare glimpse into English football's evolution after Euro 96, revealing how it reshaped the commercial ambitions of the Football Association. With tales of Brighton's strategic ascent to the Premier League, Paul gives us a behind-the-scenes look into his powerful partnership with Chairman Tony Bloom, a collaboration built on trust and a shared vision that’s turned Brighton into a club capable of riveting victories against giants like Arsenal and Manchester City.
How do football clubs find hidden gem players and keep their fans engaged? Paul Barber breaks down Brighton's cutting-edge approach to player acquisition, explaining how data and algorithms help identify undervalued talent. He also shares insights into the club’s commitment to strengthening fan relationships through personalised communication and efforts to increase female participation in all aspects of the game. With a focus on inclusivity, Brighton is not just crafting a team but building a diverse and welcoming community for supporters from all walks of life.
Exploring the intricate balance between financial sustainability and high performance, Paul offers an honest discussion about the challenges and opportunities in elite sports. He highlights the camaraderie and collaboration among Premier League clubs, even amidst fierce competition. There's a thoughtful exploration of the potential impacts of regulatory changes, with Paul articulating Brighton’s desire to return to European competition. Through his expertise, we gain a profound appreciation for the relentless pursuit of excellence and the joy of competing at the sport's highest level.
This Live Special episode of Don't Forget Your Tickets was recorded at the Don't Forget Your Tickets conference at Emirates Stadium, January 23rd 2025, as the first out of 12 on-stage interviews that day. Paul Barber was interviewed by Clare Kenny.
Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg. The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com
How do club owners and CEOs navigate modern football's challenges and opportunities? This was the question we set out to explore when we invited Paul Barber, ceo of Brighton Hove Albion FC, to discuss with Claire Kenny at our Don't Forget your Tickets conference at Emirates Stadium. Paul Barber has been CEO and Deputy Chairman of Brighton Hove Albion since 2012, leading the club through a period of remarkable growth, including their promotion to the Premier League in 2017. Before joining Brighton, he held senior roles at Tottenham Hotspur, vancouver Whitecaps and the FA. Recognised for his strategic leadership, barber has overseen major sponsorship deals, including a multi-year partnership with American Express, and has received multiple industry awards, including CEO of the Year at the Football Business Awards. He also serves on various Premier League and FA committees and is an international ambassador for the FA. Paul's interview with Claire Kenney was the first out of 12 Insightful discussions held in front of a live audience at Don't Forget your Tickets on January 23rd. Now it's the first to be released in full on the Don't Forget your Ticket podcast. Sit back and enjoy the conversation.
Speaker 2:Good morning everybody. So, as Carl-Erik mentioned, we are delighted to have Paul Barber here today, both Chief Executive and Deputy Chairman of Brighton Hove Albion Football Club, and you have received many accolades during your time there as one of the most successful and progressive CEOs within the Premier League. So let's just start with a bit of background. So how did you get involved in football in the first place?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, I'm a Spurs fan, so I feel a little bit uncomfortable being here. Normally I have bodyguards. They're a bit absent today, so look after me please. Well, I was a failed footballer, to be honest. I didn't make it as a professional footballer. That was my ambition as a kid, didn't quite make the level, but always wanted to work in the game, played semi-professionally for a number of years and worked at various financial services companies and then moved back into football at the back end of 1997. And I've been here ever since.
Speaker 2:So you joined the Football Association after Euro 96. I was there before that. How do you think that tournament impacted the FA and its commercial ambitions?
Speaker 3:Massively, I think. You know, coming four years after the Premier League's formation, I think the country needed to connect with its national team again to stage a tournament in our country that was as successful as it was, even though we didn't win it, of course, was a big lift for the game as a whole and a big lift for fans who suddenly realised the game was exciting again and clubs at that time were beginning to wake up to the idea of treating fans properly, connecting with them in different ways. When I was growing up as a kid, my dad took me to Tottenham and as season ticket holders, if he ever had a complaint he'd write to the club. He'd never get a reply, he would never feel engaged with the club. And I think the combination of the Premier League, euro 96 and everything that followed changed the face of football for fans and changed the face of football for clubs. And now you get stadiums like this and an even better one at Tottenham. And yeah, you see, I agree, you see the development of the game commercially, it's been incredible.
Speaker 2:So that's something I want to talk about a little bit later in terms of fan engagement and how that has changed Now. Obviously, this session is called the Dynamics Between Club Owners and CEOs, and you famously have a very good relationship with your chairman, Tony Bloom, and you're known for your mutual trust and shared ambitions. Where do you think that comes from?
Speaker 3:I think it probably, for me, goes back to when I first met him. He's a very humble guy. He's a very wealthy man but he's very humble. He's very connected to the club, to the community where he grew up and was educated, and he was looking to build a football club on a consistent set of values, with a very clear vision. And we connected on the vision. It was very simple to get Brighton to become a Premier League club and to stay in the Premier League and hopefully at some point in the future, prosper in the Premier League, prosper in the Premier League. And we felt that that was possible. A combination of having that vision, strong values which bind the staff of the club and the players and the coaches together and our fans and the community as well, and then just being consistent in the way that we followed our strategy.
Speaker 3:And there's bumps in the road. I mean, sometimes you look at Brighton's story and the media portray it as a straight line of success. It hasn't actually been that. There've been a lot of bumps in the road and we haven't got everything right. And we do a lot of trial and error. We get some things wrong, but we have a very strong ethos that drives us forward.
Speaker 3:And, on a personal level, you know Tony's really good at maths and I'm not, and so that helps.
Speaker 3:He doesn't tend to like to do things like this and I can do them, so we're complementary in our skill sets, but we both love football and that's where it kind of starts and ends really. You know, at the end of the day, football clubs at the professional level, at the elite level that we're now at, are about entertainment. They're about actually connecting humans with humans and making the experience as good as it can be, and we both love that. We both still love coming to games and even though I grew up a Spurs fan, brighton is very, very much in my heart after 13 years. And you know we love taking on the big guys and trying to knock them over. And you know, this year we've taken points off of Arsenal. We've beaten Tottenham, we've beaten Manchester City, beaten Manchester United twice. I know that's not as difficult as it used to be, but we've done it and that's what we live for. All of us get up every day to compete, and at the highest level we can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, congratulations on your win on Sunday. Yeah, your manager didn't have to destroy any electronic equipment.
Speaker 3:No, but I've seen that done many times and Manchester United's a fantastic club and they will come again and football's very cyclical. Just as Arsenal went through a difficult time, Tottenham are going through a difficult time now. Clubs will come again. So I'm sure United, with the resources they've got and a stadium of 75,000 people and millions of fans across the world, they'll come again. But yeah, it's a difficult time for them.
Speaker 2:So a lot of commentators are talking about sort of United's issues being around, issues with the culture and the values of the club, and obviously you talked about that and I was listening to an interview that you recently did with Sky where these words really resonated that having a clear vision, strong values, clear alignment and relentless execution is the key to success. But I just want to focus on the strong values part. So we have lots of people here from football clubs and also other consumer facing businesses and brand values are something that is widely searched for and talked about. So how do you go about actually defining those values as an organisation?
Speaker 3:Well, when Tony and I got together, we felt that the staff needed to define the values. We wanted them to sort of help us decide what kind of football club they wanted to work in. And you know, there's people here in clubs and every club has its own distinct identity and we wanted one for Brighton. The club had been around 100 years but had been through some terrible times lost its stadium, didn't have a training ground years, but had been through some terrible times lost. Its stadium didn't have a training ground, fan base dwindled to average crowds of five 6,000, played two years at Gillingham, which was a round trip for fans of four and a half five hours for a home game. I mean, I'd been through some difficult times. So it was an opportunity to sort of almost set the club up from new, even though it was a hundred years old, and our staff articulated sort of five values that made sense to us.
Speaker 3:First of all, aim high. And when you're in League One, bouncing between League One and League Two, aiming high is not a bad value to have in terms of your day-to-day mindset. Treat people well. Football, as I said earlier, hadn't had a great reputation for treating fans well, or staff or players in some cases. So treat people well as a value, exceed expectations. So don't just aim high, but when you get to where you think you can get to, let's just try and push even further. Act with integrity Again, not everybody in professional sport has that as a core value and make it special.
Speaker 3:You know, if we can do some good things, why not make them the best they can be? So we do small things, like on a Mother's Day. If we have a some good things, why not make them the best they can be? So we do small things, like on a Mother's Day. If we have a game on a Mother's Day on a Sunday, we identify from our season ticket database the mums and we put, through one of our sponsors, a small bouquet of flowers on the seat when they arrive.
Speaker 3:The number of emails I get from husbands and fathers after that match saying thank you so much. You got me out of real trouble there because I'd forgotten, and you know those small things actually, you know, play to treating people well. They play to making it special. They play to making sure the club stays connected to the community even though it's gone on this journey from League 2 to European football. You know they don't cost a lot because the sponsors are happy to engage with those sort of things and they get great benefit from it, of course. And actually you leave a fan base in a slightly better place than when they arrived at the stadium that day, regardless of the result, and that's quite an important thing.
Speaker 2:That leads quite nicely into the fans, obviously the most important stakeholders, obviously, at any football club. Now, brighton has been very successful in the use of data for your player recruitment program. Obviously, you've had huge success in that area and perhaps you'd like to talk a little bit about that because there might be people who aren't aware.
Speaker 3:Only a little bit.
Speaker 2:A little bit, a little bit, even though it's very interesting. But my key focus is really on how you use data to really engage with the fans and the fan journey and really enhancing that experience and how you see that has evolved over the last, say, 10 years.
Speaker 3:Well, I think, firstly, on the player side, we always start with what the coach needs. You know, there's a myth amongst sort of the media sometimes that we just constantly scour databases looking for hidden talent somewhere in the world. But it's not quite like that. You know. The coach will identify a need. We will then look at the attributes within that need. It might be a left back who's six foot tall, who can use both feet, who's attacking, marauding, physically strong, et cetera, et cetera. And then our database has an algorithm that helps us to identify the player that has those attributes. And very often, you know, we say that we fish in ponds others don't tend to fish in, and that enables us to identify talent that is typically quite raw, a little bit cheaper perhaps than the market might expect. And then what we do is rely very much on our coaches to develop that talent and to create a value from that talent that previously wasn't there. And then it's a question of being quite bold and selling at a time when maybe some clubs wouldn't. You know I'm grateful to Chelsea for the number of times they visited us. You know they're my best customer, but it doesn't mean to say that they get a discount for coming back time and time again, but it doesn't mean to say that they get a discount for coming back time and time again. You know, we have to make sure that we create the best possible value from every deal that we do on the player front, because that is our model. That's what effectively funds 400 full-time jobs, 500 or 600 part-time jobs and our progress in the football pyramid.
Speaker 3:And likewise when it comes to fans. You know we've got a number, like a lot of clubs, a number of legacy databases that we're constantly trying to knit together. You know, whether it's ticketing, whether it's merchandise sales, whether it's hospitality sales, whether it's non-match day events, and we're trying all the time to build up the best picture we can of each of our fans. And of course, fans don't always like to be seen as customers. So you've got to be very careful not to over-communicate when it comes to selling, not go back to the same well too often, otherwise it will run dry or at the very least, you'll lose the goodwill that you've built up.
Speaker 3:So we try and use data selectively when it comes to fans, but we also try and do small things that make them realise we do know who they are. So at the end of every season we'll send them an email which says dear Claire, thanks for attending you know 36 of our 38 games this year and for travelling 4,240 miles around the country to watch us play. Now, how accurate is that? You know, it's always a bit of a debate because you'll always get one fan that writes you and says, well, I didn't actually go to Liverpool so my journey was not that long.
Speaker 3:Okay, we're just trying to be nice. And you know there will be others that say, wow, like yeah, you know you've got this spot on. But the more significant point is that we're recognising that they've been to a lot of games, that they've spent a lot of money, that they've given up a lot of connecting, engaging and selling in the right sort of balance is really important and I noticed that you're on the board of Women in Football and I'm a member, and for all the women here, I hope you join up.
Speaker 2:It's a great organisation. So, going back to the fans, how have you noticed the difference in engagement with female fans, both for the men's team and the women's team?
Speaker 3:Well, I've got two daughters who both work in football, so for me, I've got a constant pressure to support women in football generally and I think over the years.
Speaker 3:You know the good thing is that we see more women and girls at men's matches as well as, obviously, at women's games, which is great. We've got more women working in football, which is fantastic. But we've still got a number of barriers and there are still a number of prejudices. There are still a number of issues every week that I hear about through women in football and through my own daughter sometimes that don't flatter the industry, don't flatter men in the industry, and we've got to change that. But we've got to do that systematically and progressively over time. We also need a lot more women to want to work in the industry because there's still, I think, sometimes a reluctance to get involved in some of the areas of the club. For example, we don't at the moment have a female member of our grounds team, and then we reviewed why, and then we look back at our last five years of adverts advertising for groundsmen.
Speaker 3:So, it can be as simple and as basic as that, and it's not political correctness gone mad, it's not woke behaviour. It's simply making sure that you don't exclude almost half the population from jobs that they're more than capable and perfectly qualified in many cases to do. And some of that is just about language, it's about positioning, it's about mindset. It's about a woman coming for an interview with the grounds team and not walking into a wall of pinup girls on calendars. It's sometimes the small things that 10 years ago, 15 years ago, wouldn't even been considered but now need to be, because we're trying to create a more gender balanced workforce and yeah, there's a lot of work to be done, but we're making progress.
Speaker 2:And a more inclusive culture, and quite often it is those very small, small things. So just sticking with fans for a moment, and not just in terms of gender, but age and different demographics. Do you speak to different segments of fans in a different way, or is it homogenous? Whether you're selling tickets or merchandise, it's very much just focused as an overall group.
Speaker 3:It varies. We do segment our fan base because we've got over 3,000 what we would call corporate fans, in the sense that they frequent our lounges. They pay a bit more for access to those lounges. Some will have a full meal before games, some are having more snack-based food. We're just launching two new concepts this year a £7 million investment in a fan zone which will be a free-to-enter pre-turn style facility which will have live entertainment, big screens, music, food, matches that are being broadcast before or after hours. That again will give us through. People will still have to scan to get in. It will give us an idea of those people that want to come to games early, want to leave late, want to actually spend more money than perhaps the standard ticket. That's quite separate from the corporate fans. The corporate fans are in different lounges, so one thing we don't do is allow them to wear replica shirts in those lounges, but we were constantly getting feedback to say actually they would like to.
Speaker 3:So next year we're creating a new sort of hybrid between the terrace and the lounges, which will be more of a pub concept at the north end of our stadium, which will basically allow people to wear whatever they want and they will join the home end of the stadium but from a corporate lounge that will allow replica shirts and jeans and trainers.
Speaker 3:And I guess you know there's a segment of the market that wants to spend a bit more money, wants a little bit more comfort but also still wants that terrace feel. And I think you know, as dress codes change across the world, very, very few people these days will go to a sports event dressed in a shirt and tie and a jacket. And if you're lucky enough to go to the Royal Box at Wimbledon or the Members' Enclosure at Lourdes, maybe, but pretty much everywhere else now we're dressing down and you know the fans almost are taking it down to another level in some of the lounges as well. So we try and segment, we try and address them in the segment of our fan base that they are, but inevitably some people move between all of them and you know you can't always get your language right, but we try very hard.
Speaker 2:It's a great example of that constant listening. So the fan zone is interesting. So obviously we've seen that work at sort of World Cup events and European championships. Are you the first Premier League club to be doing that?
Speaker 3:Well, newcastle have got their stack outside St James' Park, which is phenomenally successful.
Speaker 3:There's a few other clubs up and down the country that are looking at doing this.
Speaker 3:Manchester City had one, liverpool had one but this is actually a purpose-built, almost small arena that will hold about two, two and a half thousand people.
Speaker 3:It will open up on all sides, so in the summer, or better weather down in our part of the world, it will be an indoor, outdoor venue. It's got huge wraparound LED screens on the outside of the building as well as the inside, so those people that don't want to be inside or can't get inside will still be able to enjoy the entertainment from outside. It's a big investment, but we need to make it work not just on match days, but also in between matches as well. So we sit between two big universities and we're hoping that we can attract the university crowds during the week. Different events during the week, private events and also all of the food concessions in there will be available on Deliveroo, so they'll be serving the wider local community as well, which again is a good way of getting concessions and caterers to put a bit more into it, because they're going to get revenue seven days a week and 18 hours a day, so it's good for them too.
Speaker 2:Sounds like a great innovation. How competitive are you with other Premier League clubs off the pitch?
Speaker 3:I think not as much as people think. I mean, we're all in a relatively small business. You know we all have similar problems, similar challenges and yeah, we compete like crazy out there and obviously for sponsors, if there's a particular brand that everyone wants to go for. But I think there's a lot of collaboration in football. Certainly over the 27 years or so I've been in, we all know each other. It's a relatively small community and some of us have kind of grown up in the industry and we get on On match day. Obviously it's a battle, but as soon as the whistle goes at the end of the game, you know you're civil and usually civil, and yeah, you get on the business that you're in. And there are only 92 professional clubs. So it would be crazy for us to alienate each other. We don't have an awful lot of people that we can speak to or call on in our industry, so alienation is not a good thing.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about financial sustainability, and I think this is something that's important to all clubs their financial status but the usual rules of financial success in consumer businesses don't necessarily apply to clubs. For example, psr rules say clubs can lose up to £105 million a year over a three-year reporting cycle, and a lot of the financial issues and the lack of the trickle down to the grassroots through the pyramid has obviously been a catalyst for this independent regulator that we'll see coming on board. So what are your ambitions, obviously as a club CEO, in terms of financial sustainability and how do you see that moving forward over the next few years and impacting the overall pyramid?
Speaker 3:Wow, how long have we got Four?
Speaker 2:minutes 17 seconds Okay.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, you know I think we're probably the only business in the world that sort of pats ourselves on the back for only losing 105 million every three years. It's kind of a bizarre concept really if you're a business person. I mean we talk about the regulator coming. Bizarre concept really, if you're a business person. I mean we talk about the regulator coming. I mean we understand one of two of the reasons why that's happening.
Speaker 3:The European Super League wasn't a great idea. It created a lot of bad feeling with fans and alerted government to potential issues in the game. We've had clubs that have gone into administration through bad ownership, poor financial management. We've had one or two owners that have gone into administration through bad ownership, poor financial management. We've had one or two owners that have decided that their blue club should be a red club or vice versa Not very clever and so all of those things have, kind of, you know, come together to almost give government a reason to say football needs better regulation than itself.
Speaker 3:I think the problem is that the state of the game is not quite as bad as some of the narrative might suggest. The Premier League is not mean About 1.6 billion trickles down to the pyramid every three years. At the moment, our share of that every three years is about 80 million. I don't think that's us forgetting where we've come from or forgetting our roots, and the concern I think we would all have is that greater distribution, if it's not used in the best possible way, is not going to make the game more sustainable. You know, giving more money to championship clubs to spend on players doesn't make League One or League Two clubs more sustainable. We would like to see we Premier League clubs, we'd like to see a little bit more structure around how any additional money is going to be used. We'd like to see a little bit more structure around how any additional money is going to be used. We're not averse to giving extra money, but not for clubs that are already perhaps wealthier than us, who are looking to replace us to make their squad stronger. It's a bit like, you know, sainsbury's giving the corner shop a bit of a handout every week if you want to look at it in a very bold basic terms.
Speaker 3:But football is not quite like that. It's an ecosystem and the pyramid's really important and it's really important that we don't see clubs getting into trouble. But it's also important that we have a transparency to what it is we're being asked to do and how we're being asked to do it. And if the government regulator helps, that great. But what we're afraid of is duplication. We're afraid of overreach, we're afraid of unintended consequences of a regulator, and certainly in my previous career in banking the regulator didn't really help us very much. It piled on cost, it piled on bureaucracy, it piled on barriers that actually prevented some banks from entering this market and others leaving this market. So we've got to be really careful that we don't actually kill the golden goose, because if the Premier League's damaged from regulation or more regulation, then the whole of football is damaged, and that's something which would be a very, very foolish thing for us to do.
Speaker 2:But we don't have that much time left, so I'm just going to ask you my last question. So you're currently in ninth place, congratulations. What are your personal ambitions for Brighton this season and over the next couple of years?
Speaker 3:Well, we'd love to get back into Europe. I mean, we had one season last season in the Europa League, which was an incredible experience for the staff, for the players, the coaches, the fans community as a whole. We'd love to repeat that. You know we're currently three points off a European spot, four points off a Champions League spot. We've got 16, 17 games to play. You know we're in a good place, but we also know there are four or five other clubs around us that want the same thing and therefore it's going to be really hard. But, you know, punching above our weight, constantly exceeding expectations, constantly aiming high. You know we'll be very consistent with what we try and do and, as always in elite sport, performance is a number of inputs that combine to create an output called high performance. So we need lots of things to go right and we need a bit of luck and, yeah, we need a bit more consistency when we're in good positions in games, but we're enjoying it.
Speaker 2:Well, we only wish you the very best of luck for the rest of the season, ladies and gentlemen. Paul Barber, thank you.
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