Qatar Airways Abuses Women Workers

When Barcelona had Unicef on the front of their jersey, it gave the public a feeling that Barcelona was always giving back and had the best intentions. Then in 2011, Barcelona dropped Unicef from the front and put the logo on the lower back of the shirt. The replacing sponsor at the time was “Qatar Foundation.” Although people were upset about Barcelona dropping Unicef, such a rich and established charity, at least they were still sponsored by a foundation that gives back to education and community development .

Ahead of the 2013 season, FC Barcelona released their new kits with “Qatar Airways” on the front, and had completely dropped the “Qatar Foundation.” There is speculation that using Qatar Foundation was only an effort to make the transition from a charitable organization to a commercial company a little smoother.  Refer to this link to read more up on how the Qatar Airways deal was “a decade in the making.” (http://www.sportspromedia.com/sportspro_blog/fc_barcelonas_journey_from_catalonian_ideal_to_economic_reality)

If this theory is true, then that is a clear business move by FC Barcelona. One of their main defenses for being a club was that they are more concerned about the players, members and the wellbeing of the world rather than their commercial success. However, if this deal was 10 years in the making, the Unicef Sponsorship was simply a marketing effort.

Aside from this theory, a true club would look deep into their sponsors and not do deals with companies that have poor values and morals. This is exactly how you can describe Qatar Airways. In June of 2015, it was released that the airline was telling their female staff that they would be FIRED if they become pregnant. Moreover, there was found to be another clause in contracts that says workers must ‘obtain prior permission from the company in case [he or she] wishes to change marital status and get married.’ These are clear violations of Human Rights. Although many of these clauses have been removed from contracts since, Barcelona were involved with Qatar Airways for almost three years while these clauses were still common in their staff’s contracts.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3128046/Qatar-Airways-condemned-telling-new-cabin-staff-FIRED-fall-pregnant.html

Barca Dreams Documentary

           Football Club Barcelona has been collecting footage, interviews and historical information for the past two years to make a documentary called Barca Dreams that gets released on DVD March 2^nd 2016. The main premise of the documentary is to take the viewer through Barcelona’s 115 year history from founder Joan Gamper to the modern powerhouse that Barcelona is.

The documentary highlights Barcelona's unique ownership and management style as well as how the club has affiliated itself with the Catalan community. It addresses how the intense and loyal fan base has been responsible for the success of the club.

The documentary has already been released in Mexico with overwhelming success and will be released internationally in the coming weeks. The international release of Barcelona’s documentary is just the latest of the club’s attempts to capture an even larger portion of global football fans. The release of an official Barcelona film once again puts FCBarcelona at the forefront of the question of whether they are a club or business. This is perhaps the best concrete evidence that suggests the latter. The release of the film is sure to increase global following and is a much easier way to reach western world markets than a TV rights deal would be. To top it off, the entire sale price of almost 11 euros will be going directly to the machine that is FCBarcelona giving them more money to invest and grow their “club”. Is it possible that informative and promotional videos made by football clubs will become a common future revenue source for clubs who cringe for a global fan base and their money?

http://www.fcbarcelona.com/club/detail/article/barca-dreams-the-movie-that-travels-to-the-club-s-soul

http://www.fcbarcelona.com/club/detail/article/fc-barcelona-s-barca-dreams-to-be-released-on-dvd-and-blu-ray

-Kevin Lintner

Conquering The World | FC Barcelona's Utilization of Social Media

Conquering the World | FC Barcelona's Utilization of Social Media

Written by Quinn Shepherd

Over the past few decades FC Barcelona has put a major focus on not only appealing to the Catalan culture but also on building a larger international stage presence. FC Barcelona's international area is a strategic key issue for the club and a source of revenues in continuous expansion efforts. One of the main platforms FC has utilized in order to spread its wings in this digital revolution is through the usage of social medias including Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Vine, Facebook, and Pinterest. This process began at the end of 2010 with the creation of an Online Department. Head of the Club's Area for New Technologies Didac Lee said that this strategy consists of 3 areas, "Creating Content adapted to each territory through the Club's International websites, utilizing social media as a platform for distributing this content and generating engagement through the employment of mobile apps, promotional marketing and management of the global community of FCB fans". This digital strategy was strengthened in November 2011 when the club integrated a new platform that introduce a fresh design and broader structure adding up to more than 6,000 pages featuring several languages such as Catalan, Spanish, English, Japanese and several more.

Since introducing this digital tactic FC Barcelona has experienced immense amounts of success. In 2012 and 2013 FC won the Social Star Award naming Barcelona the top sports club in the world for social media management. There success has only grown in the past years as they have continued to open 40 channels on more than a dozen social media networks in up to 9 languages.  In 2015, Barca was the first sporting organization to break the 200 million followers adding an outstanding 1 million followers per week. With Superstars like Leo Messi, Neymar, and Luis Suarez, the club has drawn the attention of fans across the globe. 

Of course in today's digitally obsessed society, a properly run social media campaign in necessary for any major football club. However, FC Barcelona's obvious strenuous efforts suggests their desire to dominate the international market competing with clubs like Real Madrid and Manchester United. This brings into question if FC Barcelona is a club or a business, as they represent Catalonia, yet focus on attention from outside markets. This statement is supported by a quote within the FC Barcelona website, "Barca doesn't wait for its fans to come to it; Barca goes out and actively searches for them". 

- Quinn Shepherd

http://www.fcbarcelona.com/club/barca-2-0/detail/article/season/2014-2015/fc-barcelona-on-the-road-to-the-top-of-social-media

http://www.fcbarcelona.com/club/barca-2-0/detail/article/fc-barcelona-more-than-200-million-followers-on-social-networks

Renewal of FCB-UNICEF Partnership Does Justice to "Mès Que un Club"

By: Matthew Magill

Expanding upon the theme of the last post by my fellow team member Jordan Rodriguez, I would argue that with a recently renewed partnership with UNICEF, FC Barcelona has shown that it can live up to its motto, Mès Que un Club. The expansion of the partnership suggests that FC Barcelona may resemble a club more than a business.

While businesses often give portions of their profits to charity, sometimes dubiously in order to gain brand recognition and popularity with their target market, FC Barcelona's renewed partnership with UNICEF resembles something more humbling. The new agreement does more than simply expand upon a 10-year partnership with UNICEF for another 4 years. The agreement increases the 1.5 million euro already given to UNICEF annually to 2 million euro. With a 10-year historic partnership, fans around the world already recognize Barcelona when they encounter UNICEF and vise versa. If one were to argue that Barcelona is remaining committed to this relationship simply to increase their positive brand image, then why would FC Barcelona increase the amount given when doing so would seemingly bring no further recognition to their brand?

Increasing the amount given to UNICEF annually would have no benefit on FC Barcelona's brand image because fans already know the partnership exists. Instead, increasing the amount given to UNICEF stems from a commitment to the vulnerable. FC Barcelona's president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, gave his wishes for the commitment, stating, "With this new agreement, FC Barcelona seeks to take a step forward in this partnership. Now, the ties between Barca and UNICEF are closer than ever. We are united in the fight for children's rights and the promotion of education through sport. Barca is the club for the children of the world and UNICEF is the best partner for this journey."

Do you agree with Mr. Bartomeu that Barcelona is the "club for the children of the world," reflected by the recent agreement with UNICEF? Or would you argue that FC Barcelona pays UNICEF simply to keep their brand image high in the face of recent player scandals?

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_90305.html

Maybe It's Not Just a Money-Making Machine

https://hbr.org/2015/06/what-makes-fc-barcelona-such-a-successful-business

It seems that it has become easy to just look at the largest clubs in the world and automatically generalize them as money-hungry, greedy, capitalists machines. I'll be the first to admit: I believe that this is true, more often than not. FC Barca is one of the wealthiest sports clubs in the world with a huge global following and immense resources. Because of this, people often assume that their success--their essence--is not of genuine nature.

It is true, Barcelona has the deep pockets to buy the best players on the face of the planet. But one would be foolish to think that money alone is the key to Barcelona's success. Their motto of "Mas que un Club" is often written off as an attempt to mask their true identity as a corporation, but a lot of what Barcelona has achieved can be attributed to deeply rooted, often intangible qualities.

Their youth program, La Masia, is constantly praised for its ability to craft youthful talent into refined, world-class skill. The programs mentality of supporting your teammates, smarts over strength, and passing before shooting, are intangible qualities instilled into every player that money simply cannot buy.

Barcelona is not the only football club with money. Real Madrid and Premier League teams often make runs at the Barcelona superstars. Most recently, there have been talks of Madrid trying to acquire the offensive magician, Neymar. In news reports, Neymar's teammate, defensive powerhouse Gerrard Pique, told reporters he'd "bet an arm" that Neymar would not join Real. It is through team cohesiveness and group thinking that allows Barcelona to retain so many players and continue its success.

In short, one cannot blame a club for making money off of the success of its on-field performance. There are many clubs with money who do not have the identity or group mentality that has sprung FC Barca to the front of world football. Barcelona does make money, yes, but the success of the business side could only be achieved by the "Mas que un Club" identity.

~Jordan Rodriguez

Top Level Players: Club employees or business assets?

With the onset of the media and globally supported football clubs emerging in the past 20 years, the role of the player has morphed from a regular employee earning a salary into an important financial asset for the club’s revenue stream. An asset is described as a value creating resource, and thus players could be considered assets because of the revenue they earn for the club in multiple ways.

A football club makes money in three ways: ticket sales, broadcasting revenue, and commercial/merchandise revenue. The value of a player is important for broadcasting revenue because a top-level player generates more hype and therefore more money from broadcasting companies who are willing to pay more. On top of that, since a third of a club’s income is based on merchandise/commercial revenue, the value of a player to his respective club stretches farther than his skill level and ability to take his team far.

In cases such as Barcelona, where a member owned club inhibits private investors from making financial contributions to the club in exchange for ownership rights, the merchandise sales from players’ jerseys and gear heighten the value of a player as an asset to the club.

Nowadays, the majority value of a football club comes from the value of the players as assets. Camp Nou would normally be considered the biggest asset for Barcelona, but in reality the players generate more revenue for the club than the stadium itself. The salaries of the players can be compared to the operating expenses of any other business.

If the goal of any business is to create value by any means then isn’t FC Barcelona’s club operations managed in the same way as any other business trying to create value through exploiting valuable assets?

Kevin Lintner

http://www.sportskeeda.com/football/are-top-level-football-players-employees-or-economic-assets-for-their-clubs

The New Camp Nou

In the debate whether FC Barcelona is a club or a business, analyzing the cash flows and financing the club receives is imperative. Moreover, it is important to look at how the club officials decide to use or reinvest these funds.

In January of 2014, Barcelona’s board of directors released plans for a remodeling of the current stadium, Camp Nou. This plan will require about 500 Million pounds, converting to about $720 million USD. As the officials of Barcelona like to broadcast their “mes que un club” slogan and their “home-made” mentality, they decided to choose to remodel over building a brand new stadium. In fact, the members were the ones who ended up voting on and accepting the plan to remodel the stadium in April 2014. Giving the members the voting power does convince one to perceive Barcelona as a club rather than a business. They are also constructing an indoor basketball arena, and many other installations to make the stadium more of a club place.

Although the board of directors are doing all they can to make the new stadium seem like a club effort, there are many aspects of the plan that seem like usual business transactions. For example, they plan to take out a bank loan of 165 Million Pounds ($270 Million USD), which is far more debt that any club would be willing to take. Moreover, they plan to finance 83 Million Pounds ($134 Million USD) by selling naming rights. This is also an amount that only a commercial association would be able to receive for naming rights. Lastly, the new project includes many restaurants and ‘super boxes’ with VIP services. These two amenities are going to be added just to increase revenues, and both have very little effect on the quality of experience the club members receive.

When looking at FC Barcelona from a financial standpoint, all signs point to Barca being considered a business rather than a club.