Season book renewal time in the Celtic boardroom – a discussion between Nicholson, Wilson and McKay

Today’s article is purely conjecture, I am basing it entirely on the evidence of the behaviours I’ve seen throughout this season from the Celtic board.

From their perspective, this season has been their biggest challenge to date.

What could go wrong, has gone wrong.

It is not a challenge they have risen to at any point.

Although they might not see it that way, from our perspective as fans on the outside looking in, they are utterly incapable of running Celtic Football Club.

We need look no further than the calamity that has been this season to see that much.

However, the fictitious discussion I’m going to create will probably be very close to the real discussion that was had last week in the boardroom when it came to the renewal of season tickets.

In order to fully understand how businesses work, you have to take the emotional factor out of every transaction a business conducts.

A business like Celtic’s, from the board’s perspective, is purely transactional.

The people running Celtic do not see the fans as the lifeblood of the club, they see us customers they can exact transactions from.

We are numbers.

What we spend, or at least what they would want us to spend – in normal businesses anyway – links to a KPI.

Or put more simply, a target.

When the board sat down last week to discuss the season ticket renewal strategy, you would like to think they had a set target of how many season books they wanted to sell.

Who came up with this target is anybody’s guess, since KPI’s and discussions relating to them are something the board avoids like a plague.

But for posterity, we’ll say it was the Chief Financial Officer, Chris McKay.

Forgive me if it looks like I’m saying this board has a coherent strategy, since the evidence to date suggests they don’t, or never did, but we have to assume they do.

The target would simply be based on previous sales achieved on Celtic season books, with an expected incremental increase on top.

But here’s where this runs into difficulty.

Since season ticket renewals went out last season, the customer base has grown a hell of a lot more dissatisfied, disgruntled and disenfranchised.

Expecting an incremental sales increase from them is overly optimistic.

Therefore, you have to think outside of the box to counteract this.

An entirely alien concept to the Celtic board.

Below is what they came up with as the solution to this very real problem, which is entirely of their own creation:

Here is where we take up the conversation in the boardroom prior to this.

Bear in mind that this is portrayed purely from a business sense, where the customer base is not seen as human, rather, as something that generates revenue.

So it will be impersonal.

BW is Brian Wilson, CM is Chris McKay, and MN is Michael Nicholson.

CM: Alright gents, now comes the toughest part of this season, and that’s convincing these plebs to buy season ticket books from us. Since most of them have the I.Q. of a plank, we can just play on their emotional connection to the club to get them to renew.

MN: Sounds good Chris.

BW: Are we putting an incremental increase on the cost of a season book?

CM: I’ve proposed 3%.

BW: Doesn’t that seem a lot to ask considering what they think of us at the moment?

CM: My job isn’t to concern myself with what they think of us, Brian. If I did, I wouldn’t bother coming to work every day. I know what they think of me. My job is to generate revenue for the club, so I propose a 3% increase.

MN: Sounds good Chris. That’s what Dermot said we should do anyway.

BW: Personally I don’t think that will be received well, so we’re going to have to come up with a strategy that will encourage them to engage when it comes to season book renewals.

MN: You’re good at talking Brian, how about another supporter update?

CM: Yes, good idea, and you can tell them that we’re going to create something like a new supporter engagement department?

BW: What do you propose?

CM: Well, give them a vague outline of what we plan to do, maybe we could re-ignite the Fans Forum?

MN: Sounds good Chris.

CM: Then you could waffle about engaging with them in a more meaningful manner, fluff it up, you know what I mean? You’re good at that kind of thing Brian.

BW: Ok, come up with something, and I’ll do a short interview with Jerry on Celtic TV.

MN: That’ll get them to renew.

CM: I do love a good strategy meeting. Once you’ve done the interview Brian, we can then launch season book renewals. Considering Martin and Shaun have got us back in a position to do the double, the combination of both should work a treat to get them to renew in their droves.

BW: And what if it doesn’t?

MN: Doesn’t what?

BW: Encourage them to renew?

MN: How do you mean?

BW: Have you not thought about the fact that they’ve been holding their money back with this not another penny garbage?

MN: How do you mean?

BW: Well, did it not occur to you that they might decide to do the same with season book renewals?

CM: Nobody is going to give up their seat, I can guarantee you of that much.

BW: I admire your confidence Chris, but sooner or later, playing on their emotions will wear thin.

MN: No, it won’t.

CM: He’s right Brian, you just keep doing your supporter updates and stringing them along, they’ll fall for anything.

BW: Alright gents, I’m only here for the interim. Its going to be your show after the summer.

CM: Great stuff gents. That’s a wrap. Brian, get onto Jerry about the supporter update. We can tell them we’re going to appoint a head of supporter engagement or something as well. I’ll push forward with the season book launch from tomorrow.

MN: Tell them we’re doing a boardroom reshuffle as well, Brian.

CM: Yes, bring up about Peter and Tom stepping down.

BW: Fair enough.

MN: Ok, bye.

And there you have it.

Celtic board strategy in a nutshell.

I’m probably not wide of the mark in anything I said.

Especially my portrayal of Michael Nicholson’s input.

They won’t do anything that will contradict it either.

The bottom line is that from the outside, it really doesn’t look like the board put much thought into anything.

Hence how easy it is create a believable conversation on how they might discuss something like season book renewals.

They just don’t give the impression they have a coherent strategy for anything.

Just remember, these are the men tasked with taking our club forward this summer.

They’re tasked with recruiting a new manager and a full team rebuild.

Scary prospect, isn’t it?

Choose Read Celtic as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.