LAFC Club Case Study

1. Strategy Formulation

a. Recommended Decision
The best way for LAFC to continue growing its fan base and success is to improve video
content broadcasting, especially of the club’s live football matches. Technology has made it easy
for people to live in a visual world. Most individuals do not consider it adequate to hear about a
game from a friend or just read a recap online; they want to see the action. Through social media
platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, LAFC can stream the football games live to ensure
that all individuals get an opportunity to watch games without having to attend or make
exorbitant prescriptions. Also, LAFC can tailor its content to entertain and inform fans about all
the things that happen during games and during training (Faria et al., 2022). With such an
increased social media presence, LAFC is likely to increase its fan base dramatically.
One of the reasons for increasing video content promotion for football games and other
activities is to improve merchandise sales. The goal is to ensure many supporters know about the
football club and develop an interest in its activities, including matches. Additionally, promoting
video content helps build a better reputation for the football club (Faria et al., 2022). Notably,
most people believe that football clubs that post their games and training sessions on social
media are confident about their activities, and thus they want to share them with the general
public. The other reason for promoting video content is that it helps create a culture where fans
feel like they need to watch the games posted online, whether live or recorded. The urge to watch
the streamed games only improves the reputation of the football club. Fans often want to
establish the performance of the team they support, and this is why they continuously check for
any updates on social media platforms.

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b. Decision Criteria
A critical examination of the recommended decision indicates that it was selected based
on specific factors, which make it viable as a strategy to improve the fan base of LAFC. One of
the factors is its ability to reach many people on social media platforms. In today’s tech-driven
society, most people spend much time on social media platforms, including reading news,
watching football games, and other interesting activities. With such a colossal presence on social
media, the chances of them watching the video content posted by LAFC are high; and this only
increases the popularity of the football club (Butterfield, 2018). Additionally, posting video
content about the activities of the football club is affordable for most established clubs. Notably,
LAFC will not have to spend large amounts of resources on promoting video content, making it a
viable strategy to increase the fan base over a long period. Most football clubs often shy away
from costly strategies because it would mean they have to cut costs on certain activities of the
club, which may damage their public image.
c. Proof of Recommendation
Promoting video content on social media by football clubs has helped increase their
ability to reach many fans. An examination of the premier league clubs, for instance, Manchester
United FC, indicates that its fan base has increased dramatically in recent years due to a vibrant
social media presence. A good example is when Paul Pogba rejoined the club, and a Twitter
music video was created to this effect. Remarkably, the Twitter music video significantly helped
in increasing the fan base for Manchester United FC (Caffyn, 2017). At the end of 2016,
Manchester United FC had reached 305 million fans across several social media platforms, such
as Facebook and Twitter (Caffyn, 2017). It is vital to acknowledge that different football clubs

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leverage different social media platforms; others prefer Twitter and Facebook, while others
YouTube and Instagram.
Additionally, promoting video content on social media platforms is affordable for several
reasons. Cos-effectiveness is one of the major reasons. If using video content to increase fan
support was an expensive undertaking, only a few football clubs would adopt it, but that is not
the case. The football clubs that use video content state that it is cost-effective to provide
information to interested individuals. This reduces time wastage by targeting the wrong audience
(Today’s Tale, 2019). Another reason is that it helps attract sponsors who can dramatically
promote the growth of football clubs because of investment in the best players and training
resources.
d. Critique of Options
Examining other options apart from the online promotion of video content indicates that
they may be expensive and time-consuming. To start with, investing in merchandise as a strategy
is to generate more revenue instead of increasing a club’s fan base. Notably, investing in
merchandise is costly because the football club has to spend large amounts of funds in promoting
the merchandise before it can start receiving revenues. As much as investing in merchandise may
increase a club’s fans base, it is time-consuming as LAFC has to organize certain contests in
which the winners are rewarded with merchandise, such as T-shirts that belong to the club.
Remarkably, investing in merchandise may not guarantee a continuous increase in fans, and thus
LAFC may have to organize contests regularly, which is an expensive undertaking.
Also, leveraging the opponent football clubs’ fans is an expensive strategy and time-
consuming. If LAFC were to employ this strategy, it would have to be ready to spend
significantly large quantities of resources mobilizing people to support respective football teams

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during matches (Ambrose & Schnitzlein, 2017). It is vital to acknowledge that such mobilization
may not guarantee an increase in fan base because it is difficult to establish the number of fans
who would go online to watch matches played by the football club. Additionally, leveraging the
fans of the opponent team is not viable for LAFC because it is time-consuming.
e. Major Disadvantages of Recommendation
Promoting video content of football games and other activities of LAFC through social
platforms may have certain disadvantages. One of the disadvantages of video content is the
costly nature of the overhead. It is vital to acknowledge that numerous moving pieces are
involved in producing videos, unlike written content. Notably, creating video content involves
many activities, including the writing of scripts, plotting out storyboards, and other activities,
which accrue to high costs when combined. Additionally, creating video content is time-
consuming because of the many phases involved. Some of the phases of video creation may
include pre-production, production, and post-production (Cherry, 2019). Notably, creating a
video may take days, which may make it difficult for LAFC to produce video content regularly,
especially if they do not have better equipment. For a video to be appealing to fans, producers
must take time; this explains why the strategy may be time-consuming. Also, the disadvantage of
video content is that it may not appeal to every individual, limiting the number of fans that might
support the club. Human beings have different tastes and preferences, and thus some of them
only like written information compared to videos. The best mitigation plan to reduce issues
associated with creating video content is using efficient production equipment.

2. Strategy Implementation

a. Action plan

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Posting club games and activities on social media networks – may involve various
processes and personnel who will ensure that it becomes successful. The first process involves
preparing a budget for the strategy. In the budget, all the costs of the individual processes should
be well-outlined by the finance team. The budget must be cost-effective to avoid incurring high
overhead costs and running out of funds. Additionally, technical experts should be consulted to
obtain essential information about the best production equipment. The technical experts are
expected to provide valuable information about the efficiency of the production equipment,
which can help LAFC make the best decisions regarding the selection process (Ellet, 2007).
The other step is to purchase the best production equipment, guarantee high-quality
videos, and reduce the time for production. The management of LAFC has to ensure that the
production equipment meets the criteria that the technical experts suggested. After purchasing
the production equipment, a time limit is set when the first video can be produced for
verification. During the initial stages of production, the management can set short-term goals to
be achieved by the producers. The management should then conduct follow-up activities to
assess the effectiveness of the production process and the effect the videos have on fans based on
their reviews.
b. Major Risk and Responses
Based on the action plan, there is a high likelihood that the results would be appealing.
One of the expected results is that the number of created video content will continuously increase
over time, and this would steadily result in an increase in the number of fans. Additionally, it is
expected that the quality of videos produced will be exemplary because LAFC has employed
skilled personnel to coordinate all the production activities. Regarding the risks that could
undermine the plan, the first risk is the laxity of the production team, which would result in

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reduced performance. Remarkably, laxity among the production personnel can be eliminated by
regular supervision of the activities to ensure that everything is done diligently and according to
plan. Additionally, reduced performance of the production equipment may be a risk, and this can
be resolved by regular maintenance of the equipment to increase its efficiency.
c. Appendix

Figure 1: The number of fans of Manchester FC on Twitter

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References

Ambrose, S. C., & Schnitzlein, N. (2017). What makes for the best rivalries in individual sports,
and how can marketers capitalize on them? Sport Marketing Quarterly, 26(4).
Butterfield, P. (2018). Creating a successful social media marketing strategy-case company
Portsmouth Football Club. https://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/146068
Caffyn, G. (2017). How 5 premier league clubs are using social video?
https://digiday.com/marketing/five-premier-league-clubs-using-social-video/
Cherry, B. (2019). Video marketing pros and cons. https://truscribe.com/video-marketing-pros-
cons/
Ellet, W. (2007). The case study handbook: How to read, discuss, and write persuasively about
cases. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Faria, S., et al. (2022). Understanding the effect of social media marketing activities on football
fans’ satisfaction and engagement: A study of Portuguese 2nd league professional
football clubs. IBIMA Business Review, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.5171/2022.448483
Today’s tale (2019). Social media in football: How the needs, size, and audience of clubs alter
social media policies. https://www.todaystale.com/justoutsidethebox-
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