Chapter 1322 Salary Increase

Zhou Buqi's business plan for the stadium billboard was far beyond San Dezi's understanding.

This is not surprising either.

Not only Sandoku, but even Silicon Valley giants cannot understand it. This even exceeds the scope of "Internet + football". To combine the Internet with football, only Ziweixing in the world can do it.

And Zhou Buqi's plan has another element - Focus Media's business model.

Focus Media is a domestic media company, but its business model is original. Over the years, a complete and systematic operating process has been formed.

This has become a major advantage of Zhou Buqi.

The United States is a football desert, Europe is an Internet desert, and Focus Media is an original domestic business model. The combination of the three puts Ziweixing in a unique position.

When I return to China, I will go to Focus Media and have a good chat with Mr. Jiang to combine Focus’ model with “Internet + Football”.

Regarding stadium billboards, Zhou Buqi actually has a longer-term vision.

Traditional static advertisements in the stadium are equivalent to page advertisements on the Internet; LED electronic screen advertisements are equivalent to information flow advertisements on Friends.com.

But it can be further refined here.

The reason why information flow advertising is far more effective than page advertising is because it is personalized advertising! Thousands of people, thousands of faces, push different ads to different people!

Can stadium advertising use this idea?

For example, Japan's Yanmar agricultural vehicles are mainly sold to Thailand. They advertise at the Old Trafford Stadium for customers in Southeast Asia.

However, Manchester United's game is global.

After this advertisement is released, fans all over the world can see it. But the real advertising effect is only effective in Thailand and surrounding small Southeast Asian countries.

This results in a huge waste of advertising resources.

Can we personalize the advertising, segment the global market, and deliver different ads to different regions?

For example, in Thailand and Malaysia, when the game is broadcast live, the broadcast screen shows advertisements for Yanmar agricultural vehicles. The live broadcasts of events in the United States and Canada show ads from General Motors; ads from Uniqlo are shown in Japan, and ads from Wong Lo Kat are shown in Hong Kong and Taiwan...

A piece of resource can make money repeatedly many times.

However, this goes beyond Manchester United and requires cooperation with professional league broadcasters.

For example, in cooperation with the Premier League and the BBC, when pushing live event signals to the world, we use technical means to fine-tune the signals and virtualize the advertisements on the stadium billboards through more than a dozen languages ​​including German, English, Chinese, and Japanese. Language-based personalized virtual advertising content is pushed to hundreds of countries and regions.

This gives advertising partners more options, such as individually reaching a certain target group in different regions, or seeking different partners for copyright owners in different regions.

In this way, the advertising space will be greatly increased.

The billboard in the stadium becomes a platform on which countless personalized advertisements can be displayed.

Moving forward a little further, using virtual reality technology and metaverse technology to "visit" the game live, then it will no longer be regionally personalized, but subdivided to each individual.

Based on each person's occupation, gender, hobbies and other information, personalized advertisements are specifically placed. This can be deeply integrated with the personalized advertising algorithm of Friends.com, completing the unification of cross-industry technical business models.

However, these ideas are still a bit far away.

If the "Internet + Football" industry develops smoothly, we will strive to complete regional advertising within 5-8 years by truly modifying conventional transmission signals.

At the moment, we must first resolve the contradiction between Manchester United's internal commercialization and competitive pursuits.

The method is also simple.

Pay raise!

Ferguson's contract still expires in two years, and he can receive a salary increase of 1 million to 2 million pounds, and is promised a certain amount of transfer shares from business activities. Ferguson is the greatest head coach in the world, but his salary is only half of Mourinho's, which is not as good as Wenger and Benitez who coach in the Premier League.

This is a bit too bullying.

In particular, Sir Alex Ferguson is the most outstanding person at Manchester United.

"You have to do it to raise Ferguson's salary." Zhou Buqi asked San Dezi, "In addition to the basic salary and performance-related bonuses, there is also a share of business activities. The total annual salary must be Ensure after-tax income exceeds £5 million."

San Dezi was a little reluctant, "Such a big increase? His current after-tax income is only 2.4 million pounds, will it double directly?"

Zhou Buqi said with emotion: "The old man's contribution to Manchester United has been too great. No matter how much he earns, it will not be too much. Doing this well will also help resolve the conflict between you and Ferguson."

"OK, all right."

San Dezi nodded, not seeming very happy.

Zhou Buqi saw it immediately and said with a smile: "I'm usually busy and don't pay much attention to the situation at Manchester United. I don't know yet, how much is your salary?"

San Dezi calmed down and pretended to be calm, "Annual salary of 650,000 pounds."

"After tax?"

"Before tax."

"Well……"

Zhou Buqi didn't know what to say.

So shabby!

This is probably the environment in European football!

All the major clubs use their money to pay transfer fees, agent commissions and players' salaries, and save as much as they can on staff salaries.

Zhou Buqi has seen Manchester United's salary expense report before. The salary budget for this season is a total of 121 million pounds. Among them, 68 players received a total of 85 million pounds, and the remaining 476 staff received a total of 36 million pounds.

The average annual salary for staff is £75,000.

Head coach Ferguson's annual salary is 4 million pounds, CEO David Gill's annual salary is 750,000 pounds, and vice-chairman Sandoko's annual salary is 650,000 pounds.

These are all before tax, and 40%-50% will be deducted after tax calculation.

Zhou Buqi was silent for a long time before sighing, "I know where the first step of Manchester United's reform should be."

Sandoku raised his eyebrows, "How do you say that?"

Zhou Buqi said in a deep voice: "There is a huge mistake in Manchester United's salary system! If you want the horse to run, you have to feed the horse. If you want to attract outstanding talents, it is not enough to rely on feelings alone. You must also rely on interests. It must be met. Before, I only thought about improving the players’ salary system. Now it seems that it should be adjusted systematically, including players and staff.”

San Dezi was surprised and said: "Is there a collective salary increase?"

Zhou Buqi said: "It doesn't have to be a collective salary increase, but the key talents in key positions must reflect their importance in terms of income. I have said before that I would give David Gill a salary increase, so let's suspend this plan for now. . Because this is not a problem for David Gill alone, but a problem for the entire system. System adjustments need to be made."

Sandoko twitched his lips, "The budget..."

This season's Manchester United budget is based on the competitive results of "runner-up in the Premier League, semi-finals in the Football Cup, and semi-finals in the Champions League". The budget revenue is 215 million pounds. The budgeted salary expenditure is 121 million pounds, and there are other miscellaneous expenditures totaling 155 million pounds. Budget profit is £60 million.

This was done by the Glazer family.

The purpose is to make money to pay off debts.

If wages are increased, profits will be greatly reduced.

Boss Zhou will not draw blood from Manchester United. This idea is very clear. But he also said that it would cost a lot to renovate Manchester United's old infrastructure, including the training base, youth training base and Old Trafford Stadium.

Zhou Buqi looked at San Dezi's hesitant expression and was both happy and helpless.

The good thing is that he can weigh the interests of the club instead of being happy when he hears a salary increase. Unfortunately, San Dezi's level is a bit low after all.

Later generations of football people called him a "business wizard", that is, he was a big boy.

In the final analysis, he is just a small manager hired by the Glazer family from Morgan to manage the loan business. At most, he can be regarded as a small middle-level leader of Morgan.

The level is still not enough.

But this is normal.

What kind of high-level talents can be recruited with an annual salary of only 650,000 pounds? Among the executives of world-class companies, who doesn’t have an annual salary of millions or tens of millions of dollars?

It is no wonder that the commercial development of European football is so poor.

No talent!

The club's management staff all receive such a small salary, so why do they expect them to achieve such great things? How much money you get, how much work you do, this is the biggest law of the market.

Zhou Buqi looked at the time. It was 10 a.m. Tokyo time, which was not too late Eastern Time, so he took out his cell phone and made a call.

On the other end of the phone was the youngest son of the Roberts family, which controls media giant Comcast Corp.

Roberts Jr. is the current owner of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers.

"I'm Zhou Buqi, bothering you so late, I have something to ask... Well, I'm so sorry, bothering you so late, I'm a little curious, what is the annual salary of your team's general manager? President of Operations What? Well, okay..."

I thought it was just a brief phone call.

But the other party was very enthusiastic, very enthusiastic!

Because a group of stocks on Nasdaq have been rising sharply recently!

Pluto Capital is still in the subscription period, but has already issued its first financial report to all investors, showing an increase of 14.6%!

So cool!

It’s only been a month, right?

Zhou Buqi chatted with him patiently for 5 minutes before finally ending the call.

Then, I felt helpless.

Depend on!

Basketball can only be regarded as the fourth largest sport in the United States. In the world, it is even more incomparable with football. It is a world of difference. But the NBA’s earning power is much stronger than football.

After investigation, clues were discovered.

The Philadelphia 76ers' general manager earns an annual salary of $5.5 million, and the president of operations earns an annual salary of $3.6 million. The annual salary of Manchester United's executive vice chairman and CEO is 750,000 pounds, and the annual salary of the vice president of commercial affairs is 650,000 pounds...

This is very telling.

A high annual salary is far more harmful to a company than a low annual salary. At most, a high annual salary will reduce the company's profits, but a low annual salary will cause the company to miss out on a large number of talents.

For example, Chen Guohuan, the vice president of marketing of Ziweixing, has to travel constantly to visit customers all over the country and lobby big customers to advertise on Ziweixing's platform.

Zhou Buqi had read his monthly report.

Last month, he personally reimbursed 67 air tickets. On average, we fly more than twice a day and visit more than 130 customers. Who can the average person bear this kind of workload?

The reward is low, okay?

How much work you have to do for how much money you are given.

It’s no wonder that so many clubs’ stadium billboards are empty.

With so much money, who would want to do such dirty work? How about sitting in the office and waiting for businesses to come to you for cooperation?

Not coming? If you don’t come, it will be empty!

Previously, Zhou Buqi had contacted the headhunting company Heidrick \u0026 Struggles, hoping that they could recruit high-level talents from Hollywood and imitate Hollywood movies to help promote Manchester United's derivatives.

If there is not enough salary, who will come?

This matter must be done immediately. Zhou Buqi said decisively and firmly: "Find Deloitte to prepare a compensation committee and create a new salary system for Manchester United! This is the top priority for Manchester United's reform!"