Football Partnerships

By Alex Kotler

Do you remember your first birthday? When milk was more exciting for you than cake and your parents waxed lyrical about your learning to walk and talk?

Well, as the proud parent of Football Partnerships, I’m devoting this week’s Offsides piece to gushing about my little baby and remembering its first awkward steps and indecipherable sounds.

One year ago (Friday), I created a LinkedIn group to maximize my networking opportunities within the football industry. Having recently completed my MBA, I sought a new role within the soccer environment to apply my business development, management and branding expertise. Courtesy of collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps, or so I’d like to think, that position never presented itself.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn nurtured a premature Football Partnerships, which suckled the social networking tit to survive.

The first week saw only a few applicants, with a handful more in the second and third. By the fourth week the group had attracted its first of many highly visible and respected representatives of the football industry: Stephen Constantine, then an out-of-work coach seeking a new job at the highest level.

That same week Football Partnerships produced its first newsletter, a cruder version of the current iteration. The group had 11 members as of 18 July, 2008.

And baby FP crawled along.

At 250 members we took our first steps, branding the project and building a dedicated website. The standalone website, www.footballpartnerships.com, would now integrate the LinkedIn group and (attempt) to foster member interaction.

Later that month, FP spoke its first words with the launch of the Football Partnerships podcast. Interviewing first Paul McDonald of America’s Team FC, then Dan Wood of Streets United and Misha Sher of Soccerex, the sounds became more intelligible.

In late November, FP made a splash at Soccerex and returned with resolve to continue its growth, expanding to provide advisory services to businesses within the football industry.

Early 2009 saw a redesign of the Football Partnerships newsletter, a more appealing and user-friendly interface than the previous version and one that aligned aesthetically with the website. It also saw the launch of two networking events, a mixer at the NSCAA Convention in St. Louis and KICKOFF 2009 in New York City. Both went off with aplomb.

With membership growing through the spring, FP launched the Football Partnerships Network to activate its worldwide membership across 64 cities in North America and Western Europe.

All of a sudden FP was drinking formula straight from the bottle.

So, Happy Birthday Football Partnerships!

You now have over 1,500 members – all dedicated football industry professionals from all sectors of the business. You have produced one newsletter per week since 18 July, save the last week in December. You have prepared 32 episodes of the highly-rated Football Partnerships podcast. Your advisory services have taken on upwards of 10 solid clients. And you have an upcoming event in England with others in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and elsewhere to come.

But, for all of your growth FP, you’re still a baby. After all, you never let daddy get any sleep.