| WLS Youtube channel 11:49 - May 27 with 2126 views | dmm |
I'm sure many on here watch the WLS Youtube channel and the regular discussions on all things QPR they've been having for the past 6 months with Dan Bennett, Ben Kosky, Ian McCullough and Kevin Gallen.
Although I quite enjoy them I rarely feel I've learned anything new or heard a novel perspective about my club. I'm sure this site could host an equally if not better version. Drawing on the knowledge and views of many LfW posters, together with the erudite and witty Clive Whittingham, a Loft for Words online fans discussion would be a total blast.
How about it Clive? |  | | |  |
| WLS Youtube channel on 12:29 - May 27 with 2039 views | daveB |
I quite enjoy them, think they all speak quite well on QPR |  | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 12:54 - May 27 with 1999 views | kropotkin41 |
I think a lot of you guys would be able to put together well informed and interesting discussion panels on all things QPR (and much more to be honest), the problem being, I believe, that Clive doesn't like being on camera.... he'd have to be a disembodied voice! |  |
| ‘morbid curiosity about where this is all going’ |
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| WLS Youtube channel on 12:56 - May 27 with 1994 views | onlyrinmoray |
Yeah I follow the WLS podcast all good QPR guys |  | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 13:06 - May 27 with 1977 views | dmm |
| WLS Youtube channel on 12:29 - May 27 by daveB |
I quite enjoy them, think they all speak quite well on QPR |
Dan Bennett is a Blackpool fan I believe. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 13:09 - May 27 with 1970 views | Northernr |
Planning a few of these next season for the Patreon, around things like the End of Term Reports... |  | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 15:05 - May 27 with 1837 views | PinnerPaul |
I've only seen the latest interview with Lee Hoos and can't say I was impressed.
As I'm sure Clive will testify, one of the most important things for an interviewer is to listen to the answers to your questions.
Interviewer asked Lee about 'marketing' and despite him explaining that crowds increase when you're winning (as does stream take up btw) and that no 'marketing' will bring Fulham or Brentford fans down to KPFS, the interviewer persisted with about 5 questions on the same subject.
He (the interviewer) actually said his wife couldn't stand football but was surprised there was no QPR 'presence' in Westfields.
As Hoos pointed out, if she can't stand football how is a poster or two going to suddenly convince her to become a fan?! |  | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 16:13 - May 27 with 1751 views | daveB |
| WLS Youtube channel on 15:05 - May 27 by PinnerPaul |
I've only seen the latest interview with Lee Hoos and can't say I was impressed.
As I'm sure Clive will testify, one of the most important things for an interviewer is to listen to the answers to your questions.
Interviewer asked Lee about 'marketing' and despite him explaining that crowds increase when you're winning (as does stream take up btw) and that no 'marketing' will bring Fulham or Brentford fans down to KPFS, the interviewer persisted with about 5 questions on the same subject.
He (the interviewer) actually said his wife couldn't stand football but was surprised there was no QPR 'presence' in Westfields.
As Hoos pointed out, if she can't stand football how is a poster or two going to suddenly convince her to become a fan?! |
He seems to listen to him but clearly disagreed with Hoos so looked to delve into it a bit more.
He had a point on this though, the lack of marketing by the club does have an effect, of course a good team keeps people coming back but a lot more could be done to get more people through the door to start with. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 16:16 - May 27 with 1747 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| WLS Youtube channel on 16:13 - May 27 by daveB |
He seems to listen to him but clearly disagreed with Hoos so looked to delve into it a bit more.
He had a point on this though, the lack of marketing by the club does have an effect, of course a good team keeps people coming back but a lot more could be done to get more people through the door to start with. |
I agree with you, Dave. I couldn't really follow Hoos's logic on that one. |  |
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| WLS Youtube channel on 16:23 - May 27 with 1729 views | stevec |
Reckon most EFL clubs have a fairly constant fan base irrespective of marketing, change only comes from being up top/promotion/new ground.
Think I heard mentioned Brentford have 11000 ST holders now which must be a big step up from their days at Griffin Park. |  | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:19 - May 27 with 1659 views | PinnerPaul |
| WLS Youtube channel on 16:16 - May 27 by BrianMcCarthy |
I agree with you, Dave. I couldn't really follow Hoos's logic on that one. |
The logic is, who are you going to get to come by putting up posters around Shepherds Bush? (as Fulham do around Putney apparently).
Surely anyone who wants to go to a football match knows where the professional teams are?
Gates increase when we win and are doing well, as he said, where do you want to spend what money we have - on the pitch to improve results and therefore crowds, or in 'marketing'?
He's said before you actually get people not coming when given a 'free' ticket.
Any marketing has to be directed at a base you think you can persuade to come - are there that many uncommitted football fans out there?
I'm with him, I don't think there are. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:22 - May 27 with 1663 views | Northernr |
I reckon the club's marketing budget wishes it had a £1 for every time Finney has told the podcast there should be QPR billboards up around Ladbroke Grove. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:33 - May 27 with 1636 views | PinnerPaul |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:22 - May 27 by Northernr |
I reckon the club's marketing budget wishes it had a £1 for every time Finney has told the podcast there should be QPR billboards up around Ladbroke Grove. |
Seriously though, what do you think?
Pointless or worth a try? | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:44 - May 27 with 1635 views | daveB |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:19 - May 27 by PinnerPaul |
The logic is, who are you going to get to come by putting up posters around Shepherds Bush? (as Fulham do around Putney apparently).
Surely anyone who wants to go to a football match knows where the professional teams are?
Gates increase when we win and are doing well, as he said, where do you want to spend what money we have - on the pitch to improve results and therefore crowds, or in 'marketing'?
He's said before you actually get people not coming when given a 'free' ticket.
Any marketing has to be directed at a base you think you can persuade to come - are there that many uncommitted football fans out there?
I'm with him, I don't think there are. |
I don't think it's a case of putting a few posters up.
If the club are serious about moving to a new stadium and growing the fanbase they can't just hope someone will notice we're doing well when we have 3 teams on our doorsteps actively trying to get people into the club. We had 40,000 fans turn up at Wembley, are we doing anything to try and get a few of those to come more often.
You have a large immigrant population now in West London, quite possibly have no idea about QPR or what we have to offer, we could reach out to those communities.
There is so much more they can do such as ticket offers to get people in, run partnerships with bars and restaurants in Westfield, buy a meal and get a discount on tickets for example. Doing nothing is crazy really. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:58 - May 27 with 1603 views | PinnerPaul |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:44 - May 27 by daveB |
I don't think it's a case of putting a few posters up.
If the club are serious about moving to a new stadium and growing the fanbase they can't just hope someone will notice we're doing well when we have 3 teams on our doorsteps actively trying to get people into the club. We had 40,000 fans turn up at Wembley, are we doing anything to try and get a few of those to come more often.
You have a large immigrant population now in West London, quite possibly have no idea about QPR or what we have to offer, we could reach out to those communities.
There is so much more they can do such as ticket offers to get people in, run partnerships with bars and restaurants in Westfield, buy a meal and get a discount on tickets for example. Doing nothing is crazy really. |
and we would get 40,000 again at Wembley, if we don't do a thing OFF the pitch - surely that proves his point?
Its not 'crazy' at all, its sensible use of limited resources, ie money!
As for 'incentives' he mentioned a free ticket offer he did when US Football was in town.
One such fan who had come to LR (as it was then) told him that soccer 'stank' after the promotional game turned out to be the god awful league cup match v Burton Albion.
Its all about what happens ON the pitch.
TBF he DID say that he thought the club's work in the community must help, as children get the more of a chance to meet our players than they do that lot down the road.
Your idea of trying to tap into the local community is worth a go, although its pushing it a bit to think there are that many who don't know that there is a football club on their door step! [Post edited 27 May 2021 18:07]
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| WLS Youtube channel on 22:08 - May 27 with 1492 views | daveB |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:58 - May 27 by PinnerPaul |
and we would get 40,000 again at Wembley, if we don't do a thing OFF the pitch - surely that proves his point?
Its not 'crazy' at all, its sensible use of limited resources, ie money!
As for 'incentives' he mentioned a free ticket offer he did when US Football was in town.
One such fan who had come to LR (as it was then) told him that soccer 'stank' after the promotional game turned out to be the god awful league cup match v Burton Albion.
Its all about what happens ON the pitch.
TBF he DID say that he thought the club's work in the community must help, as children get the more of a chance to meet our players than they do that lot down the road.
Your idea of trying to tap into the local community is worth a go, although its pushing it a bit to think there are that many who don't know that there is a football club on their door step! [Post edited 27 May 2021 18:07]
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They can do nothing and hope to keep the current fans with a good team or try and do something which may well fail but could bring in some new supporters or some people paying money to come a few times a season
If it's all about what happens on the pitch then we are screwed because there are 3 clubs on our doorstep all far more successful than us at the moment and we're in a town with several premier league clubs
Of course if you offer deals for games and the team plays crap thats not going to help but thats the risk every week whether you do an offer or not. I just think it's very defeatist of Hoos to say it's not worth trying
I worked with an Aussie girl 3 years ago who lived in Shepherds Bush opposite Westfield and she had no idea there was a football stadium or a football team around the corner. She saw fans around on a Saturday but didn't realise how close the stadium was. She ended up going to Crystal Palace a few times and loved it | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 08:39 - May 28 with 1393 views | Northernr |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:33 - May 27 by PinnerPaul |
Seriously though, what do you think?
Pointless or worth a try? |
What I think is that Lee Hoos has been CEO at half a dozen clubs now, and is very good at his job, so it's a bit fanciful to think that there's loads and loads of untapped revenue sitting out there for want of him being too tight or lazy to put a billboard at White City tube station.
He has done a number of things to try and grow and maintain support, such as taking an empty area of the ground (X Block) and trying to get a bit of atmosphere going there with v cheap season tickets, the family stand which gives kids a good matchday experience and gets them hooked (though we all lament where in the ground it's located), and the prematch fan park where you get to meet QPR players which is a USP for us over other London clubs.
He's acutely aware of a lot of the problems the club faces with an ageing fan base. I've sat with him in meetings and he's gone through big spreadsheets with me showing just how starkly old our support base is - he had exact numbers for U5s, U10s, U15s, U20s, U25s, U30s and so on attending games and it was depressing.
He also places a high value on season ticket holders, which as a season ticket holder is great. We've had ticket prices frozen for seven years now, we got our seat held for 2021/22 regardless of whether we refunded or not, we got a better streaming deal than a lot of fans. He's good with customer loyalty and retaining customers I think.
But then I do sometimes find him a little bit defeatist for want of a better word on the ground and building the support base. Completely get the argument that Loftus Road is increasingly unfit for purpose and a bit of a millstone, but we're not leaving it any time soon. It's getting tatty again, it needs painting, they've clearly got a problem with foxes, it feels like it's rather being left to rot and even in a best case scenario I think we'll still be here in 2031. And it has 4/5,000 empty seats at home games, which I feel like we should be making more effort to fill to really push the argument that we need a new gaff.
I know he doesn't like free tickets, and I agree with him, because a lot of them go unused and it devalues the product for those who are paying (why should I get a season ticket if there's all these offers I may as well just pick and choose and take advntg of them etc etc) but you can do other stuff like season ticket holders get to bring a friend for a fiver, or get money off their season ticket if they introduce another new season ticket holder. When we do have offers on, they're not very well publicised, to Sheffield Hoop's point a few weeks ago there seems to be an assumption that everybody has Twitter and relies on it for all their info - there have been ticket offers on at QPR over the past couple of seasons that I wasn't aware of, and I'm an obsessive. Make a bit more use of the mailing list, postal and email, and don't just rely on people looking at the website and Twitter, because in an ageing support a lot of them don't.
I also think we should be going massively hot and heavy for safe standing. There are a number of areas in the ground that are perfect for it. Again, coming back to season ticket holder loyalty, I think he's wary of pissing existing customers off by asking them to move so he can put a terrace in, and I get that because I wouldn't like it if I got shifted, but there could be tremendous upside if we were offering Championship football, in London, with a terrace. They should be doing that now, hammering the EFL, the government, whoever, to let us be the test case. Let us do it, in the Champ, you can come and see it and see how it works, use us as a study. I think that would be a tremendous attraction.
As you can tell it drives me up the wall a bit when Finney gets on his Ladbroke Grove billboard rant, because if it were that simple they'd be doing it, we've got a very experienced football CEO now, not like some of the chumps we had before. I think a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks think they could do a better job than a bloke who is vastly experienced and very, very good. I'd actually rather listen to Jim Frayling, who has been in that position of trying to market the club, and to the point of 'nothing succeeds like winning' he was marketing the club when it was dead on its arse, in League One, and they ended up with the biggest crowds and best atmospehere we'd had for a long time.
This podcast is long but Jim was brilliant on it and a lot of the ideas he expressed are worth consideration...
https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/54648/the-never-en | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 11:25 - May 28 with 1276 views | daveB |
with Safe standing the Lower Loft and paddocks would seem the obvious place, possibly school end lower as well.
I sit in the lower loft so would be one of those moved but think the if the club speak to the fans about it they might get a good response. The big issue many had when people were turfed out of the lower loft was that no one was asked about it they were just told they couldn't be trusted as they had no children with them so sit somewhere else, it was a ridiculous decision and rightly caused a lot of bad blood and people walking away. If they come out and say we are doing safe standing in the lower loft if you don't like it move you will see a similar reaction and all the good work done to get kids coming to games will be lost. It should certainly be looked into though, it won't increase capacity but it would appeal to the 20/30 age group which is where we do seem to be lacking | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 11:29 - May 28 with 1261 views | toboboly |
| WLS Youtube channel on 11:25 - May 28 by daveB |
with Safe standing the Lower Loft and paddocks would seem the obvious place, possibly school end lower as well.
I sit in the lower loft so would be one of those moved but think the if the club speak to the fans about it they might get a good response. The big issue many had when people were turfed out of the lower loft was that no one was asked about it they were just told they couldn't be trusted as they had no children with them so sit somewhere else, it was a ridiculous decision and rightly caused a lot of bad blood and people walking away. If they come out and say we are doing safe standing in the lower loft if you don't like it move you will see a similar reaction and all the good work done to get kids coming to games will be lost. It should certainly be looked into though, it won't increase capacity but it would appeal to the 20/30 age group which is where we do seem to be lacking |
Give the Lower School end to standing and only give away fans the upper tier and everyone wins |  |
| Sexy Asian dwarves wanted. |
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| WLS Youtube channel on 11:36 - May 28 with 1250 views | Northernr |
Sorry correcting myself I think the family stand pre dates Hoos but he’s enthusiastically defended it. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 12:05 - May 28 with 1176 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| WLS Youtube channel on 17:19 - May 27 by PinnerPaul |
The logic is, who are you going to get to come by putting up posters around Shepherds Bush? (as Fulham do around Putney apparently).
Surely anyone who wants to go to a football match knows where the professional teams are?
Gates increase when we win and are doing well, as he said, where do you want to spend what money we have - on the pitch to improve results and therefore crowds, or in 'marketing'?
He's said before you actually get people not coming when given a 'free' ticket.
Any marketing has to be directed at a base you think you can persuade to come - are there that many uncommitted football fans out there?
I'm with him, I don't think there are. |
Clive and Dave have made great points below, but I would add this - local kids should be bombarded with QPR marketing. I completely take your point that adults may be committed and therefore slow to turn, but kids are impressionable. Surely some of them are idiotic enough to come to Rangers! | |
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| WLS Youtube channel on 12:32 - May 28 with 1128 views | daveB |
| WLS Youtube channel on 11:36 - May 28 by Northernr |
Sorry correcting myself I think the family stand pre dates Hoos but he’s enthusiastically defended it. |
It Does. Ali Russell brought the family stand in for the 2008/09 season when Jude the Cat was fired and replaced by Spark. Phil Beard then amended the rules to the family stand either 2012 or 2013 which saw plenty kicked out. If they amended the rule that says you can only get a ticket if you have a child with you that would fix most of the problems in all honesty and doubt it would bother anyone who is already a season ticket holder. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 13:14 - May 28 with 1084 views | francisbowles |
| WLS Youtube channel on 11:29 - May 28 by toboboly |
Give the Lower School end to standing and only give away fans the upper tier and everyone wins |
Except the ones standing on the lower school end who get pelted from above. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 13:18 - May 28 with 1078 views | PinnerPaul |
| WLS Youtube channel on 08:39 - May 28 by Northernr |
What I think is that Lee Hoos has been CEO at half a dozen clubs now, and is very good at his job, so it's a bit fanciful to think that there's loads and loads of untapped revenue sitting out there for want of him being too tight or lazy to put a billboard at White City tube station.
He has done a number of things to try and grow and maintain support, such as taking an empty area of the ground (X Block) and trying to get a bit of atmosphere going there with v cheap season tickets, the family stand which gives kids a good matchday experience and gets them hooked (though we all lament where in the ground it's located), and the prematch fan park where you get to meet QPR players which is a USP for us over other London clubs.
He's acutely aware of a lot of the problems the club faces with an ageing fan base. I've sat with him in meetings and he's gone through big spreadsheets with me showing just how starkly old our support base is - he had exact numbers for U5s, U10s, U15s, U20s, U25s, U30s and so on attending games and it was depressing.
He also places a high value on season ticket holders, which as a season ticket holder is great. We've had ticket prices frozen for seven years now, we got our seat held for 2021/22 regardless of whether we refunded or not, we got a better streaming deal than a lot of fans. He's good with customer loyalty and retaining customers I think.
But then I do sometimes find him a little bit defeatist for want of a better word on the ground and building the support base. Completely get the argument that Loftus Road is increasingly unfit for purpose and a bit of a millstone, but we're not leaving it any time soon. It's getting tatty again, it needs painting, they've clearly got a problem with foxes, it feels like it's rather being left to rot and even in a best case scenario I think we'll still be here in 2031. And it has 4/5,000 empty seats at home games, which I feel like we should be making more effort to fill to really push the argument that we need a new gaff.
I know he doesn't like free tickets, and I agree with him, because a lot of them go unused and it devalues the product for those who are paying (why should I get a season ticket if there's all these offers I may as well just pick and choose and take advntg of them etc etc) but you can do other stuff like season ticket holders get to bring a friend for a fiver, or get money off their season ticket if they introduce another new season ticket holder. When we do have offers on, they're not very well publicised, to Sheffield Hoop's point a few weeks ago there seems to be an assumption that everybody has Twitter and relies on it for all their info - there have been ticket offers on at QPR over the past couple of seasons that I wasn't aware of, and I'm an obsessive. Make a bit more use of the mailing list, postal and email, and don't just rely on people looking at the website and Twitter, because in an ageing support a lot of them don't.
I also think we should be going massively hot and heavy for safe standing. There are a number of areas in the ground that are perfect for it. Again, coming back to season ticket holder loyalty, I think he's wary of pissing existing customers off by asking them to move so he can put a terrace in, and I get that because I wouldn't like it if I got shifted, but there could be tremendous upside if we were offering Championship football, in London, with a terrace. They should be doing that now, hammering the EFL, the government, whoever, to let us be the test case. Let us do it, in the Champ, you can come and see it and see how it works, use us as a study. I think that would be a tremendous attraction.
As you can tell it drives me up the wall a bit when Finney gets on his Ladbroke Grove billboard rant, because if it were that simple they'd be doing it, we've got a very experienced football CEO now, not like some of the chumps we had before. I think a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks think they could do a better job than a bloke who is vastly experienced and very, very good. I'd actually rather listen to Jim Frayling, who has been in that position of trying to market the club, and to the point of 'nothing succeeds like winning' he was marketing the club when it was dead on its arse, in League One, and they ended up with the biggest crowds and best atmospehere we'd had for a long time.
This podcast is long but Jim was brilliant on it and a lot of the ideas he expressed are worth consideration...
https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/54648/the-never-en |
Excellent stuff Clive, thanks - very little there to disagree with.
On the 'missing' 5,000 I guess he feels if we were top 6 that would be sorted, but do see how that is a little simplistic.
Of course, only he knows the exact numbers, but I suppose if MW is in his ear saying CA and SJ need paying £xxxxx, its hard to justify to the board spending loads on marketing/ticket schemes that may or may not show a result - that's true of player acquisition as well to a certain extent, but its easy to sympathise with that line of thinking. | | | |
| WLS Youtube channel on 15:14 - May 28 with 1004 views | W7Ranger |
| WLS Youtube channel on 13:18 - May 28 by PinnerPaul |
Excellent stuff Clive, thanks - very little there to disagree with.
On the 'missing' 5,000 I guess he feels if we were top 6 that would be sorted, but do see how that is a little simplistic.
Of course, only he knows the exact numbers, but I suppose if MW is in his ear saying CA and SJ need paying £xxxxx, its hard to justify to the board spending loads on marketing/ticket schemes that may or may not show a result - that's true of player acquisition as well to a certain extent, but its easy to sympathise with that line of thinking. |
I think the performances of the 2nd half of last season alongside the big 4 coming back would be significant marketing in itself to sell a few extra season tkts this summer.
Especially the Charlie factor. (not bugle either!) [Post edited 28 May 2021 15:15]
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| WLS Youtube channel on 16:43 - May 28 with 958 views | switchingcode |
| WLS Youtube channel on 15:14 - May 28 by W7Ranger |
I think the performances of the 2nd half of last season alongside the big 4 coming back would be significant marketing in itself to sell a few extra season tkts this summer.
Especially the Charlie factor. (not bugle either!) [Post edited 28 May 2021 15:15]
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When I was a teenager living in west London when Brentford were not at homeI would go with mates to Fulham and Qpr or even the other London clubs which was easy to do as you could pay at the turnstile and I am sure that helped swell the crowds back then.Don’t think the youth are that interested In football these days and the commitment and costs of STs is not high on their priority list. | | | |
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