Arsene Wenger famously likened qualifying for the Champions League to winning a trophy. Newcastle United's wait for silverware may go on, but returning to Europe's top table for the first time in 20 years feels like a watershed moment for the club - on and off the field.
While this is new ground for so many at St James' Park, it is not uncharted territory for chief executive Darren Eales and chief commercial officer Peter Silverstone, who have both experienced life in the Champions League with Spurs and Arsenal respectively. It will be these figures, in particular, who will look to maximise the off the field benefits of breaking into the top four.
Newcastle are set to announce a new front of shirt deal worth around £25m-a-year and qualifying for the Champions League will boost the club's prospects of securing a much-improved sleeve sponsor and a training kit partner, too. It is certainly a lot easier to justify a lucrative sponsorship deal is of fair market value when you are among the continent's elite.
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No wonder, then, the club are searching for a new global director of brand, marketing and digital media to lead and develop a commercial strategy that 'sets the club apart from the competition'. Michael Leavey, who worked alongside Silverstone as Arsenal's executive director for media, marketing and customer relationship management, has predicted the Champions League will make a 'big difference' in that regard.
"It changes the commercial conversations with partners that they will have and their opportunity to monetise," he told ChronicleLive. "It creates other great evenings at St James. Hospitality, box sales and all that type of thing creates additional revenue so it's a real win-win all the way round. It will be really good for Newcastle.
"If you can offer Champions League as well to people who are in the market to sponsor a football team, that's appealing, isn't it? Although your brand can't be seen in the stadium [UEFA have their own centralised sponsors], you are associated with that club that is in the Champions League so there is a secondary benefit, which is a value.
"It can only be a good thing. If they can do it for a couple of seasons in a row, three seasons in a row, from a commercial perspective, that benefit accumulates. One-off does give value, but you get even more value if you become a Champions League team. I don't see any reason why Newcastle won't do that."
As Leavey alluded to, there is a difference between qualifying for the Champions League and becoming a Champions League team. The Leicester City fairy tale serves as a warning in that regard.
Having reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League, less than a year after winning the Premier League, Leicester recorded record pre-tax profits of £92.5m in 2017. Turnover rocketed from £128.7m to £233m. Ticket revenue rose by 42% despite season ticket prices being frozen.
Leicester did not return to Europe's top table, though, despite some memorable seasons thereafter. Now fighting to stay in the Premier League, Leicester recorded record losses of £92.5m last year - the same amount the club made in pre-tax profits just a few years earlier.
However, this is not a like-for-like comparison. Newcastle, unlike Leicester, have the resources to keep their best players and seriously strengthen once more by bringing in four or five quality additions this summer. Newcastle may be looking at a very small pool of players, but returning to the Champions League makes the club an even more attractive proposition to targets and the club's budget will be boosted accordingly. In fact, playing in the Champions League is worth a minimum of £30m to Newcastle - which is an eight-figure fee the club would not have otherwise banked.
For Daniel Haddad, the head of commercial strategy at Octagon, who advises a number of Champions League official sponsors, including Mastercard and Expedia, that will be the biggest short-term plus to finishing in the top four - however obvious it may seem.
"The bigger benefit of being in the Champions League is any incremental benefit it has to the playing squad budget," he told ChronicleLive. "Acquiring higher profile players would, in my opinion, have a disproportionate effect on more immediate sponsorship revenues than qualifying for the Champions League.
"That is more of a game-changer in almost trading up in terms of the players you are acquiring. If that was a reason why they may be able to stretch a bit further in terms of playing talent, that is more likely to bring the short-term commercial benefit versus being in the Champions League.
"You've got to remember that with the Champions League, essentially, there are six games guaranteed in the group stage and, as Barcelona showed, you can be knocked out before Christmas. It's more the impact of being there from a broader club revenue perspective in terms of uplifting media rights, distributions, ticketing and hospitality, which are the revenue streams that will spike directly correlated to qualification and sponsorship. Yes, there is a way that it might have a small impact in a particular year, but the kind of overall growth as a club, as an entire entity, is more important."
Therefore, rather than aspiring to do a Leicester, Newcastle will instead look at clubs like Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid, who might not have generated huge numbers in sponsorship revenue once upon a time, but who have since solidified their place in the Champions League in recent years. By becoming Champions League teams.
Re-establishing that association with the competition will be crucial for Newcastle as, for the first time in two decades, Champions League nights return to St James' Park. These are glamour ties no one will want to miss, according to a former commercial director at a leading Premier League club, who did not wish to be named,
"Ticket sales are a very big revenue generator and corporate hospitality is always big for European games," he told ChronicleLive. "They will have at least three home games and, at my club, they were worth a million quid a pop every time just from that perspective. I should think it's pretty similar for Newcastle by the time you have got ticket sales and hospitality.
"They are huge numbers and that will attract sponsors as well, where they are able to host guests, which is a big part of what sponsors want. It's not just simply the brand on the shirt or the brand association on the sleeve or the training kit. There are all the other brands which can then entertain and bring their guests to the game."
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