I enjoyed Snoop Dogg‘s involvement with the Paris Olympics last summer. The old mutt was everywhere, peaking one afternoon when he rocked up at the equestrian, decked out in all the gear. Breaches, hunt coat, helmet, the lot. Fabulous.
Anyway, as you’ll probably recall he was working for NBC, the US broadcasting giant, and titled rather suitably as a Special Correspondent, roving from gymnastics to tennis to volleyball and wherever the clouds of smoke carried him on a given day.
When he got to the dressage, he didn’t weigh himself down with piaffes and pirouettes. ‘I am interested in the horses that dance and I want to give them some carrots and apples,’ he said. ‘I wanna make sure they’re fed before they do their thang.’
And so he did – he gave one of the horses a carrot. ‘This horse is off the chain,’ the rapper went on to say. ‘I gotta get this motherf***** in a video.’
The Olympics can be a strict place, but they made exceptions for Snoop Dogg. His Olympic pin badge was a decent example – it was a depiction of him puffing out smoke in rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red.
Given his social media following was somewhere north of 100million, quadruple that of the Games themselves, we might assume he was afforded a little latitude with their stuffy boundaries on branding. Reach goes a long way, of course, and it is also worth a lot of carrots – Snoop was paid around £400,000 per day for three weeks by NBC, not counting his expenses. Good dog, good businessman.
Snoop Dogg was the star of the Paris Olympics – paid £400,000 a day for his work with NBC
Now, the rapper has been announced as a shock investor and co-owner in Swansea City
His explanation for that was surreal: ‘The story of the club and the area really struck a chord with me’
And now the business of being Snoop has taken him to another gig. As of Thursday, he has been a co-owner of Swansea City, last seen in 10th place in the Championship.
His explanation for that was just as surreal: ‘The story of the club and the area really struck a chord with me. This is a proud, working-class city and club. An underdog that bites back, just like me.’
Querying the authenticity of these statements is just a bit too pious. It’s Snoop Dogg and it’s Swansea. It’s amusingly weird, offbeat, and if Snoop wishes us to believe a chord was struck, then let it be so. He’s fun and the football industry is meant to be the same. It too often goes the other way.
And yet I like this far less than him dressed as a rider feeding carrots to horses.
Will he help the club get worldwide exposure, as the US businessmen recently installed as their owners believe? It can’t hurt.
But will it open the door to vastly improved commercial opportunities at a club that, for a time under the previous American regime, sold most of what wasn’t nailed down? I’d be amazed if it does so in any meaningful pattern, unless Snoop fancies regular trips from California and is minded to channel Ryan Reynolds and Wrexham with a broadcaster.
From those I’ve spoken to at the club, there is a vague belief he will turn up to a game this season, but beyond that, they say it was nice he launched the new kit. As for a multi-part docu-series, currently that doesn’t seem to be on the agenda. Answers on the size of his stake and what he stumped up are not yet disclosed and rarely are in these scenarios.
Leaving all of this as what, exactly? A giggle, a gimmick and, presumably, an easy return on investment at some point down the line, because everyone knows, especially NBC, that Snoop doesn’t work for free. Feeding carrots to horses at the dressage and wearing a Swansea shirt are part of the same laugh to us and a business model for him.
It feels like a giggle, a gimmick and, presumably, an easy return on investment at some point down the line
Swansea have had to settle for mid-table status in the Championship in recent seasons
And that’s where the pious instincts do kick in, because clubs are in a strange and tenuous place at present. They are changing hands at ever faster rates, with less care for matters beyond the quick buck and a dwindling interest around what is passed on to the next owner. The recent vogue for celebrity investors is a worrying extension of that dynamic.
We’ve seen Jordan Spieth and Will Ferrell with Leeds United, LeBron James at Liverpool, Tom Brady at Birmingham, JJ Watt at Burnley. There are plenty more, all of whom have found that football’s trough ‘strikes a chord’.
I find the Brady one interesting, because folk at the club, players included, speak of some level of contribution.
That involvement is clearly overplayed, which was the impression I had when one prominent member of the Birmingham hierarchy told me earlier this year that he couldn’t recall Brady participating in stakeholder meetings.
But there is no disputing their growing commercial footprint in the US has been achieved in part by name-dropping an iconic American quarter-back into their sponsorship meetings. A sporting superstar makes for a natural synergy for a sporting club, just as a Hollywood star at Wrexham works on a storyboard for a Disney streaming platform. They are all flogging something but their results are tangible.
A stoned rapper, even a globally famous one? The opportunities seem more limited.
Wherever Reynolds and Rob McElhenney leave Wrexham when this interest ends is a valid debate. Ernest conversations have already started about what comes after they have gone, but there’s no denying it has been a joy ride through the divisions for their fans. Likewise, that their frontmen have done a lot of leg work to make it so successful.
But the rest? Increasingly, it feels as though our clubs are being appropriated for someone else’s joke, their sideshow, and it is mildly troubling to see them used in this way. To see them used for the enrichment of distant personalities passing through, save for a few brief videos clipped and packaged for the dopamine hits of the content era.
I find Tom Brady’s involvement with Birmingham interesting, because folk at the club, players included, speak of some level of contribution
Wherever Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney leave Wrexham when this interest ends is a valid debate
As a club, I know Swansea pretty well – I covered their Premier League years closely and noted the rarity of them having local owners and supporter influence on their board. Earlier charlatans had taken them to the brink of oblivion and guys like Huw Jenkins, the chairman of the time, took them all the way back up from the bottom of League Two to the Europa League.
There was hell to pay in Swansea when they then sold up to the last group of Americans to pass through. Fans felt betrayed, lied to, and it was a community in uproar, because they knew the value of leadership that cared. Subsequent outcomes validated their suspicions.
Many of those same fans probably found the Snoop announcement rather fun and fair enough. But let’s not take this for more than it is – they are being fed carrots for clicks.
Grealish won – but at what cost?
Jack Grealish returned to Manchester City for a spot of solo training this week, a one-man bomb squad with no team-mates to be seen and no appetite to keep him. His only purpose in being there was to keep fit in the hope of landing a move elsewhere.
There are a variety of reasons why City have decided it is the right time to let him go, and none should detract too much from all he won there. On balance, Grealish succeeded.
But did Pep Guardiola succeed with him? In Grealish, we saw a player who sufficiently altered the way he played to fit regimented instructions and his contribution to seven trophies ought to be recognised. Guardiola? He never bent.
He knew Grealish was a free spirit when City paid £100million to sign him, and he knew this was a rain-maker who could cause merry havoc on the ball if he was given a little trust to try. But that trust was limited. Guardiola rarely, if ever, saw merit in loosening the leash.
Grealish’s greatest quality was always his imagination. As this chapter closes at City, I do wonder if Guardiola, for all his brilliance, was lacking in the same department.
Jack Grealish is looking to leave Manchester City, but there is little doubt he succeeded there
Did Pep Guardiola, though? Herarely, if ever, saw merit in loosening the leash
I have enjoyed my time at the Open this week – but less so the rounds that take six hours
Eyes on the clock
I have spent the week at the Open and it’s been a joy. Less so are rounds that take six hours.
It has been 12 years since a golfer was docked strokes in a major for taking more than the permitted 40-50 seconds over a shot – if the arbiters get their finger out, then the players will surely do the same.