Back in September, Rangers FC confirmed they had extended their partnership with Kindred Group establishing this special alliance as the longest-standing of its kind in British football for its tenth season now.
Kindred Group, an online gambling company, have invested their time providing help in the local community, with initiatives such as ‘Team Talk’, which the Rangers Charity Foundation team run.
Most gambling operators put their logos on jerseys or have it around the grounds and consider it a success, Kindred is not the average gambling company as they wanted to make sure there was a wider piece of work going on.
During an extensive conversation with Soccerscene, Group Head of Corporate Affairs at Kindred Group, Tom Banks, spoke in-depth to Alex Bagdasarian about the relationship between the two parties, the work done in the local community, men’s mental health, and much more.
Can you explain to us about the benefits of both parties and the relationship you two have over the last 10 years?
Tom Banks: We’ve had a very long relationship with them, it’s into its tenth season and we have seen them through ups and downs in terms of seeing them in European Cup finals and supported them through when they were relegated down to championship, promoted back to the Scottish Premiership, so it has been a rollercoaster of a journey, it has been really great.
Rangers FC, as lots of football fans will know are steeped in heritage and got a really special place in football not just in Scotland and the wider United Kingdom, but across Europe as well, it is a very well-known club and a well known brand. We have been proud to support them for the last 10 seasons and what has been really good is particularly the last few years we’ve worked hard across all of our sponsorships in football to create a new model of sponsorship that not only benefits the club in terms of our support from a club perspective, but also the communities and so every club that we sponsor now across the UK always has a community benefit angle to it, so in the example of Rangers for the last few years we have supported a great project called ‘Team Talk,’ which focuses on mental health and particularly men’s mental health.
It uses the football club as a sort of conversation starter for men who might not otherwise feel comfortable to open up about their mental health and so we have seen a huge support for that organisation and that program has grown significantly as a result of our funding and that’s really great and we have replicated that across other clubs that we support that focus on mental health.
We did our research a few years ago with a research agency that showed football clubs and men have a unique link and everybody knows it and if you can leverage that the right way to open up conversations about how you’re doing and your wider mental health then there is a real opportunity to get a conversation going and make improvements.
Can you explain to us what work has been done in the local community?
Tom Banks: That’s predominantly through our support of the ‘Team Talk’ initiative which the Rangers Charity Foundation team run, that program runs once or twice a week, we funded it from a supporter perspective which has meant it can be open for longer, it can have more people turn up and it hosts more sessions, it has been great to see that program grow.
Quite a bit of it is individuals sharing with everyone having a shared passion of the club and so that is a nice entry point for people, and if they want to talk a bit about how they are doing more broadly they can, and there is staff who are trained on hand to have those conversations with them but they also do football sessions.
The club and foundation has seen a strong growth in terms of the numbers of people that have turned up to those sessions, as a result the support we have been able to provide that can advertise those sessions more widely.
Previously to the mental health project that we have supported The ‘Team Talk’ program, we have also sponsored resources for homeless charities in Glasgow, so we have done bits and pieces so that’s why over the last couple of years we have created more of a defined model of what our sponsorship looks like in terms of community benefit and l think we have started to see the benefits of that now in regards to a real increase and engagement with the community.
You mentioned the support of a men’s mental health initiative called ‘Team Talk’, explain to us in further detail and what it involves.
Tom Banks: The beauty of that program is that it is a real enabler for people to talk, with a dozen men attending the sessions every week and staff tracking how they are doing from when they first joined the program right the way through and we have seen a big improvement in the wellbeing of the participants.
It is not a medical program, it is reducing the barriers to talk about if they have any problems with their mental health, we have sponsored other clubs that have had similar projects and they are really powerful.
The research that we were provided in the last couple of years did show that men are statistically less likely to talk about any kind of mental health issues but they are statistically much more likely to be very passionate football fans and so there is a nice intersection to be able to use the football club and the sport to make them feel more comfortable to start talking and that’s really important which has been valuable for that project because initiatives such as ‘Team Talk’ have showed that the science behind what we thought we knew from the research is proving correct, it has been great to see it being developed over the last couple of years.
Is there a particular demographic that comes through the doors the most?
Tom Banks: It’s not exclusive to men but it’s focused predominantly on men, we expected it to be slightly older men, or who are on their own or who don’t have that many people around them in terms of support network but it has actually been quite diverse.
There is some quite younger people that come through the doors because mental health can affect anybody because it’s not like other types of diseases that affects over 65s or men of a certain weight.
Its been interesting to see the broad demographic split of men, it slightly leans older but overall it is diverse and l think that shows the fact that mental health doesn’t necessarily discriminate against any type of character.
Kindreds approach to ‘Zero % Mission’, can you explain to us what it involves and the tools available for Rangers fans?
Tom Banks: The Zero % Mission is something we are really proud of and Kindred is the parent company and that has this overarching journey and an ambition the company has to reach zero % of its revenue derived from harmful gambling where people have had issues when they play and it is a small percentage of what we see which is around 2-3% from where our revenue comes from but the aim is to get that to 0%, we have seen good success on reducing that percentage over the last three or four years and so the Zero % Mission is almost our consumer facing campaign element of the journey to zero.
What it means and why we are proud of the work that we have done with Rangers but also other clubs is because we use the sort of advertising assets and the sponsorships assets like the front of shirts has Zero % Mission underneath and a lot of LED around the ground will refer to that.
We remain l think one of the only gambling operators that just doesn’t have their logo on the shirt but also has some form of safer gambling type of messaging and we think that is important to use our assets for good.
It has been good to use the Zero % Mission to open up the conversation on safer gambling with fans and punters more easily. I suppose it’s about insuring fans that are aware of the variety of tools that players have available when they gamble and actually we have seen a really good benefit of that and us talking more about that through the Zero % Mission.
In 2020, about 40% of our player base use a voluntary safe gambling tools so that’s factors such as a deposit limit or a loss limit, there is various tools that are available for players, much like on Netflix where it says ‘are you still watching?’, we have very similar things on our platforms to make sure individuals are aware and in control, but it’s actually up to about three quarters of our player base that have one now.
I think we have gotten a lot better as a sector and everything else from a Kindred perspective, using our sponsorships to really highlight and promote the use of these tools because for us it’s really important that our players on our platforms are doing it in a controlled way.
Lastly, is there any new initiatives planned between both parties in the extension of the partnership?
Tom Banks: We will be doing a range of interesting things from a content perspective so that will come throughout the year, what we will try to do is utilise some of the players and assets to think about how we can use our sponsorship creatively but the main thing is the ongoing support of Team Talk, we expect there will be further developments for that program over the course of the year as a result of the funding and it may be possible for them to expand the program in the next 12 months.
It is one for people to keep an eye on, we are really keen for the sponsorship to continue evolving but we’re just really excited to be part of it again for another season. I think it’s the longest running deal in British football and so that is a challenge as much as it is an area of pride because we have been going for a long time to keep it new and fresh for the fans is important.
We’re trying to challenge ourselves to make sure we think of new ways to innovate in terms of giving benefits to the club and the community but there is definitely exciting things on the horizon.
