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New deal winning Owls friends in US
WEDNESDAY'S ground-breaking sponsorship deal will help them to win more friends in America and boost their bid to clinch multi-million-pound investment.
The Owls' links with the US have been strengthened by the signing up of Californian software giants WANdisco as their first Platinum sponsors - and the firm's chief executive and president, David Richards, is emerging as an important ally.
Richards is a Sheffield-born Wednesday fan but has lived in the States for 12 years so viewed the club as an outsider.
It is far more than a love of the Owls or business links with chairman Lee Strafford that led him to join the Hillsborough ship.
He has told for the first time of how the new face of the club under the Strafford regime tempted him on board - and the breakthrough draws the Owls even closer to the US business market, where a takeover deal is being sought.
Richards said: "I am respected in the US investment market; we advise NEC Software, one of the biggest companies in the world, and I sit on three or fourth other advisory boards.
"In the investment world, one of the first things you look at is a company's management team. Lee Strafford and his chief executive, Nick Parker, have both run public companies and have track records. In Brian Laws, Wednesday have a great team manager."
READ MORE OF TODAY'S OWLS STORIES: MARCUS Tudgay would love a chance to talk to Burnley about a move to the Premier League, claims his agent.
SHEFFIELD United and Sheffield Wednesday are working on a joint gesture to attract World Cup games to the city - using their first derby day of the 2009-10 season to showcase their partnership.
Richards says he choose to hook up his own company to the Owls now because the club's brand - or the face that they present to the world - has been transformed by the new regime.
"When you talked to people, inside or outside football - for example, a friend of mine who owns a baseball team - about how fans effectively were insulted under the old regime, they can't believe it.
"If I offended my customers, my company would go bankrupt, and to expect investment after something like that is nearly impossible."
But Richards believes that the club's link-up with the Children's Hospital, which echoed Barcelona's backing of UNICEF, has been a "brilliant" move.
"At first, I didn't understand it," he admits.
"Where was the money going to come from? But all Lee needs is a couple more like me, and the club will make a lot more than they would have done from a traditional shirt-sponsorship deal, plus they have the intangible, important value of a vastly-improved brand."
He also believes that the Owls' community-friendly image can attract the takeover big bucks and further sponsorship.
"Every person who knows me and my company is going to know that we are sponsors of Sheffield Wednesday," he said.
"The club is going to get marketed to a whole bunch of people to whom it would not normally get marketed; businesses and large corporations that aren't necessarily fans of Sheffield Wednesday but want to be associated with a strong brand.
"We also did it because we are looking to hire people around the Sheffield market place.
"I have CVs from two people that I wouldn't have got if I wasn't a sponsor of Sheffield Wednesday.
"If I didn't know anything about Sheffield United or Sheffield Wedneday and was wanting to get involved in a community-based programme based around football, I would choose Wednesday, because of their new brand, no doubt about it."
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FREE E-MAG: Click here to read our Twenty20 Cup 2009 e-mag for FREE on line.
BUY ONLINE: Buy The Star - Monday to Saturday - for local news, sport, features and ads. Sign up on line by clicking here.
READ MORE
Football headlines.
Football gossip.
Blades news
Owls news
Reds news.
Millers news.
More rugby.
More boxing.
Sports columnists.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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