Another day, another story on Mike Ashley's relationship with Rangers, and the revelation that he's lent them another £1m to help keep the wolves way from the door. Quite what he's gaining from this situation, when the club are admitting that their lower attendances are affecting operating costs (and will presumably continue to do so) remains to be seen. He might be helping deal with creditors, but at the end of the day he's pouring money into a hole at the minute, and while he is no more than a creditor himself, it's unlikely Rangers in their current form can hope to pay him back. So something has to give. We've already discussed that Ashley is probably mostly concerned with acquiring assets, and that further financial backing may come at the cost of the stadium (he's already gaining control of other physical assets like the carparks along with the retail division). And the more money he offers them, the more likely it is that a bigger deal is about to happen one way or another. Interestingly for Rangers fans, Ashley has also given up the right to name Ibrox whatever he wants, as a sign of his ongoing desire for a good relationship and to reinforce that the fans do matter to him. Which is precisely the opposite of what he did when renaming St. James' Park. The thing is though, the end result is exactly the same: Ashley renamed St. James' in order to give his next sponsor (Wonga) a PR boost by letting them be the ones to give the fans the name back. It was a PR move and it worked for a while until everyone realised Wonga weren't the tolerable evil they first seemed. With Rangers, Ashley has saved the fans from himself: he's attempting to make himself a saviour who cares about the history of the club and this grand gesture (which means nothing really, since Sports Direct is now notorious enough to transcend things as piffling as stadium names) was nothing more than the same sort of PR move. Rangers fans can probably expect an increase in the Sports Direct signage around the stadium though - that surely has to be the trade off. The statement inferred as much:
The Board of Rangers is pleased to announce that Rangers Football Club Limited has entered into a partnership marketing agreement with SportsDirect.com Retail Limited (Sports Direct) in which Sports Direct has given up its naming rights to the Ibrox Stadium. The agreement consolidates existing marketing arrangements between the parties and results in a more normalised retail joint venture marketing arrangement in which Sports Direct will continue to have certain advertising rights.
"Certain advertising rights" and a "normalised retail joint venture marketing arrangement" can only mean an abundance of Sports Direct banners (at limited or no cost to the retailer, perhaps?) and a mirror of what the inside of St. James' Park looks like. It's only a matter of time.