We're often left guessing as to what the exact roles of Chelsea front office staff may be. Technical director (whatever that means) Michael Emenalo for example has become the public face of Chelsea's murky dealings but the only thing we know for a fact is that he doesn't operate in a vacuum. And that he probably had nothing to do with Chelsea's newest sponsorship agreement, with the ever-fashionable and generally overpriced Beats by Dre (or I guess nowadays just called Beats).
Chelsea Football Club is delighted to announce @beatsbydre as our new and first ever Official Sound Partner... https://t.co/EEhnOzIXfD
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) February 5, 2016
Sponsorship and such marketing are the domain of Christian Purslow, who's quickly proving to be one of the most successful and useful signings we've ever made from Liverpool. His latest triumph is this deal to establish a first ever "Official Sound Partner" for the club. Do we need an Official Sound Partner? Probably not. But I'd rather the club get money this way than through increased ticket prices.
Beats have become ubiquitous in professional sports over the past few years thanks to the company's aggressive marketing via some of the highest profile athletes in the world, Chelsea's Cesc Fabregas being one of them as far as football's concerned (dating back to his Barcelona days). Beats also had hands-down the best World Cup 2014 commercial, which was, if you can look past the marketing, tremendously cool.
How their partnership with Chelsea will manifest itself is not quite yet clear. Purslow only gave some standard marketing mumbo-jumbo for the announcement, but I'd presume it will involve royal blue headphones with both the Beats 'b' branding and the Chelsea badge on it to start. Better start saving up now if you want to be one of the cool kids!