Town CEO Mark Ashton has thanked sponsor Ed Sheeran for his help in promoting the club’s shirts this season and says he hopes the Blues will stage a concert by the Framlingham-based pop star at some point in the future.
Lifelong fan Sheeran, who has sponsored Town for the last two seasons, was heavily involved in the design of the black-out third kit which was launched last month and sold in huge numbers.
"The shirt sales have just been incredible,” Ashton said at last night’s Fans’ Forum. "The third kit, the black kit, we did 5,500 sales in 48 hours. Incredible, just incredible.
"Again, a big thank-you to Ed Sheeran on that kit, big thank-you to [boxer and Town fan] Fabio Wardley, who helped us launch the home and away kits.
"And, I have to say, a big thank-you to Umbro because one of the key reasons to move to Umbro was the fans’ feedback was that we don’t want an off the shelf kit, we want a bespoke Ipswich Town kit.
"Well, I think it’s fair to say, you’ve had three cracking kits for this season. Believe it or not, next season’s kits are on my desk now to sign off, it’s incredible.
"But we’ll go and have a look at those points but the feedback that we’ve had on the kits has been great, just a huge thank-you to all the fans that have bought them.”
Regarding the publicity Sheeran gives the club by wearing their shirts on stage and more recently in a video with Big Narstie and Papoose, the Blues CEO added: "I think if you’re Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, you can’t buy that kind of exposure, it just takes it to a whole different level and we’re just so grateful for his humility, his humbleness, his support of his hometown club.
"We’re very, very proud to have him on board. When I saw him at the end of last season, sorry Kieran, but he didn’t want to talk about the team, he just wanted to talk about the kit! ‘Have you seen it?, Have you seen it?’ he said! It’s wonderful and we’re so, so grateful to him.”
Quizzed on whether there might be a concert by Sheeran - or gigs by other artists - at Portman Road in the future, Ashton continued: "It would ultimately be fantastic. The step-through starts with the south-east corner, so the screen has been placed at a height that we can get loading vehicles in and out for concerts, pitch renovations etc.
"It goes to what [chairman] Mike [O’Leary] said, this is why the purchase of the land behind the south-east corner was so important because we can then start to reconfigure the turnstiles, which opens the whole stadium up for potential.
"An Ed Sheeran concert would be amazing, but it opens it up for concerts in general and I think that’s definitely going to be part of our plan moving forward.”
Ashton is aware that groundsmen don’t like concerts taking place on their pitches but believes clubs need to stage them in order to bring in funds.
"They don’t but with the new modern pitches now, if you look at my former club Bristol City at Ashton Gate, they’ll hold three, four, five, six concerts in a big summer concert run each year,” he said.
"[Director of supporter engagement Scott Paul] has seen it before at the Ricoh [at Coventry] and at Aston Villa where they have done it as well.
"You’ve got this amazing stadium that you need to make sweat 365 days a year, we need to drive revenue through it.
"Concerts are a different way of bringing our community together and using this amazing community asset. Definitely on the horizon.”