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As problems surrounding the club continue to be the same things that we've seen for most of the season, calls for protests have gathered steam and increased in breadth. Recent calls for expanding the attempts to hit out financially at Mike Ashley by boycotting brands owned by Ashely's corporate partners sounds good in theory, but has a fundamental flaw.
Expanded/corrected list of drinks to boycott Mike Ashley's commercial partner @MolsonCoors #ashleyembargo pic.twitter.com/JKZS9UDmPN
— Mike Ashley Lies (@MikeAshleyLies) April 26, 2015
As a mega-businessman Mike Ashley's corporate partners are largely of the multi-country or worldwide variety. Calls to boycott Miller-Coors or other such businesses – which certainly provide a certain amount of personal-level "I feel good about this" feeling – are going to matter so very little in the general scheme of things. For my part, I've been avoiding Grolsch for the entirety of the Mike Ashley era... primarily because it's a disgusting beer, but hey, if it helps the boycott of Miller-Coors, more's the better! Miller-Coors, however, haven't missed my dollars since the last time I bought a Grolsch and they are not going to miss them now.
On a personal level, as a fan of craft beer and local breweries, I am uncomfortable with anything that casts Anheuser Busch/In-Bev in any light resembling a "protagonist". If you were to read into how they have attempted to invade the craft beer market and look at the disdain with which they have looked upon the very people they are targeting with their acquisitions it will feel very, very familiar.
I could go on and on about this particular topic, but it's really not the point as it doesn't effect NUFC at all... but hitting out at these mega-behemoths on a local area is going to be of limited benefit and negligible effect. It seems that the steam may have fallen out of the Miller-Coors idea, but In my opinion, Newcastle should win on all levels by supporting the likes of Mordue, Big Lamp or Jarrow which by definition keeps money away from Miller-Coors as well as AB-InBev and gives you the good feelings on all levels.