Adver News: New TV deal could ruin lower league clubs - Booth

[pauld]

Oh and FWIW (as no-one seems to have mentioned it but I guess that's probably because we're all taking it as read), this is one of many threads that should act as a counterbalance to the ones criticising Fitton et al for this season's fuck-ups. It doesn't excuse this season's fuck-ups but we are one of the few clubs in the FL who will be in a position to not just weather this kind of financial storm but also potentially take advantage of it

[pauld]

Lower league clubs started going into administration after the ITV digital collapse.

If you mean that that was when clubs started going into admin and they hadn't been doing before, again, this just isn't true. I can think of one not too far from here that had already gone into admin twice and emerged with a CVA when it happened, for just one example.

I agree that Sky (before that) gave the Premier League a massive advantage, money wise, however the gamble that the Football League clubs took when ITV were promising millions of pounds over x amount of years, backfired and many clubs even to this day haven't recovered. The ITV deal was huge to the Championship, Lge 1 and Lge 2.

Yes I know. I was just disputing your contention that it all started with ITV Digital, it didn't. ITV Digital's own poor management and subsequent collapse and club's poor management of their expected pay-days around that certainly exacerbated the situation, but it didn't originate there.

[london_red]

As pauld says the seeds of the problem were laid by the Sky deal. The ITV Digital collapse just pushed a lot more over the edge.

Quite strong parallels with the financial crisis of '08 actually, where the systemic problems were there and the cracks were being papered over, until the Bear Stearns/Lehmann Bros collapses sparked a domino effect.

[mrverve]

Ok, the Sky deal set the wheels in motion however there were 10 clubs in admin/CVA post the ITV Digital collapse in 2002 and 7 in 2003 compared with just 3 in 2001 and only 1 in 2000.

The whole financial side of football is just a complete and utter mess.

[pauld]

The whole financial side of football is just a complete and utter mess.

Yup. Irrespective of the precise place when/where it started, you're damn right there.

I think london_red's comparison with the banking collapse is an extremely good one. For once, though, we're not one of the basket cases just waiting for the next little thing that will tip us over the edge.

[bullethead]

Oh and FWIW (as no-one seems to have mentioned it but I guess that's probably because we're all taking it as read), this is one of many threads that should act as a counterbalance to the ones criticising Fitton et al for this season's fuck-ups. It doesn't excuse this season's fuck-ups but we are one of the few clubs in the FL who will be in a position to not just weather this kind of financial storm but also potentially take advantage of it

Spot on Paul, saved me a lot of typing did that.