New beginnings - 25% Truth, 80% Bollocks

[RedRag]

I thought perhaps more of you would recognize that almost without fail, every new manager that takes over a team, points out they need to be fitter! Its not always true, its just new manager waffle.

Now it may or may not have been fact in our case.

The one exception, proving the rule, was obviously Ossie.

He only had to encourage the players to believe that they were actually also good ballers.

[UTR]

Did someone say we’re getting data from a link to Kiely?

If so then Holloways presser comments about being able to get better data elsewhere next season is interesting

[Ƭ̵̬̊: The Artist Formerly Known as CWIG]

That is what Clem originally said when he answered how Kiely was connected. After a long pause he said "He gives us good data"

[Crispy]

He used to be listed on the clubs website

They even listed him as ‘operationds director’ on the boardroom guestlist!

For sure, he's quote often about, just unsure if he's actually collecting a wage from the club. I'd assume not.

[RobertT]

I doubt he is being paid a wage, I would be surprised if his company/him are not being paid a contractor/consultancy fee though

[horlock07]

Swinton Reds accounts out, say sod all unsurprisingly for basically a holding company, albeit 'interestingly' they have been prepared by SRC Advisory who are owned by Stephen Crouch who was brought into the club by Power as, IIRC, Standings representative and the guy who had the online banking details till Power changed the passwords when he tried to shaft Standing. 

[Peter Venkman]

I doubt he is being paid a wage, I would be surprised if his company/him are not being paid a contractor/consultancy fee though

100% this. Admin fees.

[RobertT]

Swinton Reds accounts out, say sod all unsurprisingly for basically a holding company, albeit 'interestingly' they have been prepared by SRC Advisory who are owned by Stephen Crouch who was brought into the club by Power as, IIRC, Standings representative and the guy who had the online banking details till Power changed the passwords when he tried to shaft Standing. 

Yes, Crouch was Standings man.

[tans]

Did he prepare the last set of accounts? Anyone know?

[theakston2k]

For sure, he's quote often about, just unsure if he's actually collecting a wage from the club. I'd assume not.

Of course he won’t be salaried, he’ll be hidden in the admin fees section getting paid for his various sidelines at the club and getting his slice of various fees.

[RobertT]

Wrexham's financial results make interesting reading - well, they explain their promotion!  While I am not suggesting everyone else can just copy what they have done, they are unique, it does show me just how poorly run most football clubs are.  The focus on running a successful business takes second place to a lot of ego's trying to front a football team and then getting caught chasing out of control costs.  A fair few clubs seem unable to get Revenue to increase substantially.  Think about it, plenty of businesses make more than L2 football clubs do in Revenue terms, why can't a football club manage it?  In our case, while we bring in more than the L2 average, it's nowhere near the level it should be given our relative attendances.  I would argue that even a moderately well run STFC should be bringing in somewhere between 8m and 9m in revenue per annum.

[Batch]

Where do you think we are going wrong then Rob?

Ticket prices are probably at max. Merch and concession stands are shite but presumably not huge money makers.

I'm not trying to be arsey here, I have no experience or understanding and just can't see where the extra comes from.

[RobertT]

I suspect it is twofold:

1) The facilities on matchdays are not designed to, excuse my terms, "milk" the supporters.  As an example, what club merchandise can you purchase inside the ground?  The turnstile operations are a clear evidence of cost avoidance over focusing on revenue growth - the club are happy for fans to be stood in a queue for 30 mins because it reduces labour costs in operating turnstiles with staff.  Switch that around and think about what you could do with 30 extra minutes to sell people stuff.  The catering is laughable these days, it has never been much kop to be fair, so I am not saying there was some halcyon days to hark back to, we are just materially worse than I remember since the 80's.

I don't like to compare, but the MLS grounds are on a different planet when it comes to knowing how to grab as much of the customers pocket as possible (see, I used customer :-( ).  Re-imagine an external turnstile, say 10 yards away from the stadium footprint.  Within that, you could wander, in and out of stands - your ticket is  still only ever valid for the specific seat.  Now you can imagine merchandise being available for sale once I am inside this new zone, as well as food trucks etc (as a low cost way of enhancing catering offering.  Some Rugby clubs lean into this in the UK already.

2) Non-matchday revenue - the club has one massive asset - square footage of space in a low rent building.  We do a terrible job of sweating that asset.  One retail offering that opens more than matchdays and one bar that can be rented outside of a matchday, but doesn't open on non-matchdays (and to be fair, it's on the wrong side - you need something Magic Roundabout facing.  The events spaces are not well designed for corporate usage, or family event usage, and booking them is not easy - have a go and find out, you have to phone up to even get pricing.  if you make it tricky and you do not invest in the hard product, how do you expect to compete with the Delta Hotel, or the Leonardo for example?  Recent experience suggests the club is leaving thousands of pounds on the table every day/week.  Put simply, the ancillary revenue being generated is probably well below other clubs.

I left out Commercial because I just don't know, but I'd hazard a guess even that could be better.  We seem to have focused entirely on little sponsorships.  Consider pitch side advertising - there is a Championship club, so comparisons need to be tempered with me, that spent 800k on the digital boards.  Paid for themselves within a couple of years and now earning pure profit.

That's for starters.  If you compare what financial information is available, we are well below average when it comes to Revenue per fan.  Interestingly, Bradford are on our level, but they maximize revenue through their low cost season tickets, bringing in 8m+ as a result.  So even they outperform us overall.  Quite a few clubs are well into double digit %'s above what we earn per fan.

I've been doing far too much research on this recently :-)

[Batch]

Interesting points.

There had been some effort to use the assets. For example post of the car park is rented out for biker training.

We do need to find more ways of getting non matchday revenue though

[Bob's Orange]

Wrexham's financial results make interesting reading - well, they explain their promotion!  While I am not suggesting everyone else can just copy what they have done, they are unique, it does show me just how poorly run most football clubs are.  The focus on running a successful business takes second place to a lot of ego's trying to front a football team and then getting caught chasing out of control costs.  A fair few clubs seem unable to get Revenue to increase substantially.  Think about it, plenty of businesses make more than L2 football clubs do in Revenue terms, why can't a football club manage it?  In our case, while we bring in more than the L2 average, it's nowhere near the level it should be given our relative attendances.  I would argue that even a moderately well run STFC should be bringing in somewhere between 8m and 9m in revenue per annum.

Nearly 27 million income for Wrexham is insane. I read somewhere that 52% of that comes from outside the country. (I.e the states) i saw our income was less than Walsall, yet our gates are higher than them which seemed a bit strange. Perhaps they have properly stocked food and drink and a club shop that isn't like a Sue Ryder.