Franchise v Swindon Town Matchday thread

[Ƭ̵̬̊: The Artist Formerly Known as CWIG]

Flynn was right when he said without injuries and unavailability things would look better.

my question would be, with everyone except devine fit - do we have enough?

my answer is no. we are clearly a striker and a left wing back short, minimum.

Flynn told us ideally we were 4 short and then sold Wakeling and didn't replace him. It says it all. We've been told. Stevie Wonder could see this was coming.

[Audrey]

What on Earth was that really heavy base vibration around MK Stadium yesterday?

[Legends-Lounge]

What on Earth was that really heavy base vibration around MK Stadium yesterday?

You felt it and heard it too then?

[DV]

While we get emotionally blackmailed with threats of further cuts if we don't turn up and turn out, this is plainly unfair to say.

We're not expecting to compete with the clubs with big sponsorships through rich owners. We're expecting to be the next best outside of this which is fair.

Bradford sell season tickets for 4 shillings and a sixpence. So it is relative and there is some level of context that you're missing there.

Yes but I’m not specifically talking about the big boys. Accrington have been used as an example so I’ll stick with them.

What’s Accrington’s budget? What are their outgoings & what are their incomings? How
Much of their income is from attendances and how much is from sponsors?
If there incomings are more than their outgoings - they are already ahead of us regardless of anything else.

Earning £100 and spending £50 still leaves you better off than earning £10,000 & spending £12,000…

[Stef Troll]

Flynn told us ideally we were 4 short and then sold Wakeling and didn't replace him. It says it all. We've been told. Stevie Wonder could see this was coming.

So how would you solve the situation then bearing in mind we are a loss making club. How would you increase the playing budget without getting finance from external source which would be treated as a debt ?

I’m all ears and I’m sure there are plenty of football league chairman who want to hear his this wonderful idea.

[Wobbly Bob]

What on Earth was that really heavy base vibration around MK Stadium yesterday?

https://www.stadiummk.com/news/marshall-arena-opens-doors-to-a-full-day-of-drum-bass/

[RobertT]

Yes but I’m not specifically talking about the big boys. Accrington have been used as an example so I’ll stick with them.

What’s Accrington’s budget? What are their outgoings & what are their incomings? How
Much of their income is from attendances and how much is from sponsors?
If there incomings are more than their outgoings - they are already ahead of us regardless of anything else.

Earning £100 and spending £50 still leaves you better off than earning £10,000 & spending £12,000…

Not one of the ones that publish accounts to include the P&L, so very tricky to get into any level of detail.  On the eye test, the Balance Sheet looks quite healthy, they seem to owe money to an internal business which was used tp purchase something that has boosted their assets.  The retained profits jumped by over 600k in 2022, so you can assume that was a Profitable season, but you cannot determine the costs and income.

I agree with your point that attendances alone do not provide enough insight - you have to look at more detail, like how does that translate to Revenue/Income.  In our case, we generally rely entirely on Revenue, money earned through trading, and we are (from memory) about 1m short of Bradfords Revenue.  That shows their pricing reduces the impact of those high attendances a little.  A club like FGR earns a little less than us and half of their Income is a sponsorship deal with Ecotricity, so much less is earned through normal trading.  Net/Net we should be able to out compete them still, if income was the only factor in performance.  From previous seasons, I think we were on a par with Leyton Orient, if not a bit better than them, similar for Carlisle.  Wrexham are likely the anomaly this season, they were willing to lose nearly 3m last year, so you don't even begin to try and compete with their spending.

[RobertT]

So how would you solve the situation then bearing in mind we are a loss making club. How would you increase the playing budget without getting finance from external source which would be treated as a debt ?

I’m all ears and I’m sure there are plenty of football league chairman who want to hear his this wonderful idea.

You say we are a loss making club, using the books produced by Power for his last three years I assume.  He actually turned a healthy profit for a couple of seasons, with player sales, before that.

Under Clem, we have one full year, which turned a profit.  We have nothing for this season.  The Man City game did indeed provide a boost, a couple of hundred K if we believe the AB minutes, so likely we were Break Even without that one.  However, such one off's are actually quite common in football - this season we cashed in on Wakeling for example.

Now, we could be running at an Operational Loss for the 22/23 season for all I know - we don't have any data.

I do think Clem conflates cash with profit/loss - he talks like he includes all the things he has had to pay for in the statement about making a loss.  In a pure cash and personal position, he is right, in a trading position of the business, not necessarily so.  I would not be surprised to see us making a small loss in 22/23 (we paid off Managers and had over 40 players on the books).  I think this season we have reacted to that, and the the Debenture being called in and shifted to survival mode with good PR and a good Manager.

[Ƭ̵̬̊: The Artist Formerly Known as CWIG]

Yes but I’m not specifically talking about the big boys. Accrington have been used as an example so I’ll stick with them.

What’s Accrington’s budget? What are their outgoings & what are their incomings? How
Much of their income is from attendances and how much is from sponsors?
If there incomings are more than their outgoings - they are already ahead of us regardless of anything else.

Earning £100 and spending £50 still leaves you better off than earning £10,000 & spending £12,000…

Exactly what I'd love to be in a position to understand. The reason why we go back to attendances and ticket prices is, its tangible and its public information. Outside of the trust getting a good look at the books (will that ever happen) we won't know even on our side.

Their last home attendance was 2,100, ours was 8,850 on a Tuesday, but we'll use it for arguments sake.

An extra 6,750 tickets 23 times a season even at a low claimed average ticket price like a tenner is not insignificant money. Its £1.5m a year more revenue.....conservatively.

Unless you think Accringtions sponsors What More UK are paying that sort of money per season more than our main sponsor then you're just devils advocating the conversation to death for the sake of it. That would be over half their yearly profit spent on sponsorship. I'd be surprised if they pay 10% of that.

Which is what happens whenever anyone complains about ownership. People just drivel on about how "we don't know" like we're supposed to have hard evidence to back everything up or not talk about it.

Which contributes to things like being lumbered with Lee Power for 8 years or whatever it was.

[Ƭ̵̬̊: The Artist Formerly Known as CWIG]

So how would you solve the situation then bearing in mind we are a loss making club. How would you increase the playing budget without getting finance from external source which would be treated as a debt ?

I’m all ears and I’m sure there are plenty of football league chairman who want to hear his this wonderful idea.

You said this before and I responded including another question, but instead you've ignored it and responded to a later post.

But you know that, because you're trolling.

[Ƭ̵̬̊: The Artist Formerly Known as CWIG]

You say we are a loss making club, using the books produced by Power for his last three years I assume.  He actually turned a healthy profit for a couple of seasons, with player sales, before that.

Under Clem, we have one full year, which turned a profit.  We have nothing for this season.  The Man City game did indeed provide a boost, a couple of hundred K if we believe the AB minutes, so likely we were Break Even without that one.  However, such one off's are actually quite common in football - this season we cashed in on Wakeling for example.

Now, we could be running at an Operational Loss for the 22/23 season for all I know - we don't have any data.

You're wasting your time, he knows all this. Plus the fact that we were being robbed blind by Power not considered.

Clearly not arguing in actual good faith, so we're wasting our breath.

[Nemo]

I mean, it is in his name to be fair. Goods as advertised.

[ThreeDrawsMentality]

I managed to obtain some budgetary details from someone I know closely involved with another League Two club a few months back. 

It was ~£500k per season higher than the bottom wring of clubs like Newport, but ~£500k off of the next highest budget. What I recall seeing is that it's a very slight and steady decline down the budget table below us, but above, the difference starkly rises. Everyone above was the expected clubs with benevolent benefactors.

[DV]

Exactly what I'd love to be in a position to understand. The reason why we go back to attendances and ticket prices is, its tangible and its public information. Outside of the trust getting a good look at the books (will that ever happen) we won't know even on our side.

Their last home attendance was 2,100, ours was 8,850 on a Tuesday, but we'll use it for arguments sake.

An extra 6,750 tickets 23 times a season even at a low claimed average ticket price like a tenner is not insignificant money. Its £1.5m a year more revenue.....conservatively.

Unless you think Accringtions sponsors What More UK are paying that sort of money per season more than our main sponsor then you're just devils advocating the conversation to death for the sake of it. That would be over half their yearly profit spent on sponsorship. I'd be surprised if they pay 10% of that.

Which is what happens whenever anyone complains about ownership. People just drivel on about how "we don't know" like we're supposed to have hard evidence to back everything up or not talk about it.

Which contributes to things like being lumbered with Lee Power for 8 years or whatever it was.

…but the point is that extra £1.5m a year isn’t an extra £1.5m a year. You’ll need to take away any additional costs incurred by having bigger attendances.

Like purely for arguments sake - would we be better off financially on a match day closing the Town End and forcing everyone into the side stands?

…and again, then spending comes into it - all well and good bringing in that extra £1.5m but if we are spending an extra 2m a season it’s still a deficit

[Ƭ̵̬̊: The Artist Formerly Known as CWIG]

…but the point is that extra £1.5m a year isn’t an extra £1.5m a year. You’ll need to take away any additional costs incurred by having bigger attendances.

Like purely for arguments sake - would we be better off financially on a match day closing the Town End and forcing everyone into the side stands?

You're completely ignoring things like extra revenue from food and drink sales to bigger crowds. Your point isn't even worth making when you miss things like that.

…and again, then spending comes into it - all well and good bringing in that extra £1.5m but if we are spending an extra 2m a season it’s still a deficit

Which is kind of the whole point of the conversation. We're not paying for fuck all for anything.