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Money
Jan 23, 2018 22:28:38 GMT
Post by jdl on Jan 23, 2018 22:28:38 GMT
Sky television and BT Sports get none of my mpney. How many others can say that? Me. I don't have a TV, so even the BBC gets none of my money!
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Post by jdl on Jan 23, 2018 22:58:36 GMT
Terry, Oliver and Bill are to be congratulated on the club's financial performance - it must be almost unique at our level of football, and possibly pretty unusual (ignoring TV money) at several levels above too. And, as Oliver would no doubt just happen to mention, it more than justifies the 3G-based business model.
But, although 12.5% is a pretty good profit, which I would imagine would be the envy of many local companies, £200k is in reality not a great deal of money, and could easily be wiped out by any unexpected expense. It's nice to have, and would cover things like new toilets, etc at the EE, but it won't (for instance) cover the cost of buying the land and building the riverside stand.
And if you look at the club from a coldly business point of view and factor in just how much the business depends on unpaid volunteers and the goodwill of a very loyal 'customer base', it looks quite different. If we were run strictly commercially and were selling a product to fickle customers who could easily go elsewhere, we probably wouldn’t even be breaking even. And that's without even mentioning the huge interest-free loan T&O effectively gave us by building the JWW for 'nothing'.
I'm not in any way knocking what T&O and Bill (and all the others behind the scenes) have done, just trying to get a bit of perspective by looking at the club realistically as a business. If a club run as well as ours only makes a profit by ignoring many of the factors that most businesses have no choice but to deal with, then running a football club as a successful business, at least at our level, is effectively impossible. No wonder so many clubs stagger from crisis to crisis.
Another interesting point from the figures - staff costs are running at less than 30% of turnover. With £1.7m turnover, this means staff costs are about £500k. Assuming a 'full-time' squad of 15 and 10 others paid a full-time wage, this comes out as £20k each. I'm guessing staff numbers, obviously, and assuming all players are paid roughly the same, so this is just a simplistic working guestimate, but even if my figures are wildly wrong, the average player’s wage still isn't that high. For all the talk of the club being 'full-time', quite a few players must still be keeping 2nd jobs going. It's also likely that staff wages are not particularly high, either, and (I suspect) most staff could probably get more money elsewhere. So, once again, looking at the club from a coldly commercial point of view, we are dependent on the good-will and loyalty to the club.
This also means that if a serious push up the table in future seasons needed higher spending on the squad (fees as well as wages) this would seriously dent that £200k profit. So, it’s not just finding ‘investors’ to help us build a FL standard stadium that we’ll need to worry about - even with our excellent business model and an incredibly well-run and supported club, we could still find ourselves spending almost all of our profit just building a promotion winning squad.
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Money
Jan 24, 2018 0:44:06 GMT
Post by Raymondo316 on Jan 24, 2018 0:44:06 GMT
Oliver & Terry mentioned at the meeting that Ebbsfleet are rumoured to have a player budget of 1.2 million & that ours is about half of that.
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Money
Jan 24, 2018 9:01:45 GMT
Post by daveu on Jan 24, 2018 9:01:45 GMT
Terry, Oliver and Bill are to be congratulated on the club's financial performance - it must be almost unique at our level of football, and possibly pretty unusual (ignoring TV money) at several levels above too. And, as Oliver would no doubt just happen to mention, it more than justifies the 3G-based business model. But, although 12.5% is a pretty good profit, which I would imagine would be the envy of many local companies, £200k is in reality not a great deal of money, and could easily be wiped out by any unexpected expense. It's nice to have, and would cover things like new toilets, etc at the EE, but it won't (for instance) cover the cost of buying the land and building the riverside stand. And if you look at the club from a coldly business point of view and factor in just how much the business depends on unpaid volunteers and the goodwill of a very loyal 'customer base', it looks quite different. If we were run strictly commercially and were selling a product to fickle customers who could easily go elsewhere, we probably wouldn’t even be breaking even. And that's without even mentioning the huge interest-free loan T&O effectively gave us by building the JWW for 'nothing'. I'm not in any way knocking what T&O and Bill (and all the others behind the scenes) have done, just trying to get a bit of perspective by looking at the club realistically as a business. If a club run as well as ours only makes a profit by ignoring many of the factors that most businesses have no choice but to deal with, then running a football club as a successful business, at least at our level, is effectively impossible. No wonder so many clubs stagger from crisis to crisis. Another interesting point from the figures - staff costs are running at less than 30% of turnover. With £1.7m turnover, this means staff costs are about £500k. Assuming a 'full-time' squad of 15 and 10 others paid a full-time wage, this comes out as £20k each. I'm guessing staff numbers, obviously, and assuming all players are paid roughly the same, so this is just a simplistic working guestimate, but even if my figures are wildly wrong, the average player’s wage still isn't that high. For all the talk of the club being 'full-time', quite a few players must still be keeping 2nd jobs going. It's also likely that staff wages are not particularly high, either, and (I suspect) most staff could probably get more money elsewhere. So, once again, looking at the club from a coldly commercial point of view, we are dependent on the good-will and loyalty to the club. This also means that if a serious push up the table in future seasons needed higher spending on the squad (fees as well as wages) this would seriously dent that £200k profit. So, it’s not just finding ‘investors’ to help us build a FL standard stadium that we’ll need to worry about - even with our excellent business model and an incredibly well-run and supported club, we could still find ourselves spending almost all of our profit just building a promotion winning squad. You refer to the good will of a very loyal customer base, but surely that is the only reason a football club exists in the first place so it's not unreasonable to factor it into your perspective on running it as a realistic business.
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Money
Jan 24, 2018 10:10:49 GMT
Post by nws on Jan 24, 2018 10:10:49 GMT
Sky television and BT Sports get none of my mpney. How many others can say that? Me. I don't have a TV, so even the BBC gets none of my money! My willingness to subscribe to Sky Television matches my willingness to attend a game at MK FC
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Money
Jan 24, 2018 10:20:05 GMT
Post by nws on Jan 24, 2018 10:20:05 GMT
Terry, Oliver and Bill are to be congratulated on the club's financial performance - it must be almost unique at our level of football, and possibly pretty unusual (ignoring TV money) at several levels above too. And, as Oliver would no doubt just happen to mention, it more than justifies the 3G-based business model. But, although 12.5% is a pretty good profit, which I would imagine would be the envy of many local companies, £200k is in reality not a great deal of money, and could easily be wiped out by any unexpected expense. It's nice to have, and would cover things like new toilets, etc at the EE, but it won't (for instance) cover the cost of buying the land and building the riverside stand. And if you look at the club from a coldly business point of view and factor in just how much the business depends on unpaid volunteers and the goodwill of a very loyal 'customer base', it looks quite different. If we were run strictly commercially and were selling a product to fickle customers who could easily go elsewhere, we probably wouldn’t even be breaking even. And that's without even mentioning the huge interest-free loan T&O effectively gave us by building the JWW for 'nothing'. I'm not in any way knocking what T&O and Bill (and all the others behind the scenes) have done, just trying to get a bit of perspective by looking at the club realistically as a business. If a club run as well as ours only makes a profit by ignoring many of the factors that most businesses have no choice but to deal with, then running a football club as a successful business, at least at our level, is effectively impossible. No wonder so many clubs stagger from crisis to crisis. Another interesting point from the figures - staff costs are running at less than 30% of turnover. With £1.7m turnover, this means staff costs are about £500k. Assuming a 'full-time' squad of 15 and 10 others paid a full-time wage, this comes out as £20k each. I'm guessing staff numbers, obviously, and assuming all players are paid roughly the same, so this is just a simplistic working guestimate, but even if my figures are wildly wrong, the average player’s wage still isn't that high. For all the talk of the club being 'full-time', quite a few players must still be keeping 2nd jobs going. It's also likely that staff wages are not particularly high, either, and (I suspect) most staff could probably get more money elsewhere. So, once again, looking at the club from a coldly commercial point of view, we are dependent on the good-will and loyalty to the club. This also means that if a serious push up the table in future seasons needed higher spending on the squad (fees as well as wages) this would seriously dent that £200k profit. So, it’s not just finding ‘investors’ to help us build a FL standard stadium that we’ll need to worry about - even with our excellent business model and an incredibly well-run and supported club, we could still find ourselves spending almost all of our profit just building a promotion winning squad. I'm not sure exactly what this £200k figure represents. If it is inclusive of financing the ground improvements then one would suppose that, at some point, the amount spent on the ground would lessen and more money would be available for day-to-day matters. Thus patience is the key. There is no point building promotion squads at high costs if we don't have the ground to facilitate promotion. Of course we could go absolutely mad with money (as in the past) and get promotion at all costs. I trust the newer fans and returnees will be dusting down their wellies for a trip to Eynsford when it goes wrong though.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Money
Jan 24, 2018 10:31:24 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2018 10:31:24 GMT
The big south stand when it happens will generate more income not just in ticket sales but also merchandise (bigger club shop), and will be more attractive to a Genco-esque* sponsor. What's the arrangement with the sweet shop (great addition!) tea shop, pie shop etc, do they all pay an annual / per match fee for their pitches? These would presumably increase if they were provided with improved premises under a new south stand. *Just looked at Genco website - finding a mention of Maidstone United took a while. We're on the Charity page. What was this year's Cup run worth, anyone know?
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Money
Jan 24, 2018 10:59:12 GMT
Post by jdl on Jan 24, 2018 10:59:12 GMT
You refer to the good will of a very loyal customer base, but surely that is the only reason a football club exists in the first place so it's not unreasonable to factor it into your perspective on running it as a realistic business. True - and my point in a way. A lot of fuss is made about football clubs being run like businesses, and I'm certainly not against that, as the inherent discipline is much needed in most clubs. But football clubs (with a few exceptions) are not businesses - in the commercial/profit-making sense. They are, as you say, clubs - set up to allow local people to watch and play football, not to make money. Many of them have morphed into what looks like businesses, but none of them would exist without that original motivation to watch and play football. No one ever set up a football club to make money! So, we have to accept that football clubs (at the lower levels at least) aren't commercial organisations, and even those that do make a profit, only do it almost as a by-product of what they are actually trying to do. At the lowest levels no one questions this - football clubs aren't there to make money, indeed with many clubs (perhaps the majority?) players actually pay to play. The problems start as you rise up through amateur and semi-pro leagues and things become so much more expensive. And, at about the level we are, you cross over into 'commercial' territory - basically clubs can't survive without benefactors injecting money into the club. If you can make it to Championship level, then the TV income starts to become a serious factor, and you can start to view the club as a commercial organisation - if run properly, it should succeed on the pitch AND make money. But below that, between L1 and local clubs run entirely by volunteers, renting local authority pitches and with players paying subs, hardly anyone makes money - nor should they expect to. So, it's good that we make a profit, but it's a chimera - it's only a 'profit' if you completely ignore a whole set of significant factors, and (eg) where promotion is concerned, it is pretty much irrelevant. We'll get promoted because enough of us want it and are prepared to pay and work for it, but mostly because one or two of us are prepared to sink a lot of their hard-earned into the club. That's about a far from running a business as you can get.
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Money
Jan 24, 2018 15:41:02 GMT
Post by nws on Jan 24, 2018 15:41:02 GMT
You refer to the good will of a very loyal customer base, but surely that is the only reason a football club exists in the first place so it's not unreasonable to factor it into your perspective on running it as a realistic business. True - and my point in a way. A lot of fuss is made about football clubs being run like businesses, and I'm certainly not against that, as the inherent discipline is much needed in most clubs. But football clubs (with a few exceptions) are not businesses - in the commercial/profit-making sense. They are, as you say, clubs - set up to allow local people to watch and play football, not to make money. Many of them have morphed into what looks like businesses, but none of them would exist without that original motivation to watch and play football. No one ever set up a football club to make money! So, we have to accept that football clubs (at the lower levels at least) aren't commercial organisations, and even those that do make a profit, only do it almost as a by-product of what they are actually trying to do. At the lowest levels no one questions this - football clubs aren't there to make money, indeed with many clubs (perhaps the majority?) players actually pay to play. The problems start as you rise up through amateur and semi-pro leagues and things become so much more expensive. And, at about the level we are, you cross over into 'commercial' territory - basically clubs can't survive without benefactors injecting money into the club. If you can make it to Championship level, then the TV income starts to become a serious factor, and you can start to view the club as a commercial organisation - if run properly, it should succeed on the pitch AND make money. But below that, between L1 and local clubs run entirely by volunteers, renting local authority pitches and with players paying subs, hardly anyone makes money - nor should they expect to. So, it's good that we make a profit, but it's a chimera - it's only a 'profit' if you completely ignore a whole set of significant factors, and (eg) where promotion is concerned, it is pretty much irrelevant. We'll get promoted because enough of us want it and are prepared to pay and work for it, but mostly because one or two of us are prepared to sink a lot of their hard-earned into the club. That's about a far from running a business as you can get. I suspect that Croydon Athletic was used with a view to making money once Agree with the fact that without people putting money in or a very good source of various income streams then the majority of clubs cannot really survive. To my mind a lot of problems are caused by some fickle and overzealous rules around infrastructure at lower levels.
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