City Ground | Page 11 | Vital Football

City Ground

I would imagine a good deal of the support are inside some of the pubs in the vicinity at least two hours prior to kick off now

When NFFC did a survey prior to the CG design announcement many of the questions was around drinking habits before and after the game as well as transport and/ or parking. At least they were asking the questions. Unsure if they came up with any answers.
 
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, gaining promotion to the PL and maintaining our position there is the key to the future prosperity of our club. I understand the need to maximise revenue from a variety of income streams in our current position but the reality is once you reach the PL revenue from gates, food and beverages, sponsorship and corporate conferences and the like is totally eclipsed by the income from TV rights and if the mooted ‘Netflix’ style platform comes to fruition that gulf will only widen further.

With this in mind and considering the openness of the Championship this season it only makes our lack of investment in January all the more baffling.
 
CP is quite correct in stating that we are light years behind some of our rivals, but you have to put that into context.

Yes, we have inferior facilities, but there has been other contributory factors; Fawaz was utterly useless, he disenfranchised most of the local business base who would usually pay premium prices for the hospitality, and Doughty did little to increase Commercial income other than through sponsorship.

We now have an Owner who has employed professionals to expand our commercial activity; we should start to see improvements in the next set of accounts which are due out soon.

Even with our current facilities we should see a marked improvement; we have record sponsorship deals, Corporate activity is back to pre Fawaz levels and you would think Merchandise sales will be up and gates are up.

When I discussed this before with Plummer, we agreed that a 30m turnover was an achievable target in the near future; the turnover in the last set of accounts was 22.6m, it would be disappointing if we have not bettered 25m in the next set of accounts.

Once we have the new stand exceeding 30m should be fairly straightforward.
CP is quite correct in stating that we are light years behind some of our rivals, but you have to put that into context.

Yes, we have inferior facilities, but there has been other contributory factors; Fawaz was utterly useless, he disenfranchised most of the local business base who would usually pay premium prices for the hospitality, and Doughty did little to increase Commercial income other than through sponsorship.

We now have an Owner who has employed professionals to expand our commercial activity; we should start to see improvements in the next set of accounts which are due out soon.

Even with our current facilities we should see a marked improvement; we have record sponsorship deals, Corporate activity is back to pre Fawaz levels and you would think Merchandise sales will be up and gates are up.

When I discussed this before with Plummer, we agreed that a 30m turnover was an achievable target in the near future; the turnover in the last set of accounts was 22.6m, it would be disappointing if we have not bettered 25m in the next set of accounts.

Once we have the new stand exceeding 30m should be fairly straightforward.
CP is quite correct in stating that we are light years behind some of our rivals, but you have to put that into context.

Yes, we have inferior facilities, but there has been other contributory factors; Fawaz was utterly useless, he disenfranchised most of the local business base who would usually pay premium prices for the hospitality, and Doughty did little to increase Commercial income other than through sponsorship.

We now have an Owner who has employed professionals to expand our commercial activity; we should start to see improvements in the next set of accounts which are due out soon.

Even with our current facilities we should see a marked improvement; we have record sponsorship deals, Corporate activity is back to pre Fawaz levels and you would think Merchandise sales will be up and gates are up.

When I discussed this before with Plummer, we agreed that a 30m turnover was an achievable target in the near future; the turnover in the last set of accounts was 22.6m, it would be disappointing if we have not bettered 25m in the next set of accounts.

Once we have the new stand exceeding 30m should be fairly straightforward.
Yes, I wont argue the figures but that is turnover not profit and it presumably is an amount for all commercial activety. CP states that others are "making" millions more per season than we are and that the City Ground is the reason. Thats the bit I have a problem with.
 
Yes, I wont argue the figures but that is turnover not profit and it presumably is an amount for all commercial activety. CP states that others are "making" millions more per season than we are and that the City Ground is the reason. Thats the bit I have a problem with.

Now that Owners are restricted in how much they can put a Club into debt, the emphasis is on cash generation.

The more money you raise, and the Ground is the single biggest contributor, the more you can spend on wages, which usually determines the quality of player you can sign.
 
Yes, I wont argue the figures but that is turnover not profit and it presumably is an amount for all commercial activety. CP states that others are "making" millions more per season than we are and that the City Ground is the reason. Thats the bit I have a problem with.

Leeds 16.6m
Forest 5.2m

The CG absolutely is the largest issue, it sits empty and unused by and large apart from for a couple of hours say about 30x a year (cup and league games).

Doesn't that sound absolutely ridiculous?
 
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, gaining promotion to the PL and maintaining our position there is the key to the future prosperity of our club. I understand the need to maximise revenue from a variety of income streams in our current position but the reality is once you reach the PL revenue from gates, food and beverages, sponsorship and corporate conferences and the like is totally eclipsed by the income from TV rights and if the mooted ‘Netflix’ style platform comes to fruition that gulf will only widen further.

With this in mind and considering the openness of the Championship this season it only makes our lack of investment in January all the more baffling.

Netflix style streaming is deeply troubling for all but half a dozen clubs in the PL.

The Premier League likes to pretend it's super popular, the truth is it isn't at all. Arsenal, United, Liverpool etc are super popular and if collective bargaining ends for tv deals (which those clubs want to end) then there will be a huge drop in tv income for all. Overseas fans couldn't give a flying fuck about Watford v Bournemouth.

That's part why commercial revenue is so important, to future proof ourselves as best as possible.

As an example Bayern take more from commercial revenue than tv and matchday combined. We lag behind embarrassingly so.
 
Is that correct?

The two examples we usually use in this kind of discussion are Leeds and Derby.

Derby have a relatively new, purpose built, flat pack stadium located fairly close to the City Centre.

The new stand will give us comparative facilities to Derby; I do not see any reason why we cannot compete with them financially.

Leeds did what we are doing in building a new stand; that put a new look on an elderly stadium, like ours will.

You would think that the facilities at Leeds will be very similar to what we will have when the stand is complete; the big difference being that the Leeds ground is over twice the distance away from the City Centre than ours is and located in an area which is not particularly safe to walk around on non match days.

What will prevent us from getting close to them financially?

A mate of mine went to a recent Tottenham game, just to visit the new Stadium; he told me that Spurs operate a happy hour to get people into the Ground early.

The place was heaving two hours before kick off with people availing themselves of cheap food and drink; what is it stop us doing something like that with current facilities never mind new ones?

I'm unconvinced that outside of matchday we will be able to expand our streams significantly. It still doesn't look like a suitable venue for conferences etc.

I am eagerly awaiting the next set of accounts and I'll be pleased as punch if we see a sizeable bump. Agree on both Fawaz and ND (it used to baffle me just how ignored this was under Nigel). So more power to EM if he is successfully addressing this.
 
Netflix style streaming is deeply troubling for all but half a dozen clubs in the PL.

The Premier League likes to pretend it's super popular, the truth is it isn't at all. Arsenal, United, Liverpool etc are super popular and if collective bargaining ends for tv deals (which those clubs want to end) then there will be a huge drop in tv income for all. Overseas fans couldn't give a flying fuck about Watford v Bournemouth.

That's part why commercial revenue is so important, to future proof ourselves as best as possible.

As an example Bayern take more from commercial revenue than tv and matchday combined. We lag behind embarrassingly so.

Yeah CP you’re absolutely spot on re: the new streaming model, the greedy c*nts with most to gain will no doubt be clamouring for it to happen.

Genuine question re: the commercial revenue. What do these guys do to raise so much more than we do? In respect to the £11m disparity between Leeds and ourselves, I mean Elland Road is hardly a modern stadium and with our new PT stand the capacities will be identical. Surely there’s not that much money hosting conferences and various other functions??
 
During 2012 Olymics I worked at Ricoh Arena. In those days Coventry City still played at Ricoh. I think they were in championship at the time. The permanent Staff at Ricoh were telling me that they made more profit from one pop concert than a whole season of Cov City playing. Of course they also had Wasps playing there. The owners of the stadium, Wasps, CCFC and music promoters were all different companies taking their own cut. They were talking millions.
 
During 2012 Olymics I worked at Ricoh Arena. In those days Coventry City still played at Ricoh. I think they were in championship at the time. The permanent Staff at Ricoh were telling me that they made more profit from one pop concert than a whole season of Cov City playing. Of course they also had Wasps playing there. The owners of the stadium, Wasps, CCFC and music promoters were all different companies taking their own cut. They were talking millions.

It is perfectly true that the Ricoh is a cash cow, but whichever member of the permanent staff up there told you the bit about concerts was way off the mark.

The Stadium complex raises around 30m a year in revenue; that is aside from match day revenues earned by the Wasps.

They have a hotel and casino as residents paying good rental income and a huge conference centre which is used by all manner of customers, and two huge car parks which are always full at £10 a time.

They only get the ground rent when the big concerts are on; all of the money from concessions and the other spin offs go to the music promoters.

The guy who used to run it when ACL was in charge, told me that the money they got from the parking was more than they got from the promoters, when you factored in pitch repairs and cleaning up outside the stadium after the events had finished.

A number of Clubs have gone down the concert route, including us, and decided it was not worth the bother.
 
Yeah CP you’re absolutely spot on re: the new streaming model, the greedy c*nts with most to gain will no doubt be clamouring for it to happen.

Genuine question re: the commercial revenue. What do these guys do to raise so much more than we do? In respect to the £11m disparity between Leeds and ourselves, I mean Elland Road is hardly a modern stadium and with our new PT stand the capacities will be identical. Surely there’s not that much money hosting conferences and various other functions??

Conferences, corporate away days, hotels, restaurants, casinos, retail, bars in use all week etc.

A large part as Mao alluded to is relationships with local business. Under ND we were neglectful, under Fawaz destructive. EM has fences to mend and friends to make to really turn things around. Partnerships are going to become more and more key.
 
selling one young player generates moe cash than these improvements. even had 6 months and funds to invest in the frst team from these type of sales and we havnt investedit. it could be argued then that selling our talent is funding stadium development.
 
Well nothing was decided on at last nights meeting of RBCs planning committee meeting then. A glance at the application portal shows that a whole raft of amendments have been submitted for consideration. 14 days left until the determination deadline.
 
most of these bring cashflow but are low profit industries tho, even high risk in some scenarios

Building relationships isn't high risk, low reward...and as I said clubs who are run well commercially take more from commercial income than tv and matchday combined.

We also need to future proof, tv revenue models are changing and if collective bargaining ends we will be dependent upon ourselves mostly.
 
Conferences, corporate away days, hotels, restaurants, casinos, retail, bars in use all week etc.

A large part as Mao alluded to is relationships with local business. Under ND we were neglectful, under Fawaz destructive. EM has fences to mend and friends to make to really turn things around. Partnerships are going to become more and more key.

Agree that it is all about getting more of the space making money more of the time. A new stand will (should!) Do that.
 
selling one young player generates moe cash than these improvements. even had 6 months and funds to invest in the frst team from these type of sales and we havnt investedit. it could be argued then that selling our talent is funding stadium development.

Its not either or paz- selling one GOOD player can generate big money but you are forgetting about the risk- 10 players to find one.

A sensible strategy would be a mixed economy with the club generating revenue from multiple sources. Maximising but also diversifying revenue should be the aim imo which includes academy and the ground.