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Grounds for Concern


Redlandram

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15 hours ago, Asheville Ram said:

Rod Liddle is the reason I purchase the Sunday Times online every week, his column is usually hilarious and very much anti "woke", you should always take his writing with a pinch of salt and recognise the humour and wit behind it. The article in point on this thread was one that he writes very occasionally for the football section of the Sports edition. and apart from the DCFC comments probably has more than a grain of truth in it.

I usually end up laughing out loud at most of his articles.

Oh dear. ?

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45 minutes ago, angieram said:

If Mel now owns the ground will the revenue go to him rather than the club? If so, how does he reinvest it in the football side of things without us being up against FFP again? Or is it a means of him gaining ongoing personal revenue so he can continue to invest into the club into the future, because he has already ploughed in obscene amounts of money? I think his commitment doesn't get recognised enough, it's been amazing.

On a side note, whilst we are exploring non-sporting uses for Pride Park, why have the football uses dried up? It seems ages since we hosted any level of international here.

I think at one point he spoke of the inability of a football club to fund the necessary changes needed to use the ground for non-football uses - It was on that first Talksport interview I think

Essentially if the club were to put money into making significant ground improvements that would count against them in FFP terms - However if he buys the ground then the new company can spend whatever it wants on stadium improvements/changes etc without it being on the books for Derby County FC - It allows him to spend his own money turning the ground into a revenue generator - However, you're correct that revenue wouldn't be fed back into the club... Yet...

I suspect that the idea would be to sell the ground back to the club at a future date at which point the renovations would be complete and Pride Park would generate money for the club - However I wouldn't imagine the club could afford that until we're solidly in the Premier League and getting the TV payments in

It's a beautifully long term vision as far as I'm concerned and proves without a doubt that Mel has the best of intents to future proof us as much as possible (whether he always makes the right choices or not) 

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8 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

I think at one point he spoke of the inability of a football club to fund the necessary changes needed to use the ground for non-football uses - It was on that first Talksport interview I think

Essentially if the club were to put money into making significant ground improvements that would count against them in FFP terms - However if he buys the ground then the new company can spend whatever it wants on stadium improvements/changes etc without it being on the books for Derby County FC - It allows him to spend his own money turning the ground into a revenue generator - However, you're correct that revenue wouldn't be fed back into the club... Yet...

I suspect that the idea would be to sell the ground back to the club at a future date at which point the renovations would be complete and Pride Park would generate money for the club - However I wouldn't imagine the club could afford that until we're solidly in the Premier League and getting the TV payments in

It's a beautifully long term vision as far as I'm concerned and proves without a doubt that Mel has the best of intents to future proof us as much as possible (whether he always makes the right choices or not) 

Thank you Cheron, that's very helpful. I don't really understand all the ins and outs of the business side of running a football club and what you say makes perfect sense. 

We really are very fortunate to have Mel at the helm.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just been reading on The Athletic that the league are split on the punishment to be dished up to Sheff Weds. 

It's possible the league will impose a 21pt penalty for an aggravated breach, although some on the committee want to go further and impose automatic relegation!

According to the same article, we are next in the crosshairs and will find out either next week or the week after if we're to be charged.

 

Just to add, the league are also looking to ban the directors involved in the deal from football too!

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17 hours ago, reverendo de duivel said:

Just been reading on The Athletic that the league are split on the punishment to be dished up to Sheff Weds. 

It's possible the league will impose a 21pt penalty for an aggravated breach, although some on the committee want to go further and impose automatic relegation!

According to the same article, we are next in the crosshairs and will find out either next week or the week after if we're to be charged.

 

Just to add, the league are also looking to ban the directors involved in the deal from football too!

It’s not the ground sale that the EFL are bothered about per se in the Wednesday case it’s that they tried to back date the sale into the previous years accounts to try to mask the losses 

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Interesting that Sheff Wed have responded saying that they have all the paperwork that signed this deal off from the EFL and they will be looking for compensation from them in damages.

I’m not as confident as I was before that we will not be charged.

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On 19/11/2019 at 09:44, cheron85 said:

Essentially if the club were to put money into making significant ground improvements that would count against them in FFP terms - However if he buys the ground then the new company can spend whatever it wants on stadium improvements/changes etc without it being on the books for Derby County FC - It allows him to spend his own money turning the ground into a revenue generator - However, you're correct that revenue wouldn't be fed back into the club... Yet...

 

We currently make money from a ground we don't own - match tickets etc.. based on the terms of the lease we have for the ground.  There is nothing to stop our landlord making improvements (retractable roof, say) and allowing us to negotiate a new lease to take advantage of new revenue streams provided. Just needs a compliant landlord with some commercial ideas....

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29 minutes ago, U.M. said:

We currently make money from a ground we don't own - match tickets etc.. based on the terms of the lease we have for the ground.  There is nothing to stop our landlord making improvements (retractable roof, say) and allowing us to negotiate a new lease to take advantage of new revenue streams provided. Just needs a compliant landlord with some commercial ideas....

Possible, but I'd suggest more challenging to justify

Currently (I assume) we rent the ground for game days only - Meaning any revenue we generate on game day (ticket sales, food, drink, corporate etc) would presumably be for the club

Other revenue sources suggest are things like gigs - Which the stadium would host - However it would be difficult to argue that the club were renting the stadium that day in order to host a gig - I'm not sure that's feasible TBH

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41 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

 

Other revenue sources suggest are things like gigs - Which the stadium would host - However it would be difficult to argue that the club were renting the stadium that day in order to host a gig - I'm not sure that's feasible TBH

I do not think that would be difficult if it were leased back

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I'm not entirely sure how it would work - if the league automatically relegate Sheffield Wednesday, would they still be playing games? The whole thing is a complete mess and it's only going to get worse. 

The biggest danger to football clubs going out of business and the league becoming non-competitive is the EFL. The worst organisation in the world and it's not even close - I'd back ISIS to do a better job than these jokers!  

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57 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

Currently (I assume) we rent the ground for game days only - Meaning any revenue we generate on game day (ticket sales, food, drink, corporate etc) would presumably be for the club

I doubt this is true as the club have always boasted of the income generating of the ground the rest of the week - corporate events, advertising boards outside etc.. I can't see we have given this income up.

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2 hours ago, AdamRam said:

Interesting that Sheff Wed have responded saying that they have all the paperwork that signed this deal off from the EFL and they will be looking for compensation from them in damages.

I’m not as confident as I was before that we will not be charged.

I would be hugely surprised if we were not charged with something. From an EFL perspective it would keep everyone happy except us and allow them to review what happened.

Whether we're found guilty of anything is a whole different matter.

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7 minutes ago, U.M. said:

I doubt this is true as the club have always boasted of the income generating of the ground the rest of the week - corporate events, advertising boards outside etc.. I can't see we have given this income up.

Surely it's the same as any other businesses that rent rather than own their property?

You wouldn't let a landlord use your office at night, just because you're not using it.

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20 hours ago, reverendo de duivel said:

Just been reading on The Athletic that the league are split on the punishment to be dished up to Sheff Weds. 

It's possible the league will impose a 21pt penalty for an aggravated breach, although some on the committee want to go further and impose automatic relegation!

According to the same article, we are next in the crosshairs and will find out either next week or the week after if we're to be charged.

Just to add, the league are also looking to ban the directors involved in the deal from football too!

Not shooting the messenger here but none of that will happen. We/they might get a suspended sentence of some sort because if they did actually come down that heavy on them then football, as an investment vehicle, would be done for in this country as no-one would take the risk. 

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2 hours ago, cheron85 said:

Possible, but I'd suggest more challenging to justify

Currently (I assume) we rent the ground for game days only - Meaning any revenue we generate on game day (ticket sales, food, drink, corporate etc) would presumably be for the club

Other revenue sources suggest are things like gigs - Which the stadium would host - However it would be difficult to argue that the club were renting the stadium that day in order to host a gig - I'm not sure that's feasible TBH

How much can we charge for advertising said gigs on match days and through our media profiles though? 

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1 hour ago, Dethorn said:

I do not think that would be difficult if it were leased back

Depends on the terms of the lease - The way to keep costs to the club down is for the owner to lease the ground to the club for only 23 days per year (ie, game days) so DCFC wouldn't have use of the ground on non-game days and therefore it'd be difficult to claim revenue generated

1 hour ago, U.M. said:

I doubt this is true as the club have always boasted of the income generating of the ground the rest of the week - corporate events, advertising boards outside etc.. I can't see we have given this income up.

I think that's the long term goal - But as I previously mentioned the club will need to take back control of the ground to do so - The company Mel has set up to own the ground can obviously generate revenue in the meantime but not the club

The advertising is an interesting one - I work in advertising so can probably speculate a little better on this one - In the ground advertising only happens on game day and only exists because the club is there - So that would be revenue generated by the club to make use of their lease on the game days they have leased the ground - If anyone is buying ads in the ground on non-game days they're being mugged off ? 

18 minutes ago, rynny said:

How much can we charge for advertising said gigs on match days and through our media profiles though? 

Limited amounts - Very limited amounts - Assuming the ground is full that's 33k people (ish) - Cost of reaching that many fans of a specific band on Facebook would be £100-£200 - If you had ad space throughout the game on the touchline boards the club could probably charge maybe £2k? If it was a game on TV that might go up to £10k

The organic reach of anything on social media is limited these days to about 1% of their 'followers' - So you might reach 3.5k people on FB and Instagram which has a value of around £10-£20

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If Wednesday have deliberately sent paperwork to the EFL that they knew was fraudulent (in order to avoid FFP penalties), then they're going to get hammered (and quite rightly so).

In our case it seems to be that certain parties don't like the fact that we've sold our biggest asset and that has avoided FFP penalties - if everything we've done has been transparent, honest and within the regulations, then the ELF don't have a case against us...not sure why folk on here seem so keen to think we're doomed simply because a bloke with a 1970s perm is making a fuss - as for 'The Athletic', since when did they become the font of all knowledge?

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26 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

If Wednesday have deliberately sent paperwork to the EFL that they knew was fraudulent (in order to avoid FFP penalties), then they're going to get hammered (and quite rightly so).

In our case it seems to be that certain parties don't like the fact that we've sold our biggest asset and that has avoided FFP penalties - if everything we've done has been transparent, honest and within the regulations, then the ELF don't have a case against us...not sure why folk on here seem so keen to think we're doomed simply because a bloke with a 1970s perm is making a fuss - as for 'The Athletic', since when did they become the font of all knowledge?

I dunno mate, any punishment they receive could dwarf Birmingham's punishment.

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4 minutes ago, reverendo de duivel said:

I dunno mate, any punishment they receive could dwarf Birmingham's punishment.

 

39 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

Depends on the terms of the lease - The way to keep costs to the club down is for the owner to lease the ground to the club for only 23 days per year (ie, game days) so DCFC wouldn't have use of the ground on non-game days and therefore it'd be difficult to claim revenue generated

I think that's the long term goal - But as I previously mentioned the club will need to take back control of the ground to do so - The company Mel has set up to own the ground can obviously generate revenue in the meantime but not the club

The advertising is an interesting one - I work in advertising so can probably speculate a little better on this one - In the ground advertising only happens on game day and only exists because the club is there - So that would be revenue generated by the club to make use of their lease on the game days they have leased the ground - If anyone is buying ads in the ground on non-game days they're being mugged off ? 

Limited amounts - Very limited amounts - Assuming the ground is full that's 33k people (ish) - Cost of reaching that many fans of a specific band on Facebook would be £100-£200 - If you had ad space throughout the game on the touchline boards the club could probably charge maybe £2k? If it was a game on TV that might go up to £10k

The organic reach of anything on social media is limited these days to about 1% of their 'followers' - So you might reach 3.5k people on FB and Instagram which has a value of around £10-£20

I dont suppose there is anything to stop MM paying the club anything from £2 to £20million for the advertising rights

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