Commercial Revenue

https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/1026738524702351361?s=21

We have the highest commercial revenue in the league at £4.2 million. Congratulations Mr Bonser - can some be invested into the playing side?

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Wow. Wouldn’t have expected that.

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Amazing, although looking at the other plots is a bit more realistic. Also interesting that Shrewsbury have a cash pot of over 1m.

If he’s taken that directly from the accounts that figure also includes the rather ambiguous term “Other Football Related Revenues” (Which is basically anything other than ticket sales).

Seen a lot of “where’s the money gone?” queries about this.

On some of these activities there will be quite a high revenue but small margins of profit. Things like Boxing nights and concerts have quite significant overheads.

Which is why matchday revenue is really important.

What would be really helpful would be to see a balance sheet breakdown that told us the profit from our big ticket commercial activities. If the market and the sign cover the rent and then all other profit from on and off field activities go towards the football team then I think the board would be saved some grief and actually get the credit they deserve for running what looks like the best commercial operation in the division.

As it is, whilst I guess that we should be grateful that we at least publish accounts, things are quite opaque which means that people can still use the “im not buying tickets to feather HIS nest” and not be completely proved wrong.

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Why aren’t the other half of the league shown in the graph? Presumably because their accounts aren’t as detailed. If so, pretty meaningless.

Imagine what could be achieved if the club was run properly and the facilities weren’t tired!

Really interesting set of indices. If you read through all of them it is clear that without the commercial revenue, £4.2M, which the club should be applauded for realising, we’d be screwed.

Last seasons audited accounts should be out in a months time, so all should be revealed.

Or not! :wink:

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Looking back, they are usually put out on the OS in October (ahead of them needing to be officially filed in November - or at least that’s what it says here)

Granted. But if the club actually owned the ground then an extra £400k a year could be going straight to the playing budget. You’re basically saying that it’s okay to pay over £400k a year to use an asset to generate (the best part of) £4.2 million. What many supporters are asking is: why can’t we have the best of both worlds? Own our own stadium AND use it to make an excellent financial return. Surely that must be the desired end game. If the club had taken out a mortgage in 1990 to buy the ground then it would have been paid up by now and we would be in the happy position described above. BUT, the “rent” commitment goes on and on - not a good deal for the club, but great for the Pension Fund. At some stage, this commitment has to end.

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I applaud the club for what they have achieved on the commercial side, plus being one of a handful of teams in profit. If we could only get a couple more thousand on the attendances we could have a pretty handy budget at this level.

As it stands though our cloth is cut accordingly and we will continue to scrape by and the vicious circle will continue of fans staying away because of the owner and the owner reluctant to push the boat out due to our precarious finances.

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At that time - the club was not in a position to get a loan from Provident, never mind a mortgage!

At that time - the club was not in a position to get a loan from Provident, never mind a mortgage!

In 1990 the club had just received £4.5 million following the sale of Fellows Park.

The board decided to spend that money on building a new stadium on land that it did not own. This meant that it would not be the owner of the stadium and would have to pay rent in order to use it. At the time those in charge of the club, which included Barrie Blower, Jeff Bonser and Roy Whalley, thought this was a brilliant idea, since they would have a long term lease giving them the right to use the stadium for up to 99 years (as long as the club paid the rent each month).

Unfortunately for some yet unexplained reasons the building of the stadium cost a lot more than similar stadiums built at the same time, such as Glanford Park. Scunthorpe which cost £2.5 million. This meant that by 1991 the club was flat broke.

Somebody, somewhere made a killing out of the move from Fellows Park to Bescot. That move should have set us up, instead it impoverished the club.

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And in turn left us at the mercy of bonser :unamused:

No, I’m not saying that. I was just stating that the club should be applauded for generating that level of commercial revenue. Whether the club pays rent or not is irrelevant as far as revenue generation goes.
BTW I’d love WFC to be free of the shackles of rent payments.

As much as we can argue with his methods of running a football club, no doubt bonsor is a very, very good businessman.

Welcome back Bernie. :+1:t3:

Seconded
Hopefully still the statistician that used to grace the old site😄