***Official Mike Ashley Euro express thread***

[ChezGiven 0]

Better sponsorship deals inked when we were being relegated or in the championship. Those figure dont include the Virgin deal and our overall commercial should be improving this year, despite the recession. Also, as TV revenue makes up a greater and greater proportion of total revenue, the impact of e.g. Higher attendances, is muted.

 

In relation to the ranking, if you take out exchange rate effects from the last 2 years we'd be top 20.

[McFaul 35]

That's a good point, but we'd STILL be behind Villa. How can we make double the money they did 8 years ago yet now the shade us?! It's the fatty effect.

[manc-mag 1]

Better sponsorship deals inked when we were being relegated or in the championship. Those figure dont include the Virgin deal and our overall commercial should be improving this year, despite the recession. Also, as TV revenue makes up a greater and greater proportion of total revenue, the impact of e.g. Higher attendances, is muted.

 

In relation to the ranking, if you take out exchange rate effects from the last 2 years we'd be top 20.

 

Good post.

 

A lot of the 'potential of the club' argument gets pinned to our attendances without it actually giving us the massive edge people say it does. It's basically just a slightly nuanced "we're a bigger club than X" argument by the back door, but it's largely redundant afaic.

 

We need to find ways of competing with Aston Villa and their heavily subsidised ownership. They're in a halcyon time because they've had loads of blank cheques written. Football changes all the time. We're not going to be subsidised and currently they are. At the moment, we're more than competing. Ditto the Blackburn's and Bolton's we've been compared to.

[ChezGiven 0]

That's a good point, but we'd STILL be behind Villa. How can we make double the money they did 8 years ago yet now the shade us?! It's the fatty effect.

I know why you say that but it's got little to do with his business skills. Villa's attendances haven't gone up, they haven't suddenly unlocked massive shirt sales in the far east (a least I don't think they have), they haven't played in the champions league so what do you think has happened?

 

Our commercial line has lost about £10-15m from people getting pissed off with the club and the recession. We've lost match day revenue as we have hadower crowds, leaving about £5m on the table. We had poor sponsorship deals. As I presented in graphic form on here last year, we were an £88m with potential to be a £110m. We are underperforming financially by £20m on the back of relegation, recession and poor relationships with the club and community. If Villa used to be a £20m a year club and we were a £40m a year club, there's the £20m.

 

Now the Virgin deal will address some of that, the increased ticket sales this year will also do the same, the fact we are pushing at the top of the table should help commercial / VIP and if we manage to get into the EL next season we will see us putting £10m between us and Villa, the £10m they have caught being the difference between doug Ellis and Randy Lerner.

 

I had more to say but I really need to wipe me arse now.

[Park Life 71]

http://astonvillacen...e-up-6-percent/

 

 

Quite a few players have left Aston Villa over the past few months and it does warrant a post, because quite a large chunk of money has been saved from the wage bill and don't forget, quite a large chunk of cash has also come in.

Brad Friedel, Nigel Reo-Coker, John Carew, Robert Pires, Sali Salifou, Isaiah Osbourne, Ashley Young, Stewart Downing, Luke Young, Jonathan Hogg and Jean Makoun have all left. Now, I don't profess to have contacts inside the club, or relationships with the players or owner, so I couldn't tell you for sure what these players earned, but I think a conservative guess would be £300,000 a week or to make it a little more relevant, £15,000,000 a year.

Now, I could be a little over, but I think I'm more than likely a low on my guesswork and when you factor in some of the other players that have left, I think it is a fair guess but if we found out one day that it was actually a lot closer to £20,000,000 a year in salaries, I'd not be surprised.

Add to the savings the income generated from the sale of Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, close to or around the £35,000,000 mark and you've got to be, if you were the owner of the club, quite happy. But then you've got to add the £13,000,000 spent on N'Zogbia and Given and probably something close to £5,000,000 a year in salaries. Still, you'd be happy wouldn't you?

Lerner is a happy man

 

You'd have to be happy because that £10,000,000 a year you are saving in salaries isn't just £10,000,000 and when you double it, for the second year, then add another £10,000,000, you start to see huge savings. But it won't be £10,000,000 by close of business tomorrow as I expect one more player to come in, although if it happens, I'll also be a little disappointed.

Now, I really do need to stress that most of the figures above are guess work. I've guessed that we sold Downing for £20mn and Ashley Young for £15mn just like I've guessed we paid £9.5mn for N'Zogbia and £3.5mn for Given. I'm also guessing we are paying them each £45,000 a week, just like we paid Friedel, Reo-Coker, Carew, Downing and Luke Young £45k a week.

The other figures I used in my salary guesswork were £20k a week for PIres and Makoun, £10k a week for Salifou, Osbourne and Hogg and £65k a week for Ashley Young. All guesswork and when I came up with my £300,000 a week, if you do the math, you'll see that I rounded it down.

Show me the money

 

So, why am I writing about the money? Well, with these savings it is going to make the business look a lot stronger. It is going to position the business ready for fresh investment. Now, I'm not saying that Lerner is selling up, he could be the one willing to make this fresh investment, but in terms of potential, if the ship can now be steadied and the proper foundations that were built a long time before Lerner arrived, can be built on, it is there for the taking.

But I'm also writing about the money because if for a moment we can all agree that those weekly salaries are about right, that is one of the barriers to us playing regular Champions League football. We need to pay more. Young and Downing are both earning a lot more now and I'd bet my left foot that the same can be said for Barry and Milner.

It isn't just about paying £45,000 a week to five or six players - it is about paying £100,000 a week to two. Behaviour breeds behaviour and if we want to play at the highest level, we need to pay like we were at the highest level. The game is broken and that is the only way in these days. Extremely sad, but unfortunately true.

But that also coincides with the secret plan and developing from within. If we can get the best out of our players and then bring in two three or four players from outside to strengthen what we have, it is possible, but not players that have come to finish their career - players that are hungry and want to be successful.

To end the post; we don't need any more players."

 

 

The long and the short of it is that Lerner is out Ashleying Ashley.

 

I think our target revenue should be around £125m with the extra 25m coming from European football/the extra games and add on sponsorship and telly money. That for me should be the 'next phase' target. We have always hovered around the 90-100m mark without Euro football. We have it well within us to match the likes of Roma. Athletico Madrid and so on...Increased success on the pitch if sustained over the next 3 seasons will see us comfortably back in the top 7 PL revenue earners.

 

What happened to the casino btw? We already have the casino manager.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Park Life

[Toonpack 10002]

http://astonvillacen...e-up-6-percent/

 

 

Quite a few players have left Aston Villa over the past few months and it does warrant a post, because quite a large chunk of money has been saved from the wage bill and don't forget, quite a large chunk of cash has also come in.

Brad Friedel, Nigel Reo-Coker, John Carew, Robert Pires, Sali Salifou, Isaiah Osbourne, Ashley Young, Stewart Downing, Luke Young, Jonathan Hogg and Jean Makoun have all left. Now, I don't profess to have contacts inside the club, or relationships with the players or owner, so I couldn't tell you for sure what these players earned, but I think a conservative guess would be £300,000 a week or to make it a little more relevant, £15,000,000 a year.

Now, I could be a little over, but I think I'm more than likely a low on my guesswork and when you factor in some of the other players that have left, I think it is a fair guess but if we found out one day that it was actually a lot closer to £20,000,000 a year in salaries, I'd not be surprised.

Add to the savings the income generated from the sale of Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, close to or around the £35,000,000 mark and you've got to be, if you were the owner of the club, quite happy. But then you've got to add the £13,000,000 spent on N'Zogbia and Given and probably something close to £5,000,000 a year in salaries. Still, you'd be happy wouldn't you?

Lerner is a happy man

 

You'd have to be happy because that £10,000,000 a year you are saving in salaries isn't just £10,000,000 and when you double it, for the second year, then add another £10,000,000, you start to see huge savings. But it won't be £10,000,000 by close of business tomorrow as I expect one more player to come in, although if it happens, I'll also be a little disappointed.

Now, I really do need to stress that most of the figures above are guess work. I've guessed that we sold Downing for £20mn and Ashley Young for £15mn just like I've guessed we paid £9.5mn for N'Zogbia and £3.5mn for Given. I'm also guessing we are paying them each £45,000 a week, just like we paid Friedel, Reo-Coker, Carew, Downing and Luke Young £45k a week.

The other figures I used in my salary guesswork were £20k a week for PIres and Makoun, £10k a week for Salifou, Osbourne and Hogg and £65k a week for Ashley Young. All guesswork and when I came up with my £300,000 a week, if you do the math, you'll see that I rounded it down.

Show me the money

 

So, why am I writing about the money? Well, with these savings it is going to make the business look a lot stronger. It is going to position the business ready for fresh investment. Now, I'm not saying that Lerner is selling up, he could be the one willing to make this fresh investment, but in terms of potential, if the ship can now be steadied and the proper foundations that were built a long time before Lerner arrived, can be built on, it is there for the taking.

But I'm also writing about the money because if for a moment we can all agree that those weekly salaries are about right, that is one of the barriers to us playing regular Champions League football. We need to pay more. Young and Downing are both earning a lot more now and I'd bet my left foot that the same can be said for Barry and Milner.

It isn't just about paying £45,000 a week to five or six players - it is about paying £100,000 a week to two. Behaviour breeds behaviour and if we want to play at the highest level, we need to pay like we were at the highest level. The game is broken and that is the only way in these days. Extremely sad, but unfortunately true.

But that also coincides with the secret plan and developing from within. If we can get the best out of our players and then bring in two three or four players from outside to strengthen what we have, it is possible, but not players that have come to finish their career - players that are hungry and want to be successful.

To end the post; we don't need any more players."

 

 

The long and the short of it is that Lerner is out Ashleying Ashley.

 

I think our target revenue should be around £125m with the extra 25m coming from European football/the extra games and add on sponsorship and telly money. That for me should be the 'next phase' target. We have always hovered around the 90-100m mark without Euro football. We have it well within us to match the likes of Roma. Athletico Madrid and so on...Increased success on the pitch if sustained over the next 3 seasons will see us comfortably back in the top 7 PL revenue earners.

 

By a mile, he's been charging £4.5 Mill interest on his loans every year, until 09/10 when an additional £7.7 Million in "management fees" appeared on top of his loan interest. (source - the Ramble) Not sure what last year showed.

 

European games are the big contributor to additional revenue, from exposure and importantly more games = more gameday dosh.

[Park Life 71]

Better sponsorship deals inked when we were being relegated or in the championship. Those figure dont include the Virgin deal and our overall commercial should be improving this year, despite the recession. Also, as TV revenue makes up a greater and greater proportion of total revenue, the impact of e.g. Higher attendances, is muted.

 

In relation to the ranking, if you take out exchange rate effects from the last 2 years we'd be top 20.

 

Good post.

 

A lot of the 'potential of the club' argument gets pinned to our attendances without it actually giving us the massive edge people say it does. It's basically just a slightly nuanced "we're a bigger club than X" argument by the back door, but it's largely redundant afaic.

 

We need to find ways of competing with Aston Villa and their heavily subsidised ownership. They're in a halcyon time because they've had loads of blank cheques written. Football changes all the time. We're not going to be subsidised and currently they are. At the moment, we're more than competing. Ditto the Blackburn's and Bolton's we've been compared to.

 

Lerner has streamlined the model aggresively recently as well.

[Park Life 71]

Look at these prices at Hsv (Revenue 125meuro)** Roughly.

 

For decent seats you're looking at 55-90 euros for a Cat A (Bundesliga) game.

 

http://www.hsv.de/?id=5579

 

 

Cheap ticket prices

 

The average attendance for a Bundesliga match in 2009/10 was 41,802 fans, last year the average was 41,904. This translates into a total of 12.79 million fans attending the 306 games that took place during the season, which is down from the statistic of 12.82 million last season.

 

The percentage of season tickets purchased rose from 55% to 58%. On average, the percentage of occupied seats in the stadiums remain unchanged from last season at roughly 90%. Meanwhile, the average price of a ticket, including taxes, amounted to € 21.89, the cheapest average ticket price across all major European leagues, the same as in years past.

 

With the success of the Bundesliga continuing the 2. Bundesligaand also boasted impressive attendance statistics. In the season just gone 4.58 million fans attended the matches with an average of attendance of 15,000 fans, it was 15,550 last season. The average ticket price to watch a 2. Bundesliga match was € 13.77 and 43% of all tickets sold went to season ticket holders. "

 

 

Personally I think ticket prices even out as a revenue stream and probably flat line for long periods. The key to growth is matchday purchases, sponsorship and a bigger catchment for branding secondary sales (ie ManU and Liv shirt sales in Asia and so on...).

Edited February 11, 2012 by Park Life

[Toonpack 10002]

Look at these prices at Hsv (Revenue 125meuro)** Roughly.

 

For decent seats you're looking at 55-90 euros for a Cat A (Bundesliga) game.

 

http://www.hsv.de/?id=5579

 

Or you can stand for 19

[Park Life 71]

Look at these prices at Hsv (Revenue 125meuro)** Roughly.

 

For decent seats you're looking at 55-90 euros for a Cat A (Bundesliga) game.

 

http://www.hsv.de/?id=5579

 

Or you can stand for 19

 

Yeah but you don't get beer brought to your seat then.

 

I was just illustrating its what people spend on other things at matchday which is probably the difference now under Ashley. I get the feeling people are spending a lot less on variables.

 

A good comparison is that hsv ticket prices are more or less where Spurs prices are. Hamburg is the richest city in Germany.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Park Life

[Toonpack 10002]

Look at these prices at Hsv (Revenue 125meuro)** Roughly.

 

For decent seats you're looking at 55-90 euros for a Cat A (Bundesliga) game.

 

http://www.hsv.de/?id=5579

 

Or you can stand for 19

 

Yeah but you don't get beer brought to your seat then.

 

I was just illustrating its what people spend on other things at matchday which is probably the difference now under Ashley. I get the feeling people are spending a lot less on variables.

 

A good comparison is that hsv ticket prices are more or less where Spurs prices are. Hamburg is the richest city in Germany.

 

The commercial revenue's are much bigger in Germany as well aren't they??, I seem tor recall reading something somewhere that commercially Bayern blow even Man U out the water.

 

T'was the rambler (again) (Even Shalke are "close" !!!)

 

[Park Life 71]

A lot of it is to do with the amount Germans spend going to games and at the game. At HSV I'll probs drink 3 pints in me seat, that all goes into the club. The fact that the German economy is outperforming the whole of Europe put together is part of the picture and their ability to start a war at the drop of a hat.

 

The main difference between us and HSV is also this:

 

"In 2001 AOL bought the naming rights to the Volksparkstadion for €15.3 million, retitling the ground as the AOL Arena. In March 2007 the HSH Nordbank bought the naming rights for €25 million, and the stadium was rebranded as the "HSH Nordbank Arena" in a 6 year deal. From July 2010 the arena will be called the "Imtech Arena", after Imtech bought the naming rights."

 

It's a lot of free money for doing nowt but change a few signs over.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Park Life

[JawD 99]

So, despite being relegated and all the shit PR the club has been through of late, we still command one of the highest turnovers? Not that it's that relevant when bottom line is more important to a business. But as Stevie and I discussed on Twitter, as he said it's a good indicator of our progress. With an improved league position and the Virgin deal as said, I'd expect more positive results next time around (again).

[Park Life 71]

So, despite being relegated and all the shit PR the club has been through of late, we still command one of the highest turnovers? Not that it's that relevant when bottom line is more important to a business. But as Stevie and I discussed on Twitter, as he said it's a good indicator of our progress. With an improved league position and the Virgin deal as said, I'd expect more positive results next time around (again).

 

It'll come down to the wage bill as a percentage of turnover. Wages are the highest outgoing of all PL clubs. If you think about it a min, the sale of Carroll and the 35m is equivalent to two years CL money roughly.

[manc-mag 1]

The Virgin deal (previously prophesied on here as the 'free shirt sponsorship vehicle for Sports Direct', by those who knew best) could be a firm step back towards decent revenues on the corporate side and see us punching our weight there a bit more. Virgin are a blue chip brand; you'd like to think that would mean some other sponsors follow their lead.

 

If we're genuinely about self-sustaining as an all encompassing discipline, sponsorship is definitely one thing FMA needs to start bucking his ideas up about and bring us some results on that side of house.

[Park Life 71]

The Virgin deal (previously prophesied on here as the 'free shirt sponsorship vehicle for Sports Direct', by those who knew best) could be a firm step back towards decent revenues on the corporate side and see us punching our weight there a bit more. Virgin are a blue chip brand; you'd like to think that would mean some other sponsors follow their lead.

 

If we're genuinely about self-sustaining as an all encompassing discipline, sponsorship is definitely one thing FMA needs to start bucking his ideas up about and bring us some results on that side of house.

 

Virgin are a very good brand and I agree a massive step in the right dir.

[Baggio 0]

Villa are a good example of why basing it solely on income isn't a good idea, for the extra they've brought in they made a loss of £38 million and £46 million the previous year, they also have a wage bill running at 88% of turnover which was some £30 million more than ours.

 

It seems like it's sunk in for Lerner that this isn't sustainable so he's gone on a massive cost cutting exercise to try and get Villa back in line, which is why they sold Downing and Young and only replaced them with N'Zogbia, I also think they only bought Bent because they were looking like going down and while it kept them up it seems to have delayed the inevitable which is a huge shake up that is needed in their squad.

 

Apparently Lerner hasn't been to Villa park all season either which is a shift from how he was to start with.

 

Losing interest perhaps?

[Baggio 0]

Great result for us in the earlier game btw.

 

Hopefully an Everton win and Arsenal to draw at Sunderland would see it being a great afternoon for us.

[Baggio 0]

Played 25 Points 42

 

I didn't expect to get anything today but that was awful, Spurs are unbelievable on the counter attack yet we continued to play a high line, I think Coloccini has to take a large portion of the blame for that as he is the one that should be marshalling the back line.

 

Something Pardew needs to look at in the summer is someone to come in and give Tiote competition (if he's still here OMG) as without him we seem incapable of keeping our shape, it leads to us getting overrun in the middle and struggling to keep any sort of possession.

 

Today would have been more bearable if Henry didn't score in the last minute for Arsenal but there you go, at least we're likely to have Tiote and Cabaye back for the Wolves game.

[Happy Face 29]

Tiotes absence has coincided with one of our best runs of the season. He's not the be all and end all.

 

Spurs are just very good and were well up for giving redknapp a send off.

[Baggio 0]

Tiotes absence has coincided with one of our best runs of the season. He's not the be all and end all.

 

Spurs are just very good and were well up for giving redknapp a send off.

 

Yet we only let in 12 goals in the 14 games he's played, he's of huge importance to the team keeping it's shape and without him sitting deep we're repeatedly being pulled apart in the middle when a team piles on the pressure.

[Howay 12496]

We also didn't have Mike Williamson in the back four in most of those 14 games.

 

edit: Agree we really miss Tiote though, Perch is not even close. Just think losing Taylor is an equally big blow if not bigger.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Howay

[Baggio 0]

We also didn't have Mike Williamson in the back four in most of those 14 games.

 

Taylor's hardly Vincent Kompany either to be fair, if you don't give the back four protection then they will get pulled apart.

[Howay 12496]

Aye he's not but next to a good centre back like Colo he's solid enough, Williamson is a big liability.

[Happy Face 29]

Tiotes absence has coincided with one of our best runs of the season. He's not the be all and end all.

 

Spurs are just very good and were well up for giving redknapp a send off.

 

Yet we only let in 12 goals in the 14 games he's played, he's of huge importance to the team keeping it's shape and without him sitting deep we're repeatedly being pulled apart in the middle when a team piles on the pressure.

 

There's that too.

 

But everyone says he'll be easy replaced in the summer. Just joining in