It's clear that Donald still has comunication with the Americans as I am sure he said we may go back and ask them to invest more if we get to the Championship. Without having had that discussion he wouldn't be able to put that suggestion into the public domain. There's no way he'd just take a flyer and say it without having an understanding that it's a possibility imo.
I don't see how they can possibly finish the season. Indeed I very much doubt any football will be played at all, be it the end of this season or starting a new season until a vaccine is discovered.
If they insist on finishing this season it'll almost certainly encroach on the following season. And let's say the lockdown is lifted at the end of May so the remaining games can be crammed in. Would Burnley, who can't go down, or qualify for Europe, have a proper pre-season, turn up match fit and give Liverpool a real match ... ... and if they're absolutely hammered, behind closed doors, what would it really achieve. It would just be a predictable trudge to an inevitable conclusion. And, after 60 years without a trophy, what would happen to Newcastle in the FA Cup ... ... you could easily make the case that it means much more to them than another trophy to Liverpool. If Liverpool had won the title last season I doubt there'd be such a clamour for them to win it this season. My view is that it's all a shame but this crisis is bigger than a club coming first in a collection of other clubs.
To be fair I've not seen one plausible explanation of what this money was for. One of Donald's many statements was that they didn't need the money ... ... then why take it, announce it and keep referring to it. And why keep insisting other buyers are close to a deal
On the subject of income: Losses: £100k per match in ticket sales £85k per match in corporate/hospitality revenue Recouped: £125k per month in furloughed wages £250k advanced by the EFL £30k policing costs Altogether I estimate we'd lose £750k if no games were played, but assuming the JRS lasts until June (when player contracts run out), we'd gain £650k back from furloughed wages, matchday costs and EFL help. Basically, there's no way this should cost more than a few hundred grand in the absolute worst case scenario. Spoiler: For those who want to know more We make somewhere around £9m estimated from gate receipts in league one, but a lot of that is paid up front as season cards. A generous estimate is around 4-5000 or £100k paid 'on the door' by non-SC holders. This isn't broken down in the accounts but we have around 23k ST holders and we get 4-5000 more paying per game. I suspect it's more heavily weighted toward ST holders but I'm going with 'worst case'. We make other money from matchday revenue, but it's also not on a pro-rata basis, so for example we get our revenue from merchandise, sponsorship and stuff like that largely up front (shirt sales etc). If we're again being generous, we might say we make another £2m of our revenue on matchdays, so around 85k per match from corporate tickets and sponsorship of match balls etc.. Which means that at the top end of what is possible to lose from 4 home games, we'd actually lose somewhere in the region of £750,000 from this. However, in the plus column, the EFL gave us £250k advanced. We have furloughed 25 players, all of the youth team players and coaches. A very conservative estimate is that we save £125k a month from furloughs, or £375k over 3 months if we didn't play another game. We also avoid around £8k in policing costs, so £30k more in the kitty.
I was just going to post something similar. We are fortunate in that when everything was put on hold, we only had 3 remaining home games, and the majority of our crowd are season ticket holders who have already paid for those games. Obviously we’ll still lose money, but it should be manageable, unlike other clubs at this level who will be in serious trouble without their match day income.
24,000 season tickets. 29,000 average attendance means an average of 5,000 on top of season tickets. 5,000 x £20= £100,000. I think he is spot on.
Even if it's not spot on, it won't be much either way. There'll be some costs/income that won't be factored in, but I think we'll be fine in the short term. The next potential 'crunch' is not about us but about TV money payments in the summer. Some mutterings that while Sky, BT etc are happy to absorb the missed games at the moment, they won't make any future payments until they know when we'll be back playing. That would seriously impact every club though, so I can't imagine it will be something unique to us.
I suppose it all depends on what we'd budgeted for and I'd expect it's more than an average attendance. The Peterborough match, and the other if we were in the top 6, would be above average. That's at least another 5000 people x £20 equaling around another £100,000, it could easily be twice that. Hoy in some highly attended, televised, play-off games in there and it's more than double the amount. (I assume for play off games season card holders pay extra.) I don't know what a Wembley appearance brings in but it's massive to a club in our position.
It is, but it's also likely not budgeted because it's 'extra' and we wouldn't know we had playoff games for a while yet. We pay to go to them so they're a nice bonus, rather than having projected profit/loss. The overall takeaway is that it shouldn't harm Donald's ability to keep the club running in the short term, and if everything goes to ****, he'll be in the ironically fortunate position of having 75% of his wage bill departing in July.
Even if it was, we're looking at a loss of less than £500k in total, assuming no more help from anywhere else. That won't impact whether he can hold onto the club. He may not be wealthy enough to sustain us forever, but he can absorb this one in the short term.
What would happen next season if no crowds are at games? I can't see the government allowing crowds back to games unless social distancing comes into it. How they do that I have no idea. It's probaby not possible. Online streaming? Very easy these days to watch the game via other methods. My uncle is 71 and has a season ticket and says he won't be risking going to any games until vaccines are available and it is safe to do so.
I think the biggest risk for us is losing multiple revenues from the same household. My mate's mam and dad will get one season pass for their house, or whatever the deal would be, rather than two in the West stand that cost £450. Some people who can't go to the match will buy streams which may offset some of it. I'd say there's a solid chance that matchday revenue drops by around half once you factor in illegal streams, but it depends how it works.
I've no doubt he can do that but a half a million pound loss can't just be absorbed ... ... it's a loss or debt.
