Analysis of Saints books.

I think you should be expanding your horizons overseas and target the scilly isles. They only have 2 football teams so there are no each way bets on who wins the league and their cup final is played over two legs. There must be an opportunity there for us don't you think??

 

Seems to me the single biggest issue with our commercial income is shirt sponsorship. We could increase our commercial income by 50% just by getting that £5-6m deal he talks about. We won't come close to competing with the really big boys on commercial income until we reach a comparable level of success on the pitch.

 

There is the other thing of course which is [sadly] people who have a distant fan-ship of Southampton will be more attracted to buying a shirt and other regalia if it has a global, or at the very least international, brand on it. So, not only to you scoop more money from sponsorship, you get more shirt sales too. For example, much as I dislike the things this particular company stands for, if Saints had this on the front of the shirts...

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they'd instantly go to the head of the commercial queue.

 

Yes and no.

Running an EPL club is a simple and lucrative so long as you do not get relegated. The TV revenues will keep you afloat. In that respect, Saints are in no danger. The big clubs pay the rest of the league big dollars to be their Washington Generals.

But any attempt to compete and rise above lower table fodder is fraught with peril. The fact that Saints have any debt at all is absurd when you consider how far the team has risen. Especially using our own academy players or cheaply acquired ones. In any sort of logical league, performance like that should be rewarded-- if not with a bigger budget, then with better players.

But that doesn't happen, so all you can do is really spend your way to the top, and even if you spend well you are still taking on massive liabilities.

I still don't believe it is possible for Saints to remain where they have been. We will either go up, or down. Most likely down. And because of churn, someday we'll be back up again. But I don't think we will buck the system. Nor will anyone else.

 

Still, while you're watching, they might as well give a shot eh.? Otherwise, what's the bloody point.?

 

Remember we are not going to build a new training ground every year...we will be able to reduce debt over the next few years.

 

Disagree; as the TV money increases (and it's going to skyrocket again next year; we're in line for an additional 40-50m a year), it is ceasing to be a league of haves vs. have-nots, and transitioning into haves vs. have-even-mores. Which might seem like a distinction without difference, but at some point a team buying top international calibre players from Europe is going to unseat one who slips up buying world class players from Europe, and the deck will be reshuffled to some extent. Just as the deck was reshuffled when the Premier League came into being, and reshuffled again when the explosion in transfer fees occurred.

And our debt isn't a big problem, so long as KL is nowhere near underwater on the investment. Between the TV money and our new sponsorships, we're going to see an increase in revenue of something like 50% next year, at which point our debt:turnover ratio is going to be rather less glaring, the value of the club will rise accordingly, and paying down debt will become far easier.

 

Exactly Schad. That's pretty much how I view it and the previous TV deal shows evidence of it happening already. And our debt to KL is mere petty cash for her.

 

Bleugh! I'd hate to see this on a saints shirt but the day will happen when we will need to take some big corporate pound/yen/dollar

 

I'd be delighted to see someone like Apple on the front of our shirts... it would be a true sign that we'd arrived and the biggest corporations (like them or not) had realized it.

 

Oh same here. It was just an example of what an association to a company could do for a football club. Our supporter numbers would go through the roof, I have no doubt. However, Apple don't do football shirt sponsorship thankfully. Football isn't cool enough for them.

Can't think of a global company, who isn't already associated with a football club, who would have designs to shirt sponsorship. LIEBHERR is no good. There's no money there.

 

Yeah, someone like Apple. Apple themselves don't though.