NUFC Appalling Commercial Revenue

Here is an interesting article which attempts to show how much money we are losing per season in commercial revenue - presumably because of Sports Direct gobbling up all the free advertising to balance out that not so interest free loan.

http://www.themag.co.uk/the-mag-art...l-revenue-10m-every-premier-league-club-goes/

Apparently in the final season before MA arrived we made £27.6million and in the recently released 2012/13 figures we made £17.1million. £10million loss sounds bad enough but it gets worse when you see that over the same period of time most other clubs have dramatically increased theirs. Aston Villa for example have seen commercial revenues increase by 114%, Sunderland by 81%, Everton and Fulham 59%.... NUFC? Minus 38%.

Combined with the club statement which accompanied the recently released figures, this is especially sickening.

“Matchday and commercial revenue is a key driver because that is where the club can compete with – and outperform – its competitors to enhance its spending capabilities.”

 

Quite incredible figures really.

 

More disgusting than incredible.

 

i do believe the 'club' shop belongs to sports direct ,so the profits go there
a lot of people have said i wont spend a penny at the club till that man goes ,this wont = 10 mill but a lot of revenue lost !

 

Doesn't exactly bode well for the "Support Ashley" campaign that seems to have started...

 

Whilst you are getting your knickers in a twist over this here is a couple of points regarding this:

Only compared to 9 other clubs
Percentages are meaningless in comparison, hard figures in £ are what matters
Commercial revenue is a contribution to the full accounts, the bottom line is what matters when you look at financial performance

Lets look at Aston Villa, up by a wonderful 114% in commercial revenue, they posted a loss of £51.8 million for the period 2012/2013, this was an increase of £34.1 million on previous years accounts due to lack of sales on players and guess what........oh interest on loans by Mr Lerner which had been waived in previous accounts, currently the club is benefiting from about £6.1million in interest charges being waived per year. The devil is in the detail, up to 2011/12 accounts the club had benefited from interest being waived on the loans made by Lerner, this hit them for £20.3 million in the 2012/13 financial period, this is interest on the loans not repayment of the principle sums, they key word is waived, Ashley has provided his loans interest free. Yes I know the arguement about the sponsor revenue that would come normally from the SD arrangement but when a club is relatively financially stable under this arrangement then you have to consider that future financial performance will be even better.

 

Another point when Ashley took over, the club may have made a profit on the balance sheet for the period before this but they did this by deferring transfer fees which included players who had already left the club, this amounted to £36 million.

 

See this is why I feel the need to respond, I know of no "Support Ashley" Campaign, what I do contend with is the uninformed debate.

 

What uninformed debate??? Most people suggest Ashley has done some good things, but could do other things much much better, and is essentially stifling the potential of the club purely to keep picking up a safer return from his investment. As fans we want to see the club reach it's potential. Hardly surprising we don't support him

 

Ah just as you pointed out last week you respond to three words not what has been written, I get tired of the generalisations, you talk about the potential of the club being stifled, the club reaching it's potential, Blyth Spartans given £800 million could potentially play in the premier league, NUFC investing £200 million in players this summer could potentially win the premier league or the FA Cup, the problem with the word potential is that it doesn't mean that they will. Man City have potentially the best team in the Premier League, 3 games in hand, they have the potential to win the Premier League this season but will they, I don't know because as with every other team in the premier league they also have the potential not to win it.

 

No, that's completely off point and you know it. I'm not calling for us to spend money we don't have, but money we absolutely have been getting has just disappeared. It does not take a genius to realise that if that keeps happening, you aren't going to reach your potential (unless it does take a genius, in which case thanks for calling me a genius). The club is being stifled because the efforts of the players on the field are being undermined by the fact money made is not being re-invested back in the squad. Not even a little bit. I don't see how a fan of the club can constantly and consistently miss that very obvious fact.

I personally don't get sexually excited over Mike Ashley's bank balance

 

Still going out with the 5 fingered widow are you?

 

Christ

 

Perhaps if the fat idiot wasn't a mastermind at generating the kind of negative PR that makes us a commercial lame duck, the revenue would be better.

OR

Shock, horror, you had the 'genius' to invest into a product and become a successful, entertaining football team the cameras can't get enough of – the commercial revenue would go up.

But why bother? As long as the money drips in enough to pay his loan back and he's got something to blame his total lack of ambition on then it's fine.
Oh and forget this bull about no other companies coming in to takeover the option Sports Direct currently enjoys for FREE on stadium advertising, it's what he bought the place for.

It's all about hiding behind figures, bluffs and smokescreens. If this club wasn't working for him where it matters most he'd be falling over himself to flog it quicker than you can say "steak and kidney"...

 

Speculate to accumulate.

 

That wouldn't be commercial income - - that would be TV revenue.

 

I don't think he is neccessarily talking about the TV companies putting us on more (we already get our fair share really). I think he means the more attractive the product people watch all over the world, the more they are drawn to support the club from afar spendng money along the way. The more the big commercial firms want to be attached to your club, the more they are willing to pay to do so.

I think we are clearly failing in this regard. Our botched attempts to further the brand with pre season tours the last 2 years, indicative of our failings. Hopefully we can sort it out and get it on the rise, it makes no sense for Ashley not to want the club to do better in this area.

 

Fair enough comment with respect to the relation between TV revenue and commercial revenue.

I take this thread with a grain of salt as I don't know (and I doubt anyone else on the board knows) what was included in commercial income as of 2008 and what is included now.

I doubt that sales of anything have gone down by 30%. I suspect (though as said above I don't know) that categories of income have been re-classified in the accounting periods.

The details might be very interesting if we knew what they were.

I know that catering has been outsourced: that entails a big drop in revenue but with an equally big savings in costs. this might or might not account for the change. If so, it the change is not really newsworthy: profits are important, not revenue for its own sake

If all of the difference were stadium advertising forgone then we would be giving SD a £10 million advantage in exchange for about £7million saved interest payments - - something worth getting up in a bit of arms about. Somebody mentioned the club shop: I think that that is still owned by the club but it is possible that the fact that you can buy similar kit in SD might have an impact.

There could be half a dozen other explanations, ranging from unimportant re-jigging of numbers to worrisome trends. Does anyone know what has happened to overall revenue over the period in question ? The full figures will be available 31 March

 

This is thing, there is no detail to the figures so it is very difficult to get a handle on it. All I do know is we do not maximise our potential commercially at present. It would be a lot easier to do so if we could sort out the comical PR relations within the club and stop all the crazy decisions (JK appointment being one of a long list) I think Ashley would have enough sense to know that this sort of stuff makes us a less attractive investment opportunity. We really must sort these pre season tours out. I'm all for us heading to SA to exploit that market or the Asian markets. We have to actually do it though rather than talk about and then have it fall through on us. Once that is unfortunate, twice in a row, its poor commercial planning.

 

Why do you say that ?

(Straight question: I'm not saying you're wrong, I'd just like any interesting details you can provide)