Takeover / Investment - A Different Take

Agree.
Seriously the amount of people that tolerate the notion it can or could never happen to us is both incredible and bewildering.
Let's be fair what is the background of the majority of local govt councillors? They are invariably chamber of commerce stalwarts chomping at the bit to peddle influence.
Some of these people would sell off the Taj Mahal to be made into a multi storey car park or have the great wall of China pulled down and broken into stone aggregate.
They are usually philistines not altruists or into aesthetics.

 

Yep. Agree with all of that. I am staggered that anyone has suggested this would be business as usual. To be honest, very little of how they've operated the club from day one has been normal.

I sometimes think it's amazing really. If you set the bar at £5m, the options are endless. I could have put a group together in an hour for that price, or that's 5,000 fans putting £1,000 in, and using the parachute payments to buy the club for ourselves and then what... we collectively owe it to the club? The EFL would have laughed us out of the room if we'd have suggested that, yet would we be worse off today if we'd have appointed the people to run the club? I seriously doubt it.

 

We only got £9m in the our last season in the PL in 2016/17 with just over a 41,000 average. We then got under £7m with just under 27,000 average in the Championship. I nicked most of this crap below from an old post of mine on RTG

http://priceoffootball.com/tag/sunderland/

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In that 2016/17 PL season I think it was something less than £11.50 average per SAFC fan which was the cheapest in the league. Yet Southampton get over 3 times as much with something like £38 per fan as they raked in £22m from an average of 30,000 average. I think things like their cheapest season ticket being more expensive than our highest and them probably having less concession/free tickets.

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Given their 30,000 capacity, Southampton may well be pricing out fans as they know they can charge more. Leicester look like another club now pricing fans out due to the capacity limitations of their ground but £16 million revenue. This is something we can't do as the larger ground capacity allows for crowd fluctuation and why we had the lowest % of stadium filled over the season. If it was 30,000 capacity then chances are our prices would be higher and those with less disposable income would probably miss out.

People moan about the SOL and empty seats and say they would prefer a smaller but full capacity for 'atmosphere'. Is it not better for all fans the way it is now given that the club don't price out fans unlike many other clubs do now? I don't think they'd ever squeeze the fans to pay more as they know it would affect crowds. It's a fine line for demand/supply at the moment given the on pitch return isn't so good so money needs to come from somewhere else.

 

Emphasises and indeed heightens my point!

I said £25 head was ambitious I’m surprised at £11.50 though, that’s an even deeper hole.

 

But giving away cheap tickets has its cost
More stewarding and policing.
More catering staff
Upkeep on parts of the ground kept open to service extra people.
There's a price to pay for cheapness

 

Can't really find a more appropriate thread than this as its had the most balanced chat about the owners, but this from kildare on rtg is an interesting comment...

"if we reach the premier league i would like to think we wouldnt need the para payments"-isnt holding back para money for a rainy day exactly what our onweres are doing?"

 

Not Shirley Temple, just a degree and a masters in town and country planning.