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Post by slappy on Jan 13, 2011 10:46:48 GMT
Perhaps another way to look at a £5MM valuation of OUFC is to compare that to 69 of the other 72 clubs in the football league which lost money last year (according to KT's report from the League AGM).
You could in theory buy OUFC for £5MM and at current levels of income and expense in theory not have to put any more in (ever?). Or buy one of the other 69 loss making clubs for less, but end up having to fund losses each year, which would end up as £5MM down the drain and then run out after say 5 years.
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Post by Londonroader on Jan 13, 2011 12:27:28 GMT
Perhaps another way to look at a £5MM valuation of OUFC is to compare that to 69 of the other 72 clubs in the football league which lost money last year (according to KT's report from the League AGM). You could in theory buy OUFC for £5MM and at current levels of income and expense in theory not have to put any more in (ever?). Or buy one of the other 69 loss making clubs for less, but end up having to fund losses each year, which would end up as £5MM down the drain and then run out after say 5 years. Have we sold a player ?
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Post by scoob on Jan 13, 2011 19:01:31 GMT
Slappy I think that some of the other clubs are making a loss through choice because they have cash available (eg Shrewsbury) or are living beyond their means by being propped up by their owners (eg Cheltenham & Stevenage) but that won't last forever.
Another alternative would be to buy another club and run it at break even at worst. I know for some on this forum that would be a radical idea. In the long term this strategy will pay dividends and Lenagan may well get his £5M+ as a result.
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Post by ox1yellow on Jan 14, 2011 7:48:32 GMT
A few thoughts.....
IMO the delay in getting the minutes issue resolved is not ideal but hardly surprising given the time of year and the fact that I can only imagine that our wonderful club is probably at best fourth on IL's priority list after: running a multi-million pound business, Wigan Warriors and family (not necessarily in that order). Anyone who works in the corporate world should understand that sometimes these things slip down the priority order. Anyway, I think that point has been well and truely hammered to death.
More importantly this discussion opened my eyes to OxVox. Yes I was aware that it existed but I had not really taken the time to look into what it was doing or trying to achieve in the long term. As a result of this thread I have now have a much greater appreciation of the work and time that the group put in and one thing really stands out..... whether there is a perception that it is an exclusive little club or not, £15 for three year membership is nothing! £5 a year to be part of an organisation that is working hard to help our club? How on earth can people argue with that? I don't care if the committee members all know each other (!!) or they use my £5 to cover petrol to get to meetings. IMO I am making a small contribution but having made that contribution, I now have the right to get involved and voice an opinion about how OxVox is run and the work they are trying to do. I am amazed that a small number of people on here feel that they have right to criticise OxVox without chipping in and joining up. Forgo a pint or two at the weekend and join up!
Anyway, this thread has resulted in me taking the time out to become more informed and become a member of OxVox. Perhaps if we all joined and just saw the £15 as a it exactly what it is, a very small contribution/donation to an organisation of individuals being pro-active for our club and doing a lot more than just voicing opinions on message boards, the world would be a better place!
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Post by Brahma Bull on Jan 14, 2011 10:38:44 GMT
Excellent ox1yellow, glad you've joined the Trust.
The meeting with Mr Lenagan, as the notes mentioned, ended on a positive after having a constructive conversation about Trust involvment in the Club. This is an aim of any Supporters Trust or should be.
It is worth just bringing that point back up and is something we have looked at, for a long time (I have copied the relevant part of the notes for quick reference).
We appraised Mr Lenagan of the Trust’s previous letter in early 2009 and the more recent letter in October 2010 which opened the debate on the possibility of a Trust investment. The Trust had been instrumental in the setting up and running of the 12th Man Fund which had generated over £30k for the Club over the last year. It was now turning its attention to possible enhancements to the stadium to recognise the Club’s history and identity, and the South Stand Heritage Boards project, modest in cash terms but undertaken with Trust members’ time, was the first fruits of that and had been well received by supporters.
The Trust had set up a fund for investment in the Club through share purchase two years ago, and it now had potential access to a significant investment in the Club in return for a minority shareholding and formal supporter representation. OxVox asked IL to consider such an investment and to give his reaction, either at the meeting or later. It was recognised by both sides that this was an exploratory discussion. IL said he had no objection in principle to the Trust having such a shareholding and welcomed supporter involvement. The Trust accepted this as a positive statement and would confer before returning to IL.
The Trust will now be looking at preparing proposals to present to the Club and will discuss the intentions with our members, at our next members meeting.
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Post by Marked Ox on Jan 14, 2011 12:53:37 GMT
Slappy I think that some of the other clubs are making a loss through choice because they have cash available (eg Shrewsbury) or are living beyond their means by being propped up by their owners (eg Cheltenham & Stevenage) but that won't last forever. Another alternative would be to buy another club and run it at break even at worst. I know for some on this forum that would be a radical idea. In the long term this strategy will pay dividends and Lenagan may well get his £5M+ as a result. Good post. One point on Cheltenham, apparently they are projecting to break even or make a small profit this year after 4 years or so of small to large losses (relative anyway). Cheltenham started reducing the costs/budgets considerably to do this and appointing the Mark Yates/Neil Howarth management team was a key part of the process as they are used to operating under those budget pressures and being relatively successful at it after his time at Kiddy. I hope that we have far more clubs trying to live within their means but unfortunately I think for quite a while yet we will get owners running clubs at a loss chasing the dream (such as Man City, Crawley or Fleetwood).
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Post by scoob on Jan 14, 2011 13:23:35 GMT
Thanks for that Marked Ox I am slowly having a look at the accounts of most L2 clubs but they don't tend to show much background information and there is limited information available without spending hours trawling for it.
I agree that the more clubs who spend withing their means the better for football in general because the playing field will become slightly more level.
I notice that Cheltenham's P&L account defecit increased by £825k from 2008 to 2009 which is a massive loss when their average crowd is taken into account so it could not continue without further "investment" from the owners. They also had creditors due within 1 year of over £1M but at least their owners had put some cash in to cover some of the losses that they had allowed the club to build up so they did not get to the crisis point that we apparently did around the same time.
I think Cheltenham's situation once again shows that throwing cash at players does not always produce results. The most important thing is getting a Manager who is willing and able to work within the club's break even budget.
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Post by slappy on Jan 14, 2011 13:44:00 GMT
Scoob - you might remember I tried a similar exercise on TIU for non-league clubs, but the thread got deleted. One of the keys to financial stability seemed to be down to the ground ownership (club, 3rd party or council), and whether it was an old undeveloped ground or a new one capable of generating income outside of matchday. Shrewsbury and Burton have sold old grounds and built new ones debt free. Colchester have gone for a new ground in partnership with the council to get funding that way. Dagenham and Redbridge I think are a council owned ground on cheap rent. Crawley have got better lease terms from the council recently. Bradford are possibly in a worse position than us, selling the ground for a few million a few years ago and now renting back for I think £600K per year. Hereford have recently done a deal to get a long-lease on their ground out of the hands of developers, and are looking to do a hotel /conference facility at the end where the temp seats were for our visit. Aldershot too are rumoured to be planning a development of their High Street End.
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Post by SuperOx on Jan 14, 2011 18:34:10 GMT
Aldershot too are rumoured to be planning a development of their High Street End. It must be a huge struggle getting all those existing fans into The Rec that they are planning a stand at the High Street End
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Post by scoob on Jan 14, 2011 19:55:27 GMT
Slappy I have to confess that I do not remember that thread on TIU so I either missed it or my grey matter is fading faster than I thought because I am sure that it would have interested me.
I am in no doubt that the financially stable club's are those that benefit from the additional revenue streams provided by stadium development. Sadly the great opportunity to gain that stability seems to have been taken from us by the efforts of Herd, Cox, Kassam and Lenagan/Merry. The stadium may well generate a decent income in the future but not at the level that it would have done if the project had been carried through properly in the first place.
However, all of that is now in the past and can not be undone. I hope that Lenagan (or any future owner) can salvage something from the situation. I believe that any investment must go into the stadium purchase/development rather than the team. We can be competitive in L2 on a break even/small profit basis but we will need the extra revenue generated by the stadium to progress past the lower levels of League One on a sustainable basis.
I believe that the stadium could still be used to generate additional income to benefit the club even under Kassam's ownership but definitely beyond it. If the club and the Stadco worked together then the lounges/conference rooms could be used to provide high quality facilities to more people than they currently do. I recently took part in a project to assess the facilities provided by a premiership club's "corporate hospitality" and I believe that the Kassam stadium has facilities that are better than those of the premiership club where the lowest cost package was almost £100 and many hundreds of fans were using these facilities (not executive boxes).
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Post by headingtontrev on Jan 14, 2011 21:52:08 GMT
scoob makes some relatively widely accepted points about the potential of the existing facilities on a matchday, were stadco and club to be in a different position vis-a-vis their working relationship. Slightly off track, but in our last OxVox ezine I wrote a piece at www.oxvox.org.uk/pageContent.aspx?id=110 where I mentioned Macclesfield and what they, given pretty limited and unpromising circumstances, were able to produce for fans who fancied a posh-ish meal etc - not to everyone's taste but whether it's that kind of thing or a straightforward supporters bar, the argument remains. On a different tack, and more immediately, Brahma Bull and I and one or two other OxVox folk will be around the Ex Bar tomorrow - flogging the remaining 12th Man mugs and we can also talk about trust membership and sign any of you up that want to join.
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Post by junior1 on Jan 14, 2011 22:40:52 GMT
BB did you get my idea I texted you with earlier?
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Post by scoob on Jan 14, 2011 23:40:58 GMT
Trevor that is an interesting article that I had not seen before. £40 sounds like a bargain. If OUFC introduced a similar package. I guess the cost would have to be slightly more expensive bearing in mind the cost of the Manor & Maurice Evans lounges which are £33 including programme, half time coffee & biscuit. I don't know what the occupancy rate is normally but on 28th December I believe they were sold out when I sampled one of them.
A similar package at the Premiership ground I mentioned in what appears to be a very similar lounge incurred a premium of £57 over the £37 standard ticket price in that part of the ground. An ex player, that even the regulars did not seem to know, was interviewed in the lounge, a one course very low quality carvery was provided and there were padded seats but the biscuits had run out by the time I got in there at half time! I would say that most of the people in the packed lounge were far from the Prawn Sandwich Brigade too! Other lounges cost up to £250 per ticket!
I am sure that the club and Stadco could make a decent return if the price and quality of a similar package was offered at the right level. The club needs to squeeze a small amount extra from as many fans as possible and surely the Stadco has the expertise to set this up. Maybe it is one of the issues that KT & Co have not had time to address?
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