An email I just sent to Trustsec.........see ms to be the topic of the day.

Hi

Its pretty easy to work out why the numbers don't add up.

My estimated revenue for the extra seats would only bring in an extra 3-4M per season ..."IF" we filled all seats for 19 games.

(thats a big IF)

The cost of demolishing the old stand and rebuilding with a new one has to be at least 20M

With interest that has to be a repayment of 2-3M a year

meaning over a 10-15 year period we would only get an extra 1-2 M a year in revenue "IF" we filled every seat. (and stayed in the PL for that whole period!)

I would be interested in why the board thinks this relatively small increase in revenue would make us self sustainable?

With virtually all PL clubs debt being backed by rich owners, it would appear self sustainability is almost an impossible dream.

The upside income of a small increase in revenue doesn't balance with the huge risk of being 20M in debt to a stand that would probably be
empty in the championship.(and could well be half empty in the PL?)

Alan Bowkett recently said our income from the PL is roughly 40M and our projected club revenues are in the 20-25 M range

It should be obvious that most of the money we get for being in the PL is not from ticket sales but from TV money and advertising revenue.

IMHO the dream of PL self sustainability is nothing but a dream. We are currently finding out we cant realistically compete in the wage/transfer market.

If we break those structures then the dream of self sustainability also dies.

The board might actually agree with that and know that if we hold the current wage structures, relegation is pretty likely over the next 5 years.
(thats the reason they gave the 3 year waiting period before even thinking about the stand)

Obviously the fans dont want to hear that....... they want.... spend spend spend......... without worrying about bills being paid or debt being racked up.

The facts are we have had a number of games this year where tickets have gone on general sale. (4000+ super members passed on the games)

There just doesn't currently look to be the extreme demand for getting an extra 4-8000 fans in the ground outside of the very biggest games.

In my opinion we should look into building the Hotel corner stand ASAP, be it either a temp stand or a more permanent structure built in the summer.

The advantge of such a stand is obvious when we play smaller teams who may only bring 500-1000 away fans.

We gain the extra 3-400 seats in the Jarrold we lose because they are covered to divide the fans.

It would be a relatively cheap way to increase revenues/capacity while not weighing us down with any huge long term debt.

It would also help us gauge demand for tickets with a slightly increased capacity.

And let me just add, I think the board have done an amazing job over the last 3 years.

Truely stunning performance with very little credit outside of standing ovations at AGMs.

Personally I hope they keep to a realistic wage structure in place even if it means we make the odd trip to the championship.

We have to stabalize the medium/long term future of the club.

Posted By: usacanary on January 13th 2012 at 17:22:01

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