Fan Ownership (at the top level)

[Dave_Og]

There's an interesting calculation in The Times today.   As Manyoo are listed on the NYSE it is easy to see the value that the market places on the company (let's not call it a club); if a publicly listed company is taken over it generally attracts a significant premium to the market price.  The calculation is that if it was taken private at a premium of 50% to the current valuation then that could be done if each of its Facebook followers put in just £39 each.  Who would then run the company (or could we call it a club then?) is not discussed but those sort of numbers make it sound rather more possible than it might be, prima facie.  

 

 

[Ackey]

It's certainly an interesting point of view. I would expect a fuckload of those Facebook followers are bots though... That said, they are probably Russian, so if we ask Putin nicely maybe he'll buy them?

[Dave_Og]

12 minutes ago, Ackey said:

It's certainly an interesting point of view. I would expect a fuckload of those Facebook followers are bots though... That said, they are probably Russian, so if we ask Putin nicely maybe he'll buy them?

It worked for Chelski

[GlossopLatic]

The Official Oldham Athletic Facebook page has 94000 followers if you could convince half of them to part with £15 per year then you could cover the circa £600k losses we make annually according to the last set of accounts for 2019.

 

Getting the 47000 people to part with the £15 would be the difficult bit.

[Dickie Down]

1 hour ago, Dave_Og said:

There's an interesting calculation in The Times today.   As Manyoo are listed on the NYSE it is easy to see the value that the market places on the company (let's not call it a club); if a publicly listed company is taken over it generally attracts a significant premium to the market price.  The calculation is that if it was taken private at a premium of 50% to the current valuation then that could be done if each of its Facebook followers put in just £39 each.  Who would then run the company (or could we call it a club then?) is not discussed but those sort of numbers make it sound rather more possible than it might be, prima facie.  

 

 

Football really isn't 'big business', at least not in financial terms.

 

According to David Goldblatt's book of 2015 the Game of Our Lives, the combined turnover of the 92 English clubs would not have qualified for the FTSE 500.

[League one forever]

1 minute ago, Dickie Down said:

Football really isn't 'big business', at least not in financial terms.

 

According to David Goldblatt's book of 2015 the Game of Our Lives, the combined turnover of the 92 English clubs would not have qualified for the FTSE 500.

Sorry what? 
 

That can’t be right. 

[Dickie Down]

5 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Sorry what? 
 

That can’t be right. 

Will look up the quotation, but if you start to look at the multinationals amongst that lot it seems reasonable.

 

Football shares rarely trade significantly and seldom offer dividends. Any cash goes straight out to increased spending on contracts. As orthodox businesses, even the gigantic, seemingly successful ones are largely basket cases. Barcelona a million euros of debt.

 

The only financial logic of extremely rich people owning them is to be able to leverage new markets and media deals. Hence the ESL.

 

Otherwise they are just vanity projects or political tools.

[Dave_Og]

15 minutes ago, Dickie Down said:

Football really isn't 'big business', at least not in financial terms.

 

According to David Goldblatt's book of 2015 the Game of Our Lives, the combined turnover of the 92 English clubs would not have qualified for the FTSE 500.

AS there's no such thing as the FTSE 500 I suggest that analysis is flawed!  However, the premise is absolutely right.  MU's current market cap is in the region of £1.92bn; the lowest valued company in the FTSE 100 weighs in at around £5.6bn.

[GlossopLatic]

7 minutes ago, Dickie Down said:

Will look up the quotation, but if you start to look at the multinationals amongst that lot it seems reasonable.

 

Football shares rarely trade significantly and seldom offer dividends. Any cash goes straight out to increased spending on contracts. As orthodox businesses, even the gigantic, seemingly successful ones are largely basket cases. Barcelona a million euros of debt.

 

The only financial logic of extremely rich people owning them is to be able to leverage new markets and media deals. Hence the ESL.

 

Otherwise they are just vanity projects or political tools.

 

Yeah your right I read Soccernomics by Simon Kuypers and Manchester United were not even in the top 200 biggest companies in iceland in 2017.

[kowenicki]

It did used to make me laugh when football pundits (typically highly financially astute ex footballers ) started to say "well football is a business now innit".  The implication being it made them more accountable, serious and professional.  The opposite has proved to be true.  Worse run now than ever and well over half of the 92 clubs are effectively bust. Most football people do not seem to have a clue about how to actual run a business.

 

[Dave_Og]

5 minutes ago, GlossopLatic said:

 

Yeah your right I read Soccernomics by Simon Kuypers and Manchester United were not even in the top 200 biggest companies in iceland in 2017.

But they're not in Iceland....

 

They would comfortably make it into the FTSE 250 (the tier below the FTSE 100) as they are valued at around three times the lowest value company currently included in that

[Dave_Og]

1 minute ago, kowenicki said:

It did used to make me laugh when football pundits (typically highly financially astute ex footballers ) started to say "well football is a business now innit".  The implication being it made them more accountable, serious and professional.  The opposite has proved to be true.  Worse run now than ever and well over half of the 92 clubs are effectively bust. Most football people do not seem to have a clue about how to actual run a business.

 

The ESL would have been the first genuine attempt to make it a proper business which owners could reasonably expect to make attractive returns on investment from.  There would obviously have been salary caps and bands that would have been enforced.  Doubtless still very lucrative for the players, but not exclusively so which is pretty much the case at the moment.

[kowenicki]

15 minutes ago, GlossopLatic said:

 

Yeah your right I read Soccernomics by Simon Kuypers and Manchester United were not even in the top 200 biggest companies in iceland in 2017.

Not sure how he’d know that. On what metric? On market cap (the usual measure) that’s just not correct. It’s a long long way off being correct judging by the fact that the 20th has a market cap of 4bn. 

[singe]

Not arguing againgst the premise, but interesting to look at just revenue, mainly 2019.

Royal Dutch Shell        rank 1       £248bn  NB this dropped to £135bn in 2020.

Reckitt Benckiser        rank 10     £14bn

Intertek                        rank 50     £2.7bn

Electrocompnents       rank 100   £2.0bn

Virgin Money                rank 150   £1.4bn

Man U                                            £627m

Moneysupermarket   rank 250    £339m

I think one factor is the size of the 2019 TV deal, it really propelled the Premier League clubs in terms of revenue. Each televised game was worth an average approaching £9m. I don't think the next deal will be so lucrative.

[League one forever]

That’s not what Dickie said.

 

He said the ‘combined turnover’ of all 92 clubs, the ‘big 6’ must be worth north of 20 Billion alone. 
 

 I know United dropped to fourth richest the other week, with a valuation of circa £4.6 billion. We have the most clubs in the top 20 rich list. 
 

 

[GlossopLatic]

39 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

But they're not in Iceland....

 

They would comfortably make it into the FTSE 250 (the tier below the FTSE 100) as they are valued at around three times the lowest value company currently included in that

 

Ok that's more details but my point is in line with what you were saying even the biggest football clubs aren't that bigger businesses interms of market cap. Football clubs in general are run more like populist instuitions rather than corporations.

[singe]

12 minutes ago, League one forever said:

That’s not what Dickie said.

 

He said the ‘combined turnover’ of all 92 clubs, the ‘big 6’ must be worth north of 20 Billion alone. 
 

 I know United dropped to fourth richest the other week, with a valuation of circa £4.6 billion. We have the most clubs in the top 20 rich list. 
 

 

I was showing the Man U alone would be in the top 250. The 2018-19 Big 6 revenues were £6.8bn according to Deloitte Annual REview of Football Finance.They take a massive percentage of total revenue. Obviously 19-20 & 20-21 will take a big hit, but so will many companies I guess. Too time consuming to find all 92 revenue but it won't beat Shell, might make top 10.

[League one forever]

30 minutes ago, singe said:

I was showing the Man U alone would be in the top 250. The 2018-19 Big 6 revenues were £6.8bn according to Deloitte Annual REview of Football Finance.They take a massive percentage of total revenue. Obviously 19-20 & 20-21 will take a big hit, but so will many companies I guess. Too time consuming to find all 92 revenue but it won't beat Shell, might make top 10.

No, of course not. 
 

I was only saying DIckie’s quote seemed a mile off. 

[Dickie Down]

26 minutes ago, singe said:

I was showing the Man U alone would be in the top 250. The 2018-19 Big 6 revenues were £6.8bn according to Deloitte Annual REview of Football Finance.They take a massive percentage of total revenue. Obviously 19-20 & 20-21 will take a big hit, but so will many companies I guess. Too time consuming to find all 92 revenue but it won't beat Shell, might make top 10.

My quotation was inaccurate, but the premise is correct. Figures taken from 2015. I would suggest little has systemically changed since then and post pandemic revenues will be down.

 

Anyway here's the verbatim.

 

'The average Premier League club has a turnover only slightly larger than the average Tesco supermarket.....Collectively the entire turnover of the professional football industry is smaller than the consumer markets for pet food or prepared sandwiches.If it were a single company its turnover would only put it in the lower reaches of the FTSE 500.' 

 

Pg 3 David Goldblatt The Game of our Lives: Aspiration and Illusion: The Economics of the New Football.

 

It's why the billionaires who run the clubs want to break out to make more money. Billionaires like making money.

[League one forever]

5 minutes ago, Dickie Down said:

My quotation was inaccurate, but the premise is correct. Figures taken from 2015. I would suggest little has systemically changed since then and post pandemic revenues will be down.

 

Anyway here's the verbatim.

 

'The average Premier League club has a turnover only slightly larger than the average Tesco supermarket.....Collectively the entire turnover of the professional football industry is smaller than the consumer markets for pet food or prepared sandwiches.If it were a single company its turnover would only put it in the lower reaches of the FTSE 500.' 

 

Pg 3 David Goldblatt The Game of our Lives: Aspiration and Illusion: The Economics of the New Football.

 

It's why the billionaires who run the clubs want to break out to make more money. Billionaires like making money.

So, in effect is he trying to claim that Aston Villa (average premier club)  only turnover slightly more than tesco in Oldham. . 
 

I presume he’s done his research, but let’s say in a normal season Villa bring in circa 250 million. That means tesco is making 4-5 million a week at one store. .

 

Still find it hard to believe, but I understand the point you’re trying to highlight. 

[Dave_Og]

7 minutes ago, Dickie Down said:

My quotation was inaccurate, but the premise is correct. Figures taken from 2015. I would suggest little has systemically changed since then and post pandemic revenues will be down.

 

Anyway here's the verbatim.

 

'The average Premier League club has a turnover only slightly larger than the average Tesco supermarket.....Collectively the entire turnover of the professional football industry is smaller than the consumer markets for pet food or prepared sandwiches.If it were a single company its turnover would only put it in the lower reaches of the FTSE 500.' 

 

Pg 3 David Goldblatt The Game of our Lives: Aspiration and Illusion: The Economics of the New Football.

 

It's why the billionaires who run the clubs want to break out to make more money. Billionaires like making money.

 

Still not sure why Mr Goldblatt appears to have invented the FTSE 500 but regardless of that inclusion in a FTSE index isn't based on turnover so his premise is misplaced in any event.  Either way the average turnover of a Tesco store is around 3.8m (but that includes smaller units so a full size store would be a fair bit higher).  Compared to the United figure it appears that he may have his decimal points in the wrong place.   Point is though the clubs who attempted all this were not the average clubs

[kowenicki]

48 minutes ago, Dickie Down said:

 

 

Anyway here's the verbatim.

 

'The average Premier League club has a turnover only slightly larger than the average Tesco supermarket.....Collectively the entire turnover of the professional football industry is smaller than the consumer markets for pet food or prepared sandwiches.If it were a single company its turnover would only put it in the lower reaches of the FTSE 500.' 

 

 

 

Probably a bit off!?

 

Tesco turnover £45bn from UK operations, they have 3900 stores, so even if we discount all over business operations in the UK they would only turnover £11.5m per store (if my maths is correct).  However, to be fair, that includes the tiny ones. Just asked a mate who is a Tesco Store manager and he reckons the average proper supermarket is about £500k per week, £26m per annum and the massive Extras will take about £1m per week, £52m per annum.

 

By comparison, Wolverhampton Wanderers had the 12th highest turnover in 2019 at £150m, which will be quite a bit less than the average.

 

So no, nowhere near the same as the average premier league clubs. 

 

True that football is not the behemoth it is portrayed as though. 

 

(although Tesco staff cost is only 10%...)

 

 

fun fact:

 

In 2019 sausage roll kings Greggs turned over about the same as Man United and Liverpool combined... they also made almost twice their combined profit. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dickie Down]

However out dated some of the statistics may be it's a belting read about an essentially insolvent sport.