The Albion LOST £140,000 a week in the last season at Withdean

[Seagull over Canaryland]

I am not being complacent in a Pompey fan way but I'm not that surprised to read these figures - they still made me wince but after all in 2010/2011 we were in a big transitional period still servicing the loss making liabilities of the Withdean era, while paying for the Amex to be built but without any of the income, plus starting to see the impact of the Gus era.

Wouldn't surprise me if Gus and Tanno were on a decent package too so there was no way we would break even whilst at Withdean. However Tony Bloom was/is still building for the future and could not turn us around within one financial year, so will take time. I suspect that the outlay he has in mind to get us to the Premiership will make the 2010/11 figures look eye watering for one or two years ahead. Especially with an enlarged Amex, a £12m training complex and the likelyhood of further record breaking player signings which probably mean having to pay competitive salaries. I think TB is taking a much longer term view of his investment. He has made a cracking start having acheived 20k average gates with a hardcore
18k STs and a good chance of even more next season.

It will only be when we see the accounts for the post-Withdean era and are free of the cash flow problems that it lumbered us with that we will get a true-er picture of how we are progressing. Paying for The Amex is like having a mortage to buy a house - you have to take a long term view, as long you are generating the income from STs etc and you have someone special like Tony Bloom to look after us. Of course a few years in the Premiership will help the bank balance too.

I was mindful just how lucky we are when listening to very disheartened Coventry fans on the radio moaning that their Club doesn't own the Ricoh Stadium having needlessly sold Highfield Road for a housing development. They now have to find a huge annual charges (I think £1.4m) to use their new stadium but will be on smaller League 1 gates, let alone find cash to invest in the squad to get them back to the Championship.

We are lucky - but certainly not complacent

 

[sir albion]

I'm not overly concerned by that, as we all know the problems associated with Withdean. You could argue the 25% hike in wages was worth it, as it got us promotion and we probably wouldn't have 18,000 Amex STHs without that. I'm not too worried about what our financial results for this year say either, as there will have been a lot of start-up costs associated with moving to The Amex that won't be paid again. But next year, there really is no excuse for making a loss. We have a large crowd paying good money and numerous other income streams, while the majority of our squad I would guess is still on League 1 wages. If we're still making a huge loss then it's a big problem as Tony Bloom isn't going to put his hand in his pocket and find £7m every year forever more. This is exactly why I really do not subscribe to the view that we must invest big money in our squad this summer in order to win promotion to the EPL. We should be able to afford modest investment thanks to our Amex income, but gambling and spending sums like £10m as I've seen quoted on here would be madness. If we finish 14th next season then so be it, we'll still be watching second-tier football in a top-tier stadium.

Disagree,think we would still have sold out regardless of division,we sold out 3/4 months before we was promoted anyway.

 

[ferring seagull]

I'm not overly concerned by that, as we all know the problems associated with Withdean. You could argue the 25% hike in wages was worth it, as it got us promotion and we probably wouldn't have 18,000 Amex STHs without that. I'm not too worried about what our financial results for this year say either, as there will have been a lot of start-up costs associated with moving to The Amex that won't be paid again. But next year, there really is no excuse for making a loss. We have a large crowd paying good money and numerous other income streams, while the majority of our squad I would guess is still on League 1 wages. If we're still making a huge loss then it's a big problem as Tony Bloom isn't going to put his hand in his pocket and find £7m every year forever more. This is exactly why I really do not subscribe to the view that we must invest big money in our squad this summer in order to win promotion to the EPL. We should be able to afford modest investment thanks to our Amex income, but gambling and spending sums like £10m as I've seen quoted on here would be madness. If we finish 14th next season then so be it, we'll still be watching second-tier football in a top-tier stadium.

Now I think that is a pretty good post !

 

[El Presidente]

You can see the accounts in detail here

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?pel6g0u8idnsbee

 

[El Presidente]

Disagree,think we would still have sold out regardless of division,we sold out 3/4 months before we was promoted anyway.

True, but we were top of the league at that time too. The club did a splendid marketing job, and even if we were in League 1 I am sure we would have averaged 18,000+ minimum as suspect we would have been in the promotion running.

One big contributor this season has been the amazing turnout from away fans at the Amex too.

 

[sir albion]

True, but we were top of the league at that time too. The club did a splendid marketing job, and even if we were in League 1 I am sure we would have averaged 18,000+ minimum as suspect we would have been in the promotion running.

One big contributor this season has been the amazing turnout from away fans at the Amex too.

We'll never know now anyway but the club way back were confident we would sell out anyway,also many casuals would hover for a game to game basis

 

[making plans for nigel]

You are aware these figures are for a period in which we played in an athletics stadium in front of 6,500 people with barely any potential to make extra money?

You are also, I presume, aware that we now play in an incredible stadium that is packed for every match and attracts income 365 days a year?


Let's see how "shocking" things are once The Amex has taken effect on our financial records.

So a £140,000 a week lose isn't shocking ? You can dress it anyway you like, but without Blooms millions, you are f**ked.
Of course your income as gone up this season, but so has your expenditure. Im sure like most Brighton fans you believe you have nothing financially to worry about,but lots of clubs have been there, so be carefull.

 

[El Presidente]

So a £140,000 a week lose isn't shocking ? You can dress it anyway you like, but without Blooms millions, you are f**ked.
Of course your income as gone up this season, but so has your expenditure. Im sure like most Brighton fans you believe you have nothing financially to worry about,but lots of clubs have been there, so be carefull.

Bloom has been a sugar daddy for a few seasons now, but the revenue this season should be around £25 million, compared to £7 million last season. Even if our wages double, we should be breaking even at the very worst.

 

[sir albion]

We didn't, because the season tickets didn't even go on sale until three or four months before we got promoted. And you have to consider that everybody who bought a seat before we actually clinched promotion only had to look at the league table to realise they were almost certainly going to be watching Championship football. How many would we have sold if we hadn't raised our wage budget by 25%, didn't sign Greer, Painter, Ankergren, Barnes, Kazenga, Noone etc, and were plodding along in mid-table last January?

We might have got good crowds this season even in League One, but there would have been hardly any away fans, a lot more no-shows and it would have been harder to sell one-off tickets.

I think the decision to give Gus the budget that allowed him to get us promoted was one of the key factors that has put us where we are now. The other being the option to pay for a season ticket on a monthly basis. Forking out £500 in one go for another season of Leyton Orient and Hartlepool might not have been as appealing to the 18,000.

The first visits started in January ish and most were sold by march at a guess,so yeah the last 3000 or so went in the latter stages.I recall getting mine in feb and we had sold loads.

 

[El Presidente]

We'll never know now anyway but the club way back were confident we would sell out anyway,also many casuals would hover for a game to game basis

True, and hopefully we won't find out for a long time what it is like to be in the bottom two divisions.

 

[sir albion]

True, and hopefully we won't find out for a long time what it is like to be in the bottom two divisions.

About 30 years would be nice

 

[The Grockle]

So a £140,000 a week lose isn't shocking ? You can dress it anyway you like, but without Blooms millions, you are f**ked.
Of course your income as gone up this season, but so has your expenditure. Im sure like most Brighton fans you believe you have nothing financially to worry about,but lots of clubs have been there, so be carefull.

You do realise being lectured by a Palace fan about the financial running of a club is like being called a sex case by Gary Glitter?

 

[drew]

I'm not complaining but it does make me laugh how many people are prepared to slag of Man City because of their millions but without Bloom we would have been up a certain creek with no promised land in the distance. Spending that money last year was obviously a gamble which paid off as had we not been promoted I don't believe the Amex would have been as full as it was this year.

 

[cjd]

You do realise being lectured by a Palace fan about the financial running of a club is like being called a sex case by Gary Glitter?

The best post I have ever seen on this forum.

 

[Lethargic]

So a £140,000 a week lose isn't shocking ? You can dress it anyway you like, but without Blooms millions, you are f**ked.
Of course your income as gone up this season, but so has your expenditure. Im sure like most Brighton fans you believe you have nothing financially to worry about,but lots of clubs have been there, so be carefull.

Yes you are right but this is probably the case with almost every club in the championship for a longer term idea look at the wage bill we are still low compared to most of this league so we have not taken the Pompey route and are trying to to achieve a sustainable model. The problem was we basically had to start from scratch so all the investment was necessary to get to this position yes we are lucky to have our sugar daddy but even you lot have to admit we deserve some luck after the past 20 odd years. If we are in the same position in 5 years then I may start to panic.

 

[Dougie]

I'm not complaining but it does make me laugh how many people are prepared to slag of Man City because of their millions but without Bloom we would have been up a certain creek with no promised land in the distance. Spending that money last year was obviously a gamble which paid off as had we not been promoted I don't believe the Amex would have been as full as it was this year.

^
This !

 

[making plans for nigel]

Bloom has been a sugar daddy for a few seasons now, but the revenue this season should be around £25 million, compared to £7 million last season. Even if our wages double, we should be breaking even at the very worst.

I'd be very surprised if ANY team in the championship have broken even.

 

[Captain Sensible]

This season, a massive boost of income will be merchandise and of course, match day consumables. E.g. I buy match by match tickets at the Amex at £30 a pop. But I spend about £30 at each match on Pints, Pies, Programs etc. At withdean I might have only spent £3 on chips.
Thats a massive, massive increase in matchday income. Its not just tickets. Also the amount of money fans are spending in the stadium has even shocked the club. They underetsimated the amount of money we would spend therefore the income per match is vastly higher than the club bugeted for.
The costs at the Amex must be much much less per head of fan than at Withdean. So Less costs per head and higher income per head will mean a huge profit on matchday income.
Then again expect the playing side of things to drain alot more money than previous seasons.