To add to that. In the regular season, allowing for a 17 game schedule, NFL teams can rely on either 8 or 9 home games with the potential of an extra home game or 2 if they make the playoffs. Those ticket prices therefore are reflective of the scarcity of home games each season and it is still the case that many NFL franchises will not sell out their games if they are having a poor season. Factoring in cups we can easily get to 30 home games and so the gross number of home tickets available per year is far higher than for Tampa Bay games.
How bad is it, really? (Financial thread)
- Thread starter Nogho
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To add to that. In the regular season, allowing for a 17 game schedule, NFL teams can rely on either 8 or 9 home games with the potential of an extra home game or 2 if they make the playoffs. Those ticket prices therefore are reflective of the scarcity of home games each season and it is still the case that many NFL franchises will not sell out their games if they are having a poor season. Factoring in cups we can easily get to 30 home games and so the gross number of home tickets available per year is far higher than for Tampa Bay games.
Speak to the death of journalism that journalists can't be bothered to learn about the system and look at the information while this random fella has a ten times better go at it for free on a forum in probably 15 mins. All these articles are and always have been very low quality, athletic or otherwise. Fair play
Q2 looks to be a problem though as we dumped Erik for 17m. That's all loss. No spreading. One hit.
That's pure speculation. Nobody knows what the actual terms of his severance agreement were. The 17m figure is a clickbait figure that assumes we paid off his full contract. That almost never happens in practice.
Tampa Bay $103 to $895 this coming weekend, resales on Ticketmaster from $117
You might just as well look at a music event at the Royal Albert Hall in London, tickets start at £60, hospitality including waiter service at seat in box several hundred per head
Expensive nevertheless
Has that been confirmed - I have seen loads of numbers on this point, £13m, £15m, £17m?
Also factor in that a decent wage is US is like $250k nowdays, people there just have more money.
United tickets compared to the size and standing of the club were really cheap though. So Im not suprised they went up.
sadly football is becoming sanitised and the people that built these clubs are being priced out, if they havnt already.
Spurs were charging £109 for a standard admission ticket against Newcastle last weekend.
Casemiro and Rashford of the books would be a big help. Must be close to 40m a year once bonuses are added..
Garnacho could be a sacrificial lamb to bring in some much needed cash. Plus we can also loan with obligation to buy next summer.
I can also see why a 70m bid for mainoo would be too hard to turn down, if the club can bring in 3 new players with the cash.
he has been linked for 3 years now and its the same photo every single time hes brought up
Ouch. It's darn expensive for 90 minutes of entertainment, which, if you have bad luck, could be really dull.
Any pound SJR / INEOS puts into the club is called a capital contribution and dilutes all shareholders, including the Glazers. If the board voted yes, he could put 1b in and depending on valuation would increase his stake substantially.
Did anyone actually pay for the recent Swiss Ramble article on Substack where he estimates the available funds for January transfers of every PL club? The first article was free (wow, Chelsea, just wow.) but of course the second article including United and City were only for paid subscribers. Would be great to get an update
I wouldn’t be surprised if as speculated by others in this forum previously, that there is some exaggeration of our financial woes to offset the Woodward/Arnold days where we threw money around like confetti, and Woodward’s public flexing of our financial position with ‘We can do things most can only dream about’ line or whatever that ridiculous soundbite was.
And stuff like cutting back on costs and briefing or leaking it to the press helps create that facade to selling clubs that we’re flat broke and the gravy train has come to a halt.
And stuff like cutting back on costs and briefing or leaking it to the press helps create that facade to selling clubs that we’re flat broke and the gravy train has come to a halt.
i think this is whats happening, i can understand to a point as the whole Disneyland type comments from Woody were not helpful in negotiations with clubs or player agents and we got rinsed regularly. I see David Ornstein is out today saying more or less the same and that there is still plenty of dosh.
Basically in my opinion if its a poor act to get better deals then thats fair enough. But if its a poor act to avoid spending any money at all that thats not good from INEOS. Time will tell i guess.
To give an example...if we got rid of Rashford and Casemiro This month we could probably sign close to 5 players on £150k pw and be net zero difference in total wages.
Any transfer fees can be deferred to future years. Its the wage bill thats the issue. Its too big. So we need to shift players.
Any transfer fees can be deferred to future years. Its the wage bill thats the issue. Its too big. So we need to shift players.
We need to shift the right players but Rashford and Casemiro would be a good start. I think we'll have to give Anthony away as a prize in a lucky dip.
Two for one deal - buy any of Rashford or Caemerio and get Anthony free.
Would agree IF a tier 1 source like Ornstein wasn't saying there is an issue with PSR meaning we can't pay Kolo-Muani what we want
Not very sure about this. Antony could be useful in Amorim's style of play. Everytime he plays as RWB he seems to do fine and clicked very well with Amad. At least, he run a lot to cover ground and quite good a ball retention and passing which is very important in Amorim's style.
Good enough to pass PSR, however bad enough to not be able to buy without selling first
I’m not going to pretend I understand how the financial regulations work but I think it’s worth pointing out that we will be getting a transfer fee for Sancho, likely losing Rashford and Casemiro and lindelof and Evans will be gone. That’s 5 players 3 of which are on huge wages will be gone.
Eriksen too. Antony, perhaps we'll have to settle for a loan.
And yet we struggle to offload players and therefore cannot buy either
Due to financial situation it's definitely starting to look like we can't do any business without movement on Rashford, Casemiro or Antony
Amorim doesn’t think he’s useful and that is all that matters, he never gets picked and is only here because we can’t get rid of him I assume.
Getting rid of likes of Antony or Casemiro earlier than their contracts expire won’t be easy, it’s very unlikely but moving them out without a loss would make a huge difference.
The key to our overall financial position is.... "are the Glazers ready to sell their controlling stake in the club?"
If not then it is assumed they think they can go on making a profit or 'developing the asset' as they would see it.
Why? Because the 'Super League' is coming, its not too far off and meantime Sir Jim has to keep us within the PL rules and lick us into better financial shape.
The PL was never set up to bring 'Fair Play' it was set up to make money for those clubs involved, albeit within the legal constraints of trading. It is now being strangled by its own rules, which are no longer fit for purpose in today's WW football circus. As City have shown the simple fact is the PL Fair Play rules are unenforceable against certain types of owners. At the moment the Glazers are hanging on in there and tending their 'cash cow', they presumably must consider they can still 'make a buck' out of the club, when they do decide to sell up, that's the time to worry about our financial situation.
If not then it is assumed they think they can go on making a profit or 'developing the asset' as they would see it.
Why? Because the 'Super League' is coming, its not too far off and meantime Sir Jim has to keep us within the PL rules and lick us into better financial shape.
The PL was never set up to bring 'Fair Play' it was set up to make money for those clubs involved, albeit within the legal constraints of trading. It is now being strangled by its own rules, which are no longer fit for purpose in today's WW football circus. As City have shown the simple fact is the PL Fair Play rules are unenforceable against certain types of owners. At the moment the Glazers are hanging on in there and tending their 'cash cow', they presumably must consider they can still 'make a buck' out of the club, when they do decide to sell up, that's the time to worry about our financial situation.
A useful read, thanks.
How is the interest on the debt treated in the PSR calc, is that added back or does it increase the loss for the purpose of the PSR calc?
What an excellent post!
You don't cut the amount you give to charity or sack 200+ workers because you want to send a message that you are broke. Forget PSR for a minute, our losses over the past three full year periods alone are over 350m. We have another 300m+ in transfer debt due over the next 24 months. This isn't a false flag. The finances are in a poor state.
What's the title of these? I'm on a 7 day trial at the moment and have been searching but can't really find this. The articles that are 'Which clubs are restricted by PSR' essentially he just gives an estimate of how much he think's they need in pre-tax profit or can afford to make in losses for the 24/25 season to comply with the next PSR cycle which isn't really indicative of potential January transfer funds.
Yes. I did the 7 day trial too, and unfortunately, he never gave an estimate for spending. He did, however, say that the 20-21 loss of 150m is off the books. With a similar spending on infrastructure, player development etc, he thinks we could lose up to 120m for the financial year and still be compliant.
Also, we booked 68m in player sales with only 38m in amortized player acquisitions. Without selling, we could potentially spend 150m by June 30. We all know that Rashford and others will be sold in the summer. In addition, redundancies and cost cutting measures are estimated at 45m for the year, minus a one time charge of 10m, plus Ten Hag’s payout of 12m (?).
I think there are two possibilities in the January window. Either:
1. ‘Under promise, over deliver”: we are looking for long term additions to the squad, but INEOS doesn’t want to tip their hand. They clearly have money to spend, and not an insignificant amount either. Vlahovic, Osihmen and Muani would all be available for 60m or less — on a 5 year contract, that’s just 12m in amortized cost per year, along with wages of say, 3-5m over 6 months. A left wingback is sorely needed, splashing 60m on Kerkez or even activate it our buyback clause on Alvaro for 20m — 4 fecking million per year in amortized placer cost— won’t put us in danger of running afoul of PSR. We’re in even better shape with FFP, so…
2. INEOS is trying to save every fecking nickel to fund the new stadium or reduce debt or both. They are planning a down year based on our league position and reduced revenue because we won’t make the CL or Europa next season.
I dunno. With the drop in transfer fees which have been well documented, I don’t see how we shouldn’t get a couple of strategic buys over the line this month. It’s like INEOS is trying to thread the needle here and by doing so, run the risk of having closed off the talent pipeline and maybe trend towards the lower parts of the table which will in turn hurt recruitment.
It's so sad. They are charging the average person to ensure that these players get paid millions a year. Everything from tickets to merch is just becoming too much. Personally I think football needs a big cap on players wages to protect local loyal fans, especially during a cost of living crisis which won't end for years. I've had to stop buying united tops.
That is wishfull thinking. The clubs will plunder the fans for as much as they can regardless. The only difference a cap would make is most of the money would go to the owners as profit instead of the players as wages.
I saw a stat that the premier league gives 61% of its revenue to players. Much higher than the leagues in North America. PSR or FFP is owner driven to keep costs down. It isn't to encourage fair play.
Not necessarily. There are multiple ways for shareholders to inject cash into a business. His contribution could be a loan which would equate to more debt for the club.
I’m pretty happy with INEOS in regards to the football side of things. Eg how and who they replaced ETH with, the summer window was very good imo. Zirkzee probably hasn’t worked out but really who knows if he stays a second season.
But Jim can’t moan about the debt, or the clubs financial state. The glazers putting the club up for sale was the one chance to put things right. JR knew the situation and bares some of the responsibility now
What's interesting about the ticket price debate is that it seems very short sighted. Yeah. They'd get a bit of money but it will have an impact next season on fan morale and then ultimately, attendances for midweek matches next season.
Where the club could increase revenue very quickly is improving the food and drinking offering. Where I sit/stand in East Stand, the beer options are Carling or Doom Bar and there's a very poor choice of food.
If you improved the catering options inside the ground and maybe put in some proper street food type places outside (that are controlled by the club) you'd increase individual match spend very quickly and not piss everyone off.
Maybe if there was a cap on ticket prices, clubs would be forced to be more careful with what they spend on players as they wouldn't have that as an avenue to claw back a few million.
Where the club could increase revenue very quickly is improving the food and drinking offering. Where I sit/stand in East Stand, the beer options are Carling or Doom Bar and there's a very poor choice of food.
If you improved the catering options inside the ground and maybe put in some proper street food type places outside (that are controlled by the club) you'd increase individual match spend very quickly and not piss everyone off.
Clubs should be more careful with what they spend. Between 2021 and 2022, we spent over 300 million on Varane, Sancho, Casemiro and Antony. All players that have either left or are expected to leave within the next 6 months. Fans being forced to essentially pay that bill is so fecking wrong.
Maybe if there was a cap on ticket prices, clubs would be forced to be more careful with what they spend on players as they wouldn't have that as an avenue to claw back a few million.
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I think it's point two.
There's no point signing anyone in January because the league is effectively a write off. We aren't making up a 14+ points gap on any of the current top five so the only chance of European football we have is winning the Europa or FA cup.
I'd actually be pissed because to us outsiders it never made much financial sense to buy the club unless he was okay with the risk of losing a lot of his wealth. To validate the sentiment months after buying would be sick. Without bailing them out the Glazers were running out of options and would have had to sell. You're here, now show you had a plan all along and dig us out of this hole.