Rangers have to keep an eye on their spending or face financial woe again

[der Berliner 3,247]

I don't speak Yoda, is that 2 questions?

 

Nah, more like standard English. But I take that you got the idea anyway.

[forlanssister 3,050]

Yeah, I was just making it up with what sounded like reasonable amounts which didn't seem out of place when you consider our previous 40+m turnover without European money.

 

I forgot about VAT which reduces ticket income by a sixth but isn't it still part of the income figure before tax? I don't see how the catering and hospitality income would be reduced to nothing when we were being ripped off before by SDM and still made over a million a year. Are people eating a lot less?

 

Azure put up the money to refurbish the catering outlets as they didn't meet the latest Health & Safety criteria in return for this their contract was extended, Whyte then borrowed from Close Leasing using the income from catering as security, until the Close Leasing deal expires then the actual cash the club makes out of the catering contract is peanuts.

 

As for the other stuff, I don't have much of a clue but if we were making 40+m with only something 60% more income from tickets, then we were making over 20m from non-ticket income. I'd be surprised if that's dropped below 40%.

 

We used to make about 5m a year from merchandise and even make that with JJB if you include the up front payment so even if we didn't make that last year, the topic is about ongoing financing and I did say we were suffering from a hangover of the change of ownership for last year and probably this year.

 

Until I'm disabused of my naivety with real figures, I'll struggle to believe a club like ours has a turnover of less than 20m.

 

We may not be making a profit but I can't see how we shouldn't be able to afford a proportional wage bill that is much higher than any SPL club bar Celtic. Usually you also get economy of scale, not a premium. You'd think that with four times the fans through the gate we'd have more than four times the available cash - minus the TV and sponsorship money for the SPL clubs.

 

The JJB deal by accident rather than design turned out to be an outstanding deal in terms of net cash to the club in fact we'll struggle to match it from the Sports Direct joint venture.

 

Whilst our turnover has plummeted (like yourself I doubt it will be below £20m) our costs with the exception of player wages hasn't followed suit.

 

Season and match tickets are a lot lower price than they were in the SPL and I'm not convinced it was the wisest decision from a business standpoint not to increase them this season.

[der Berliner 3,247]

Found a IMHO reasonable posting by fishpakora over on FF:

 

Gate money including season tickets and public sales will bring in £10-12 million, he makes no mention of sponsorship, merchandising, catering or Rangers TV and the IPO prospectus indicated that these income streams would outstrip the gate money. If I'm cautious and say that will be another £8 million then you are looking at income of around £18 to £20 million.

 

The wage bill is still around £7 million or 1/3 of revenues (very low by Scottish standards), and it used to cost (auited accounts) around £12-£14 million to run Ibrox and Murray Park.

 

I doubt we will be making £5 million profit, which I seem to recall as the projection for next year, but provided our OPEX for Ibrox and Murray Park is reduced (something Grant himself suggests has already happened) and we bring in a reasonable amount from non-ticket sale revenues, we should be breaking even or marginally profitable.

 

Of course, pending publication of a set of audited accounts it is all speculation, but I think my speculation might be a little more reasoned than Grants. At least I recognise that ticket sales is only one of our revenue streams.

[calscot 0]

I was watching a bit of the Gadget show and they mentioned Derby County had a season ticket price of under £300 so thought I'd look them up to compare them (figures are probably a couple of years old).

 

They reputedly have a 9-10m wage bill which is 60% of turnover - putting the latter at about 15m.

 

They have a 33k all seater stadium and average 23k fans at about £12 a ticket.

 

They made a 7.7m loss and are 25.5m in debt.

 

Leeds who I need to look at next as they have a bit in common with us, made a profit a couple of years ago of about 1m with a 17m wage bill.

 

Their turnover was 32.5m so wage was at 35%.

 

 

Acturally here's some facts from the supporters trust this year:

 

[h=4]- Group turnover decreased by 4% from £32.6m to £31.1m

- Gate receipts decreased by 10.6% from £12.7m to £11.3m

- Wages to turnover ratio increased from 51% to 57%

- Overall admin costs increased from £8.6m to £9.8m

- “Unknown” admin costs increased from £4.5m to £5.2m

- Shaun Harvey was paid £259k including pension payments and benefits

- Since administration, the club has spent £17.7m in cash on building works

- Yorkshire Radio, LU Pavilion, LU Media and Leeds City Holdings lost a combined £781k in 2011/12

- The combined losses of these companies now total £4.94m

- Yorkshire Radio and the Pavilion owe LUFC £3.7m; LUFC owes LCH and LU Media £600k

- Profits from player sales - £2.5m - were required to keep the club afloat

- Preference shares issued to Lutonville Holdings - apparently controlled by Ken Bates - incurred admin costs of £107k

- £4m was payable to Lutonville upon “change of control,” which occurred a year to the day after the £3.2m share issue

- Future income from two years of season tickets and five years of catering profits has been mortgaged

- Net debt increased by 297% - £3.89m - in 2011/12

- The new owners look set to inherit £19.4m worth of debt.

[/h]

[der Berliner 3,247]

On a related sidenote, all SPL clubs in Scotland run at a loss. It was in German newspaper analysing a few facts and figures of the Scottish game a few years back that noted that Scum FC - running with as big a squad as they did/do - made a profit of 11m in 2010, which dwindled to 180k in 2011 (despite 7 OF games, methinks). I don't have the 2012 figures and their 2013's will be muddied by CL income and some strange EPL transfer dealings (Wanyama) anyway. Still, if you take CL money et al away and given their dire attendance turnouts, this financial year will look all but good. You do wonder whether reporters will pick up on that or the 30+ first team squad the Yahoos dragged along since at least 2010.

[Super Cooper 0]

On a related sidenote, all SPL clubs in Scotland run at a loss. It was in German newspaper analysing a few facts and figures of the Scottish game a few years back that noted that Scum FC - running with as big a squad as they did/do - made a profit of 11m in 2010, which dwindled to 180k in 2011 (despite 7 OF games, methinks). I don't have the 2012 figures and their 2013's will be muddied by CL income and some strange EPL transfer dealings (Wanyama) anyway. Still, if you take CL money et al away and given their dire attendance turnouts, this financial year will look all but good. You do wonder whether reporters will pick up on that or the 30+ first team squad the Yahoos dragged along since at least 2010.

 

The same reporters who claim Celtic have no debt?

[foggy dewhurst 0]

spend to much you end up skint spend money you dont have your asking for trouble