Middlesbrough Supporters Forum statement after meeting with Steve Gibson on season card price rise

[muniz]

There are big cost rises happening with some of the concourse drinks etc from manufacturers - will the club pass these on?

you would think most of them would have already gone up along with everything else over the last year, I dont think alot of them wouldn't just push things up along the way to them like they have done through the shops for regular people. Not sure if prices have gone up, but if they haven't then would think they may on the following season

OAPS represent - 2 849 of the concessions.
The remainder are younger concession groups - fans of the future.
This all totals at just over 19000 total - so am supposing we have about 100 corporate. They must be regarded as a separate income item.

if they are a separate item in the accounts they can only be included in this section

 

[festa5]

It's a problem with football in general. Not just Boro. To a point I understand where Gibson is coming from.

The crux of the matter is transfer fees and player wages are too high and unsustainable. But if you want to compete you have to pay it. It all has a knock on effect.

At the same time you could definitely argue that we weren't expecting and hadn't budgeted to sell Tav for £12m. If you took £1m from that windfall to cover increased costs and keep ticket prices the same, would that really make much difference to our competitiveness?

Also bit surprised to see "significant gains in commercial revenue". Can't be from the retail side of things, there was only one month this year where any kit was available!

 

[muniz]

It may be around 50% of the population is in that range, but I'd guess it's a bit higher than that, and I suppose the extremes of age are less likely attenders anyway.

I think it will be high due to people taking multiple kids with them, if a single adult goes and then brings 2 or more kids then that will make the percentage go in the concession favour, maybe a lot is to do with the family zone as you basically can add another child for next to nothing a year, and you basically already get one free compared to the price of a regular price adult ticket, and there will be people in other stands not taking advantage of that offer but bringing 2 or more kids with them as well, so if a high amount of adults bring 1 to 3 kids with them then that concession percentage is understandably high.

but you would think maybe in the future that this will benefit the non concession sales as a certain percentage will move onto adult tickets at some point and may be fans for life and bring their kids too

 

[fmttmadmin]

It's a problem with football in general. Not just Boro. To a point I understand where Gibson is coming from.

The crux of the matter is transfer fees and player wages are too high and unsustainable. But if you want to compete you have to pay it. It all has a knock on effect.

At the same time you could definitely argue that we weren't expecting and hadn't budgeted to sell Tav for £12m. If you took £1m from that windfall to cover increased costs and keep ticket prices the same, would that really make much difference to our competitiveness?

Also bit surprised to see "significant gains in commercial revenue". Can't be from the retail side of things, there was only one month this year where any kit was available!

It is across the board I believe. But yes must have been severely hampered by the lack of kits.

 

[muniz]

It's a problem with football in general. Not just Boro. To a point I understand where Gibson is coming from.

The crux of the matter is transfer fees and player wages are too high and unsustainable. But if you want to compete you have to pay it. It all has a knock on effect.

At the same time you could definitely argue that we weren't expecting and hadn't budgeted to sell Tav for £12m. If you took £1m from that windfall to cover increased costs and keep ticket prices the same, would that really make much difference to our competitiveness?

Also bit surprised to see "significant gains in commercial revenue". Can't be from the retail side of things, there was only one month this year where any kit was available!

how do you know they never budgeted to sell tav for that much, I don't think they were shocked when the offers came in at that level, they will of no doubt asked for more.

he was told under warnock he could leave at the end of the season if he still wanted to move on to the prem, warnock publicly declared it for him and fry, and tav took that promise up, so I think all season they may have thought it was something that was going to happen and under wilder was clear he was a valuable asset.

they already said that the operating costs vs revenue are still more than a million over so that may well have been the case anyways that they have done that, at the least he is having to cover that himself as there is no one else to cover it

 

[fmttmadmin]

I think it will be high due to people taking multiple kids with them, if a single adult goes and then brings 2 or more kids then that will make the percentage go in the concession favour, maybe a lot is to do with the family zone as you basically can add another child for next to nothing a year, and you basically already get one free compared to the price of a regular price adult ticket, and there will be people in other stands not taking advantage of that offer but bringing 2 or more kids with them as well, so if a high amount of adults bring 1 to 3 kids with them then that concession percentage is understandably high.

but you would think maybe in the future that this will benefit the non concession sales as a certain percentage will move onto adult tickets at some point and may be fans for life and bring their kids too

Biggest increments of concessions are in Under 18 - 3446 fans. But as we say future fan base of the club.
18-21 is 1016 fans.

 

[muniz]

It is across the board I believe. But yes must have been severely hampered by the lack of kits.

and kits would be in merchandising I think not commercial on the account numbers

 

[muniz]

Biggest increments of concessions are in Under 18 - 3446 fans. But as we say future fan base of the club.
18-21 is 1016 fans.

yeah and thats a nice number to have at the top end who are just coming in to a position in up coming years to move from parents funded tickets to either dropping off or going balls deep themselves, and the younger 18+ are far more likely to have disposable income to over spend on merch and stuff in and around the ground

 

[fmttmadmin]

yeah and thats a nice number to have at the top end who are just coming in to a position in up coming years to move from parents funded tickets to either dropping off or going balls deep themselves, and the younger 18+ are far more likely to have disposable income to over spend on merch and stuff in and around the ground

It is one of the reasons the club say they are loathe to go contactless only - you could be excluding a lot of younger kids from being able to spend who have not got bank cards. Also there will be members of the 2849 OAPs also sticking to money.

 

[fmttmadmin]

and kits would be in merchandising I think not commercial on the account numbers

Ah OK. That is very significant.
Commercial should include hire of the stadium for conferences to The Killers etc.

 

[festa5]

how do you know they never budgeted to sell tav for that much, I don't think they were shocked when the offers came in at that level, they will of no doubt asked for more.

he was told under warnock he could leave at the end of the season if he still wanted to move on to the prem, warnock publicly declared it for him and fry, and tav took that promise up, so I think all season they may have thought it was something that was going to happen and under wilder was clear he was a valuable asset.

they already said that the operating costs vs revenue are still more than a million over so that may well have been the case anyways that they have done that, at the least he is having to cover that himself as there is no one else to cover it

Wilder said at a fans meeting about a week before a bid was accepted that he didn't expect Tav to leave.

Then when we did sell him the club made it very clear it was the players choice.

And I'm sure there was a statement around how we didn't need to sell anyone.

I've not pulled this out of my ****, I'm basing it on messages coming out of the club that made it clear we didn't need to, or want to sell Tav. Therefore we presumably didn't "need" the £12m.

 

[muniz]

Wilder said at a fans meeting about a week before a bid was accepted that he didn't expect Tav to leave.

Then when we did sell him the club made it very clear it was the players choice.

And I'm sure there was a statement around how we didn't need to sell anyone.

I've not pulled this out of my ****, I'm basing it on messages coming out of the club that made it clear we didn't need to, or want to sell Tav. Therefore we presumably didn't "need" the £12m.

sure he said it in his press conferences as well, I honestly would not trust anything wilder said in any of his press conferences or in them meetings epically at that stage, he was playing the fans against the board to try and make them in his favour to get extra money to spend.

we didnt need the money the lad really wanted to leave and goto the premier league and we had already made that deal with him he could. I honestly think he didn't reveal his cards in terms of requesting to leave until he was told the offer was on the table. As you wouldn't make that known if you knew there wasn't an offer on the table as had the potential to ruin your stay here if no one is coming in for you. soon as they come in for him he told us he wanted out. thats why wilder thought we were not letting him go, and financially we didn't need to let him go to balance the books, but the lad did not want to stay and hasn't looked back.

when you saying we hadn't expected and budgeted to sell him for 12m that don't mean we wouldnt of valued him as such etc was more my point, and of course we need the money, look at the accounts we lost nearly 20m last season in the accounts. wasn't thinking you were making things up lol

that money is always going back in the pots to cover wages and transfers and loans. and no doubt with the club running at a 1m loss on the operating costs that like I said no doubt some of that money will of already gone towards that for this season, and this loss is for next season also, so needs addressing as that money won't last forever and plenty looks like its been put back into the team with singings and loans when you take into account there is more to pay than just transfer fees we hear about.

that money for tav will no doubt be paid over 3-5 years to our club, so not like we get it all at once and have 12m in the bank unless we turn to a finance company and give away a million or two to draw down on it all. easy to see a 12m sale that we were hoping to avoid as massive amounts of money on your bank balance but its dripped in the bank, along with all the transfer fee's we owe out for all the previous years too.

 

[Kowalski]

It's a problem with football in general. Not just Boro. To a point I understand where Gibson is coming from.

The crux of the matter is transfer fees and player wages are too high and unsustainable. But if you want to compete you have to pay it. It all has a knock on effect.

At the same time you could definitely argue that we weren't expecting and hadn't budgeted to sell Tav for £12m. If you took £1m from that windfall to cover increased costs and keep ticket prices the same, would that really make much difference to our competitiveness?

Also bit surprised to see "significant gains in commercial revenue". Can't be from the retail side of things, there was only one month this year where any kit was available!

Regarding the "significant gains in commercial revenue", it is difficult to compare year on year as the year ending June 2021 will have been hampered by the pandemic.

 

[Kowalski]

I do wonder sometimes if we could’ve paid for a considerable chunk of the above if we hadn’t wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds - possibly more, even - on players like Luongo, Archer, Ameobi, Connolly, players who contributed little or nothing to the cause while taking Christ knows how much money out of the club. You can take it back longer if you want to as well.

You could also look at the amount of money the club has brought in from the sale of players at a profit, most recently Spence and Tavernier. You could go back further too, Gibson and Traore spring to mind.

 

[muniz]

Regarding the "significant gains in commercial revenue", it is difficult to compare year on year as the year ending June 2021 will have been hampered by the pandemic.

can look at the season before though and compare to see what the gain looks like.

 

[muniz]

there you go, so its up 2m then based on the 2020 numbers in the year before accounts, its all turnover tho and these numbers don't show the costs of the turn over

 

[muniz]

You could also look at the amount of money the club has brought in from the sale of players at a profit, most recently Spence and Tavernier. You could go back further too, Gibson and Traore spring to mind.

you also have to take into account how much they have spent on players, accedemy, including settling and awarding new contracts, paying wages and transfer fees out as well as how long its taken for the buying clubs to pay them fees, and when we have had to pay fees out for purchases past and present. a profit on a transfer fee does not always mean we are fully recovering all our wages and transfer money spent, as its easy to just look and go we paid 10m for this player and sold for 15m so we 5m up,
but we may have paid that player 3m during his time at the club and had to pay them 1m to pay the contract off, then have pay vat on transfers as well at 20% also. which would result in a loss over all.

then factor in players we buy that contracts expire without sale, must of spent circa 20m on brit alone with no recovery for example.

 

[Frozen Horse]

I should probably know the answer to this, and I suspect the answer is yes, but are transfer fees subject to tax?

If we spend £15 million on player, we spend £15 million, but if we sell a player for £15 million, I assume a chunk of that goes in tax?

 

[r00fie1]

Perhaps, instead of drawing our own conclusions based on the back of a fag packet - it might be useful to look at the economics of renewable energy [as an example] to cover the huge costs of energy - around the concourses, kitchens, floodlights, health and safety, etc? There may also be a case for retro-fitting different areas of the stadium. Thinking laterally is really important, because the current route is unsustainable. The club would need external support as it is the biggest single venue in the area with crowds bigger than any other community resource.
Mmm.

 

[viv_andersons_nana]

I picked those particular players because they contributed either very little or absolutely nothing to the cause. Ameobi was on the books for a full year without playing a single minute, Archer played a handful of games at the end of a season in which we toiled to finish in the middle of the league, Luongo never kicked a ball, Connolly will have cost a loan fee and presumably a portion of his weekly wage and scored two(?)goals. Mendez-Laing is another. Cranie. Van La Parra.

These ‘free’ transfers and loans aren’t really free because of the wage packages they’ll be on. When managers try and plug gaps like this it really gets on my t*ts because this is what the academy is supposed to be for. Loan players should not be coming to sit on the bench. How much is Muniz draining out of the club while not playing any football? Jobbing seniors pitch up and collect 6-12 months of money for not very much. This is what the club needs to eradicate.

I appreciate a new structure will hopefully bring less wastage in the transfer market and that clubs will can’t and will never get everything right, but sometimes it does grate when tickets go up AGAIN and we’ve just shat thousands and thousands of pounds down a drain called Massimo Luongo or Sammy Ameobi.

I imagine these latest price rises will barely scratch the surface of the amount wasted on the wages of players who delivered the square root of nowt.