Agreed. They could have put a brief apology/ explanation in the renewal email and thanked supporters for their commitment to the cause. That would’ve made the pill easier to swallow. I do think they’ve brought the spotlight on themselves more than it would have been with the tone of the email.
The club have spent 2 seasons outside the top two tiers and were promoted automatically both times.
That's because they can't afford it
And how is that going Mart?
That is only going to happen as a premier league club
The mark up on football tops is nothing like that and I don't see anyone from Bristol deciding to support boro instead of city. It's unrealistic to see that as a profitable revenue stream, unless we get an attacking team in the prem
That's a serious over simplification. Of course he has made mistakes Garry Monks transfer policy being a massive one. But anyone in a strategic position will make mistakes
No it doesn't. He cannot put more money into the club than he does due to FFP. It's as simple as that. It saves him nothing.
the PR has been poor, and that has been a recurring theme over the years, that is fair.
The club made a fubar when they signed Britt et al. I said at the time Britt wasn't a good signing, most on here loved the ambition. Now they're all complaining that it didn't work. The fans desire for ambition is as much to blame as Gibsons poor decisions.
He spendds 12m+ per year on keeping the club afloat and has just written off 107m in debts to him. It's very true
Based on the example of a parent and two teenagers at £70-£80, where would you suggest the price should be in order for it to never be an economical choice for anyone at all?
Every fan from every club has ambition, our ambition as fans can not blamed at all.
ambition needs grounding in the reality that it has to be well funded to come to fruition.
No. That's down to decades of failure to grow the club. We were part of the PL when it was really taking off. We had superstars and we were playing in Europe. We did nothing at the time to expand the fanbase. Other clubs did. He can't do it now because he is too late and all those fans have already picked a club and it's not us which is why we are falling behind and can't catch up.
It definitely is. I can get a full kit delivered from China for £10 and they are making a profit. Look at any of the merch compared to the Errea blanks and the mark-up is massive just because there is a Boro badge stuck on. The cost is the same. It's pure mark-up. In any case the numbers are irrelevant, it was an example how margin on its own isn't the full equation and volume x margin seems to be something Gibson and co are totally unaware of.
No, it really isn't. It's simple but it is true. Forget the football side of things. He's said ticket prices are going up to cover minimum wage rises. The football side and the retail/matchday side of things are separate. We can't cover the costs for running a football club because of mismanagement of the processes of running a retail/marketing/ticketing operation. I'm not even talking about the mismanagement of the footballing side of things.
Of course it saves him. He had to convert £107m debt recently. If the fans had paid the amount they should for a bog standard championship club instead of the amount we are charged then he'd have had to convert more than £107m of debt. For example, if it's £1m a season for 10 years that would have been £117m of debt so he's saved £10m. He's not taking money out but it means he has to put less money in.
the cost from a chinese factory isn't what the club will pay to get it from errea, nike, adidas etc. Unless you think we go back to the days of doing our own design and branding and then ship them in cheap direct from factory. That will take a lot of internal skills the club doesn't have such as designers, specialist marketing etc. the markup from any errea, nike, adidas top is small and unless you go with an established brand you will not sell in Sports Direct or anywhere else.
He will still put 1m/month into the club, it saves him nothing.
My point isn’t that there are other revenue streams available to the club to cover the costs of operating but rather there is a way of communicating and negating the reasons for needing to look at methods of increasing revenue that isn’t a badly announced increase in prices. If it were me, I would have sent out a survey in November/December explaining the increase in costs to the club, asking for feedback on the matchday experience, how people feel their personal finances will be impacted and get fan opinions on how the cost rise should be recovered.
The specific numbers are irrelevant. We make massive mark-ups on kits. All clubs do. They cost pennies to make.
people are accusing Gibson of fleecing the fans and saving himself money, that to me is just wrong and 2 months after he wrote of 107m owed to him it's pretty sad that people resort to that.
There's a supply chain. Yes they're fairly cheap to make, although less cheap through the cost of raw materials and delivery of raw materials and energy going through the roof. The manufacturers make the biggest cut, import and export duties hit, shipping costs are increasing massively, haulage costs are up, distribution is up. Our shirts are actually pretty cheap compared to prem clubs but the clubs do not make 40 quid a pop on a shirt or anywhere near that.
