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As a Newcastle fan, what do we currently have to look forward to?


trophyshy
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In reality probably the same as most of my years following us.

 

We'll have quite a few new signings so I will be looking forward to seeing them play.

 

As much as I would prefer a better manager than Pardew, he has already achieved a top 5 finish and took us on a good run up til Cabaye was sold.

 

Then there's the striker situation. For the first time in a very long time we will be starting the season with brand new strikers. That in itself will be interesting and I would love to see us bring in a commanding power house of a centre forward.

 

So your hope is built on the hope that the players you hope we will sign will hopefully be good?Tenuous to say the least.

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We will sign strikers.

 

If it's young exciting strikers like Cabella we'll have something to look forward to and will have shown that the club is willing to spend what it can afford.

 

If it's ageing freeby strikers like Gomis it'll be nowt more than a stop gap and show that ambition remains non-existent and profit is king.

 

If it's the likes of Bent it shows we have no clue whatsoever and are completely winging it.

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We will sign strikers.

 

If it's young exciting strikers like Cabella we'll have something to look forward to and will have shown that the club is willing to spend what it can afford.

 

If it's ageing freeby strikers like Gomis it'll be nowt more than a stop gap and show that ambition remains non-existent and profit is king.

 

If it's the likes of Bent it shows we have no clue whatsoever and are completely winging it.

I think both of the last two scenarios are very possible. I suspect the first option is wishfull thinking.

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You got any figures for that?

 

 

To give Ashley as much benefit of the doubt as possible, we can accept that interest could be charged, that the club save somewhere between £4.5m and £8m given that it is not. It is also true that the amount is in excess of the income Newcastle could reasonably expect to receive by selling the space to any other company at the moment. Had Newcastle kept up with Spurs and Liverpool these past few years, perhaps we could have attracted larger sums, but what makes Newcastle the host to Sport’s Direct’s parasite is that the club’s association with them, the stadium renaming, relegation, the toxic relationship between owner and fans is what has cheapened the brand to the degree that we now compete financially with Stoke and Southampton rather than Liverpool and Spurs.

 

The true commercial cost to Newcastle of associating with Sports Direct is seen in the drop in commercial revenue of the club which still shows little possibility of recovering to pre-existing levels any time soon. £10m every year less than prior to relegation. However the board try to spin the interest free loan, the difference in commercial income received would have covered that interest easily with millions left over spare. It’s this fact that means, even if the interest were the £8m the club claim, we would have had better earnings had we continued to pay that interest and maintained our commercial standing and brand attractiveness in the game. Man U pay £70m a year in interest because they can afford to as a commercial behemoth.

 

It can also be seen that every other club in the league (relegated no more than once, like NUFC) over Ashley’s time has not just maintained commercial income but grown it. So the recession or factors other clubs deal with cannot be blamed.

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I'm not sure that you can blame the lack of growth of commercial revenue on our association with Sports Direct, I think it's much more likely to be related to mismanagement by the club and a lack of interest due to the fact that the club has shown very little ambition on the field. Sponsors want to be associated with success, something we can't offer.

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I'm not sure that you can blame the lack of growth of commercial revenue on our association with Sports Direct, I think it's much more likely to be related to mismanagement by the club and a lack of interest due to the fact that the club has shown very little ambition on the field. Sponsors want to be associated with success, something we can't offer.

 

I see Ashley and Spors Direct as one and the same. We were basically bought by Sports Direct as an advert.

 

It's the reason John Hall said we were bought and it's stated throughout the Sports Direct Annual Reports the importance of exposure outside the UK.

 

They've not actually spent anything more on exposure though.

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As I've said previously, the club was not purchased as an advertising vehicle for SD, it's simply a by-product of Ashley's ownership. If brand exposure was their primary aim then they could gotten better value for money elsewhere.

Edited by ewerk
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A lot of commercial income comes from the stadium (or did), we know about the catering (far too much made of it) but there is also the corporate boxes which made a massive contribution.

 

The recession did do for that segment of the income stream. You cant analyse 'commercial' as a single catergory. Also if a club makes 3m commercial in 2006 and 6m commercial in 2014, its a very different set of economic circumstances that takes this club's commercial revenue from 33m+ to 12m or whatever it is.

 

Loads of that is also fan disaffection as its the fans that spend money on the club. I've no doubt there is also something snide going on with the sales of shirts etc.

 

Many factors count but the reason why e.g. Sanofi no longer have a corporate box like they did in 2005 (for many years) was the spending cut backs implemented in 2008/9.

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As I've said previously, the club was not purchased as an advertising vehicle for SD, it's simply a by-product of Ashley's ownership. If brand exposure was their primary aim then they could gotten better value for money elsewhere.

 

What reasons did you have for not believing Ashley/Sports Direct see the club as opportunity for brand exposure with a return on their investment?

 

Hall said..

 

They wanted to market their sports goods in the Far East and would use the club to help do this.

 

Sports Direct Stated aims...

 

Developing brand awareness is a key factor in ensuring a sustainable future and the appropriate level of investment in advertising and technology is an important component towards achieving this

Our position as the consumer champion is now reaching more countries as we continue to expand internationally.

The board’s aim to expand further into Europe has been a key strategic driver for a number of years which has proved extremely successful.

International Retail revenue grew 20%.

Our (website’s) monthly unique visitors have risen 50% on FY12. Online revenue continues to be an area of significant growth and the Group continue to look at opportunities to develop this revenue stream further.

 

What have Sports Direct spent on those aims?

 

Sports Direct says it is on course to hit its full-year profit target without increased investment in marketing, margin and inventory.

The retailer says that while it could increase investment in marketing to boost growth, it will hit its full-year profit target without doing so. It’s gross profit for the 13 weeks increased 14.6 per cent.

While Sports Direct does invest in price, it spends relatively little on advertising.

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I'm not sure that you can blame the lack of growth of commercial revenue on our association with Sports Direct, I think it's much more likely to be related to mismanagement by the club and a lack of interest due to the fact that the club has shown very little ambition on the field. Sponsors want to be associated with success, something we can't offer.

 

Sponsorship of what has reduced though? The stadium didnt have a sponsor in 2007.

 

We now give away stadium branding but thats small fry compared to the 15m loss in commercial income. The stadium was never sponsored and the shirt sponsor now pays more, doesn't it?

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What reasons did you have for not believing Ashley/Sports Direct see the club as opportunity for brand exposure with a return on their investment?

 

Hall said..

 

They wanted to market their sports goods in the Far East and would use the club to help do this.

 

Sports Direct Stated aims...

 

Developing brand awareness is a key factor in ensuring a sustainable future and the appropriate level of investment in advertising and technology is an important component towards achieving this

Our position as the consumer champion is now reaching more countries as we continue to expand internationally.

The board’s aim to expand further into Europe has been a key strategic driver for a number of years which has proved extremely successful.

International Retail revenue grew 20%.

Our (website’s) monthly unique visitors have risen 50% on FY12. Online revenue continues to be an area of significant growth and the Group continue to look at opportunities to develop this revenue stream further.

 

What have Sports Direct spent on those aims?

 

Sports Direct says it is on course to hit its full-year profit target without increased investment in marketing, margin and inventory.

The retailer says that while it could increase investment in marketing to boost growth, it will hit its full-year profit target without doing so. It’s gross profit for the 13 weeks increased 14.6 per cent.

While Sports Direct does invest in price, it spends relatively little on advertising.

 

I'm not arguing that they aren't using the club for advertising, watching any game it's obvious that they are. What I'm saying is that Mike Ashley didn't spend £134m of his own money with the sole aim of advertising his company. Not to mention that Ashley owned less than 60% of Sports Direct at the time and so would only have benefited from less than 60% of the return from the free advertising.

 

£134m in paid advertising would have given them a much larger ROI.

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Sponsorship of what has reduced though? The stadium didnt have a sponsor in 2007.

 

We now give away stadium branding but thats small fry compared to the 15m loss in commercial income. The stadium was never sponsored and the shirt sponsor now pays more, doesn't it?

 

Would the corporate boxes not come under matchday income rather than commercial?

 

And while our shirt sponsor does pay more now I don't think that the growth is in line with the growth seen by most other clubs over the last ten years (though I haven't researched that so could be wrong).

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I'm not arguing that they aren't using the club for advertising, watching any game it's obvious that they are. What I'm saying is that Mike Ashley didn't spend £134m of his own money with the sole aim of advertising his company. Not to mention that Ashley owned less than 60% of Sports Direct at the time and so would only have benefited from less than 60% of the return from the free advertising.

 

£134m in paid advertising would have given them a much larger ROI.

 

After seven years Mike Ashley/Sports Direct still has a nine figure asset though.

 

After 5 years Emirates walk away from Arsenal £150m poorer with nothing in their hand.

 

Ashley can't extend £100k to ensure a player signs, if he made any enquiries about stadium sopnsorship costs at any other 50K seat stadium in Europe before his purchase I'm sure he would have been put off by the prices he got back and would have been swayed to do it himself.

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Would the corporate boxes not come under matchday income rather than commercial?

 

And while our shirt sponsor does pay more now I don't think that the growth is in line with the growth seen by most other clubs over the last ten years (though I haven't researched that so could be wrong).

 

...and wouldn't a change from selling pies on matchday to selling the rights to sell pies all season move a profit from Matchday into commercial?

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Would the corporate boxes not come under matchday income rather than commercial?

 

And while our shirt sponsor does pay more now I don't think that the growth is in line with the growth seen by most other clubs over the last ten years (though I haven't researched that so could be wrong).

 

 

Not growing our shirt sponsorship doesnt explain the reduction from its peak at 33m to around 15m now. It was roughly 25-30m on average around that peak.

 

You might be right about the corporate boxes but revenue from them was amongst the best in the league in the early 00's.

 

We had a peak of 33m in commercial income less than a decade ago, i'd like to know where thats gone. Sponsorship, branding and all that are part of the story of woeful commercial performance but none of them explain the missing income.

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...and wouldn't a change from selling pies on matchday to selling the rights to sell pies all season move a profit from Matchday into commercial?

 

Catering was always classed under commercial.

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So your hope is built on the hope that the players you hope we will sign will hopefully be good?Tenuous to say the least.

I think what I'm saying is we are probably in a better position than most of the time I have been watching us.

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We had a peak of 33m in commercial income less than a decade ago, i'd like to know where thats gone. Sponsorship, branding and all that are part of the story of woeful commercial performance but none of them explain the missing income.

 

I'm trying to look through old reports to see if it has been highlighted anywhere but the as I understand it the club has outsourced two major sources of commercial revenue in catering and merchandise. Catering was worth £6.7m in 2006 and has since been outsourced. The club's merchandise sales are now all done through Sports Direct with the club receiving the profits as far as I'm aware. The loss of both these revenue streams are bound to account for a fairly sizable chunk of commercial turnover.

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