FL revenues

[lo36789]

Andy Holt from Accrington Stanley had been tweeting this morning about the financial ins and outs of a FL club makes for interesting reading.

https://twitter.com/andyhholt/status/898435911024693249

In order of revenue streams this is what he lists;

.@ASFCofficial income streams Receipts in order
1. Solidarity and @EFL
2. Players
3. Gates
4. Cup runs
5. Sponsors
6. Hospitality
7. Pies

My first take from this is almost what a promised land the EFL is most of your money comes from the league itself.

Also called out that Stanley had total revenues of about £2.2m. Season tickets are less than £100,000 of that. And total revenues from gates is less than 20% of costs to run the club.

If your 3rd highest income stream brings in <20% of your cost of sales it is an indicator of how small number 7 will be..but also of how big the top ones are worth. In fact he even says that EFL solidarity and EFL money is 50% of income.

He also says that pie and pint for a fiver barely makes any profit for them.

[theoriginalfatcat]

Number 2 on this list of revenue streams states players!

I don't understand, do they pay to play?

[banktopp]

Number 2 on this list of revenue streams states players!

I don't understand, do they pay to play?

If they are any good they are sold on for profit.

[divas]

It's just over £1m for TV and solidarity payments in L2 which is why it's seen as the promised land. However when all clubs get £1m it's still takes additional revenue to be competetive. All it means is the players get paid more

In comparison I think the national league clubs get about £50K so you can see why many overspend to try and make the step up.

[Quakerz]

As for the EFL money, you can see how clubs can be full time in L2 even with gates of 1-2,000.

I mean Accrington Stanley FFS - turnover of £2.2 million?! Next to fuck all of that has came through the gates.

Wasn't our turnover something like 375k the season we won the Evostik Premier, the vast proportion being gate income?



The flipside is this shows what a basket case league the conference National is - it's like a souped up exaggerated version of the Northern League, on steroids.

Teams spending stupid amounts, to be full time for example, way beyond their natural means. That extra finance only comes from rich backers in the absence of EFL money.

You need someone to put in minimum 500k a year just to compete at a basic full time level. We aren't going to find that without massively risking our future (again). The substantial extra finance that FL league clubs get and parachute payments that clubs relegated from L2 get, make an obvious and huge difference.

We need to remain part time and hope that if we get there, the manager can pull off a miracle and get us in the top 5 one year. Then hope we get lucky in the play offs. We'll never get into the league otherwise.

[Quakerz]

Just to add to that, actually winning promotion to the National League I think is about the realistic upper limit of how far we can go.

The league is a million miles away, we're no longer a rightful league club, times have changed.

[Nigel Batches Beard]

The flipside is this shows what a basket case league the conference National is - it's like a souped up exaggerated version of the Northern League, on steroids.

Spot on there mate - liken other promotions to climbing Roseberry Topping, then getting out the C.N. is like climbing Everest.........without oxygen .......but it has been done

[super_les_mcjannet]

Just to add to that, actually winning promotion to the National League I think is about the realistic upper limit of how far we can go.

The league is a million miles away, we're no longer a rightful league club, times have changed.

Times have changed, our natural position is probably Chester/Halifax top end National North/bottom half National, with the exception of an excellent manager (which we have) and some luck, cup run money/player sold like Vardy etc.

We need to build BM up and try to build our attendances, if we hit an average of 2k this year then we have progressed. If Gray could complete some kind of cup run that would be progress again.

Plenty of possibilities for us as a club, we just need to keep progressing.

[theoriginalfatcat]

Personally I've never thought about returning to the football league. To get back to the Conference and maintain a competitive team at that level would be an amazing achievement, considering all we've been through.

Even if it takes a good few years from now.

[Undercovered]

Quakerz - yes that's the reality and the main reason why so many ex league clubs are marooned in the National League as realistically unless you're very well supported like a Luton Town you need a minimum £500K investment each season to compete. There's that many competing that it's not a given even when you plough in close to £1m as Mr Singh found out. For a team like Hartlepool who have been relegated it's vital that they regain their place in the league within 2 years before the parachute payments run out otherwise they're in the same boat of having to find £500K +

On the flip side the National League is nothing like it was 20 years ago with the majority of teams now full time and ex league as mentioned so for me personally I would have no issue in accepting that as being our level. We've already seen crowds increase considerably against ex league teams in this level and playing more of them in the Conference would certainly increase that alongside developing BM. The National League N/S is more akin to what the Conference used to be like - lots of part time teams.

For some years it really has been the 5th division even if the FL have never accepted it. Our best chance of regaining league status in my opinion would be due to some restructuring of the leagues to make them smaller and adopting the National League as the 5th division. All non league football would then be regional.

The issue with remaining PT in the National league is travel - especially when you're located at one end of the country. It's very difficult for part time players to be travelling 7/8 hours for away trips to places like Dover (not sure how they manage to be PT) and Torquay. I would think if we managed to get into the National League you'd have to look at going full time on a similar budget which would mean going down the route that's Nuneaton have in younger, cheaper players - the question is, would you be as competetive?!

We've certainly got to the point where unless we can attract significant sensible investment external to our current revenue streams then progress begins to slow but that's not to say that we can't still progress at least to the next step - it will just take time to fund the ground developments, grow the business and the fan base. Starting from scratch has had far more impact than people sometimes realise as it's been masked by progress on the pitch but the investment needed to get us where we are today from a small number of fans has been huge and has also meant we've had to mortgage future revenue to get there.

We do however have a manager who's ambition is more than growing slowly, sustainably so it'll be an interesting road ahead.

[Henley]

The league is a million miles away, we're no longer a rightful league club, times have changed.

If all clubs had to stand on their own two feet, I think we would be a Football League club (just) but not with other clubs having generous benefactors.

[lo36789]

The league is a million miles away, we're no longer a rightful league club, times have changed.

If all clubs had to stand on their own two feet, I think we would be a Football League club (just) but not with other clubs having generous benefactors.

If we could make it to the FL we could stay there I reckon - Exeter City aren't doing too badly despite lack of a benefactor. Most clubs who call through the trapdoor are because of financial mismanagement rather than not having the means to stay in the division.

No. What this tells me is we can organically grow into a part-time NL club - probably bottom half. With a good cup run, a windfall from a player sale or whatever then we could invest in a project promotion season. Full time for a season and if we don't succeed and the money runs out then we return to status quo.

It also shows me the absolute perils of external investment. As the Accrington owner said most owner are gamblers - gambling to reach the guaranteed revenues - if it doesn't pay off after they have lost a certain amount of money the walls come tumbling down.

[Darlo_Pete]

If we get back to the Conference, then surely the ultimate ambition must be to get into the FL sometime in the future. I'd find it depressing if we started a new season and we all knew that we had no chance of gaining promotion.

[lo36789]

If we get back to the Conference, then surely the ultimate ambition must be to get into the FL sometime in the future. I'd find it depressing if we started a new season and we all knew that we had no chance of gaining promotion.

You were happy to start this one like that.

[shawry]

If we get back to the Conference, then surely the ultimate ambition must be to get into the FL sometime in the future. I'd find it depressing if we started a new season and we all knew that we had no chance of gaining promotion.

Yet you've advocated the risk of funding the improvement of the squad over guaranteeing investment into the required seats...

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