Match day revenue

lucy6lucy · Post by **lucy6lucy** » 23 Nov 2016, 20:20

Obviously great for Torquay to win last night. However with the attendance last night being around 1250(approximately 1100 season ticket holders, 34 away fans, that means only 100 odd paying Torquay fans. This would generate about 1500-1900, depending on where they watched the game. With the catering operating independently, stewards to pay, electricity(mainly floodlights. It is very evident the club is running at a loss. I appreciate I may be stating the obvious, but how do other teams operate more prudent in this league with gates half of ours. With no game at home until Boxing Day ( and that's weather permitting), it really is worrying.

TUST_Member_Rob · Post by **TUST_Member_Rob** » 23 Nov 2016, 20:58

Think we average 750-800 ST holders per game though

Plainmoor78 · Post by **Plainmoor78** » 23 Nov 2016, 21:35

One reason for teams operating more prudently than us on gates of less than half ours, is that they are part time. Even if we do not get relegated this season I think we will be looking at having to go part time in the near future, assuming we have a future.
Actually couldn't we save on stewarding by using volunteers. I read somewhere that our stewards are provided by a company belonging to someone involved in the club, so we are probably not even seeing if it can be done cheaper by putting it out to tender. When stewards were first used in the Bateson era weren't they originally volunteers?

Post by **Southampton Gull** » 23 Nov 2016, 21:44

You could use volunteers as Stewards but we would still need to provide security with SIA licences to act as response.

ferrarilover · Post by **ferrarilover** » 24 Nov 2016, 08:27

You can discount the floodlights from your calculations, running them sometimes makes us a tiny, tiny, tiny profit from the FAs rebate.

We do have other income streams, so it's not all bad.

Matt.

wivelgull · Post by **wivelgull** » 24 Nov 2016, 09:51

I wonder of someone could enlighten me as to the way attendances are calculated; that is, concerning season tickets. For example, if 1000 season tickets have been sold, does that mean that they are all included in the final attendance figure? Or, are the season ticket holders counted as they enter the ground; that is, if 750 season ticket holders attend does that still mean that 1000 (the total season tickets sold) is added to that attendance figure, or just 750? This has always puzzled me. (I hope I have made myself clear).

Terry Henry · Post by **Terry Henry** » 24 Nov 2016, 10:23

wivel, it must be the number of people who are actually in the ground? When I go in with the season ticket, the chap at the gate just makes a note on a piece of paper that I've entered, and I assume someone then totals up all of the people who have entered with their season ticket from all the gates. Obviously the other gates where people pay on the day, they'll know how many tickets they've sold, so they know the total overall. I can't imagine they'd basically make up a number based on season tickets sold - it surely has to be an accurate number of people who are actually in the ground? It would be interesting to know how many people are in the ground who are season ticket holders for any given game though.

Soupdragon · Post by **Soupdragon** » 24 Nov 2016, 10:57

ferrarilover wrote:You can discount the floodlights from your calculations, running them sometimes makes us a tiny, tiny, tiny profit from the FAs rebate.

We do have other income streams, so it's not all bad.

Matt.

The operative word there is 'sometimes'.

And what else is there? No 10s? Gulls Nest? Are you certain they make anything approaching a reasonable profit? Enough to support, or even help to support, a whole full-time, professional football club? I think you'll find that's a 'no'.

It really doesn't help to be unrealistically, optimistically blinkered. This club has been up for sale at increasingly basement prices for the best part of 18 months now, and no-one - but no-one - is interested. We are a laughing stock and, worse still, as fans AND players, the object of pity. Watching those smug overpaid BBC gits on Final Score laughing at our players having to drive themselves to games is just one example of how these current directors have driven us into the ground.

They took on the club by putting up nothing more than the bond required by the Conference, after being advised strongly against taking it on (including inherited bad debts and forthcoming legal cases that they were fully aware of) in the first place. They then made a series of immediate decisions with huge (in the terrible sense) financial implications for the club which meant that they started their tenure already massively in the red. I was no fan of Hargreaves, and prefer Nicholson ten times over, but what was the Paul Cox thing about? We've never got to the bottom of that, and I doubt we ever will.

I won't take any of the nonsense that they were the only ones who would put up any money, either. No. They weren't. Others were prepared to put in cash, and their stories are freely available to read elsewhere. The current directors just didn't want anyone else to be part of it. Instead, they'd rather take loans from property developers.

I recognise that there is absolutely nothing I can do personally about this situation, so I would much rather contemplate the worst and then be (hopefully) pleasantly surprised than flail about in rose-tinted blinkers and wonder, come the end of January, where my club's gone.

ferrarilover · Post by **ferrarilover** » 25 Nov 2016, 00:50

Sometimes we make £0.25, sometimes we lose £0.25. Either way I wouldn't let it consume you.

Matt.

ferrarilover · Post by **ferrarilover** » 25 Nov 2016, 00:53

Sorry, only just read the rest of your post.

Do we or do we not have other income streams?
If 'we do', would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

I'll save you the time, yes we do and yes that's a good thing. Or, to put it another way, we have other income streams, so it's not all bad. Sounds oddly familiar, that.

Matt.

ferrarilover · Post by **ferrarilover** » 25 Nov 2016, 00:58

A hat trick.

I've had a long day, so I'll save my own time.

The overwhelming majority of that last post is, with respect, complete bollocks. Written, so very obviously to me (and to me moreso than anyone else on here, I think [but can't prove]), from a position of no more knowledge or understanding than a poor interpretation of the often hilariously inaccurate musings posted online by various of our more hard of thinking brethren.

I can't even begin to imagine living in your head. The world must be a terrifying place.

Matt.

Modgull · Post by **Modgull** » 25 Nov 2016, 08:17

wivelgull wrote:I wonder of someone could enlighten me as to the way attendances are calculated; that is, concerning season tickets. For example, if 1000 season tickets have been sold, does that mean that they are all included in the final attendance figure? Or, are the season ticket holders counted as they enter the ground; that is, if 750 season ticket holders attend does that still mean that 1000 (the total season tickets sold) is added to that attendance figure, or just 750? This has always puzzled me. (I hope I have made myself clear).

It is the number of people in the ground so it only includes STHs who turn up but also includes those who get in free like the schools and guests and also includes all staff.

So you can see the number of paying attendees on Tuesday (or indeed any home match nowadays) really could be quite small.

Sorry to bang on about it again but I still feel this year's season ticket deal was madness - hopefully many of those who benefited will also be supporting the player fund.

Kit_robin · Post by **Kit_robin** » 25 Nov 2016, 11:13

It's terrible for cash flow during the season but ST holders do pay up front, so it's not like they haven't paid. It's just they've paid a ludicrously small amount, which I imagine has already been spent.

SteveDeckchair · Post by **SteveDeckchair** » 25 Nov 2016, 13:28

My back of a fag packet calcs.

£400k budget (mentioned somewhere or other) / 12 = £35k per month.
£200k income from season tickets (1,000 x £200) leaves £200k to find = £16,666 per month.
£16,666 / 2 (games per month minimum) = £8,333 / £15 (average ticket price) = 555 paying people required through the gate each game.

This shortfall of course can be reduced by other income streams / more games or increased by a bigger playing budget / other costs or if the board spent it all up front (worst case scenario).

The upshot is, there are too many variables and only those working in the club will know the true picture. It is worrying though as I am only talking about playing budget and not all the other costs of running a football club......

<edit> not forgetting the fact that we don't play between May and July! Frrrt.

Kit_robin · Post by **Kit_robin** » 25 Nov 2016, 15:17

Added to that the fact that it everyone paid £200 for a season ticket, such as old codgers and young 'uns.

1000 x £180 = £180000, take that off our reported £400000 budget and that leaves you £220,000

You can budget realistically for 24 games in a season I think, with shared gate receipts for at least 1 games cup and 1 games trophy game. So...

£220,000 / 24 = £9167 per game coming through the gate. Looking at the average age of the crowd I would imagine our average paying customer to pay around £14. So...

9167 / 14 = 655 people paying per game to cover our playing budget.

I think this is about right, as when you add in running costs it probably makes our break even gate avout 2,000.

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