I will not have a vote, unless it extends to all trust members which I don't think s the plan.
Were I to have a vote, I would want to understand the two options to the best of my ability.
Option A: Existing structure
As I understand the situation, the Trust Board believe that the likelihood of staying with the current structure is that costs would have to be cut so far that we would be likely to slip out of the league. Given that conference national finances are, I understand, worse than lg2, I understand that to mean conference south at best.
I am open to being persuaded that is not the case but I would want to see a credible explanation why the trust board are wrong. In the absence of a credible alternative, I have to assume the trust board are correct in their analysis
Option B: Investment
I would want to know who the proposed investor was and to hear his plans for the club and get to know what I can about his background.
I think where I am is that if I believed the club could sustain league football under fan ownership, I would vote for that unless there was a very strong reason not to. If I believed the club could not sustain league football under fan ownership, I would vote for investment unless there was a strong reason not to
@drcongo , I don't understand your point. IF you believe the trust board and we are not able to financially sustain league football, then by definition we go first into conference national but there the finances are worse than lg2 so I don't see how we could sustain that but not Lg2. So next we go to conference south. I am open to persuasion that the trust are wrong about league sustainability or I am wrong about conference national.
@devc you’re parroting repeatedly, without proof, the assertion that the only alternative to selling up is conference south football. It’s a pretty tedious straw man and very Farage.
The assertion you’re so fond of is merely a dead cat designed to shift the Overton window by encouraging the hard of thinking to bang on about the conference south instead of the risk of losing our whole club. You’re doing their work for them. Well done.
@marlowchair said:
One very important point (detail) May have been overlooked in all this but I think is important to whether
@NiceCarrots said:
Seaport Capital's Bill Luby describes his time at Derby thus, " From an investment perspective, a disaster." Seaport Capital are activist investors and will flood the FC board with their own people. It will be interesting to see how they make money from WWFC not that they'll tell us up front before they wrangle 75% control. It'll be the Trust board not needing approval in order to give them 25% and then a game of Russian roulette to get another 50%. along the If you don't do what we want we will put you into liquidation etc, straight out of the Beeks and the gang playbook. We've been here many, many times before. Ask Coventry fans what impact SISU have had on their club. A fish always rots from the head.
What's the buzz with the Saudis? It might be the perfect cultural fit as WWFC is to corporate governance what Saudi Arabia is to human rights. I wouldn't welcome anything to do with the Saudis who must have their hands full murdering Yemeni women and children and the anti-MBS journalist, Kashoggi.
Appreciate the Trust board have taken their customary vow of silence preferring to tell people how furious they are outside of the meetings while remaining mute in them. But they were elected to represent the members. Too many of them are solely motivated by the desire to be re-elected hence they don't want to be seen as rocking the boat.
Given the weasels are trying so hard to out Marlow Chair I hope the moderators will protect and preserve his, or her, anonymity. Freedom of speech is what sets us apart from places like say, Saudi Arabia. It shouldn't be sold like a pack of dried fruit and nuts.
Mr Burrell said on several occasions that "cash is predictable" on the Glorious Twelfth, he also stated cash got tight "Late November to end of January", I hope both the Chairman of the Trust board and the Chairman of the Football Club board gets the General Manager to begin to look after our sponsors many of whom are not overwhelmed by the service they are receiving. These mistakes are costing us money, money we can ill afford.
I hope four fresh faces are elected in November motivated by the desire to safeguard our heritage and not to monetise their connections.
Trust board directors should be limited to a maximum of two terms to avoid the omnishambles that we have currently.
Safeguard our heritage. Please. Today. Please.
"Given the weasels are trying so hard to out Marlow Chair I hope the moderators will protect and preserve his, or her, anonymity".
We have already had one breach of confidentiality when a Moderator used his access to Gasroom 2.0 to out @NiceCarrots. Are you suggesting another Moderator is now using his access to try and identify @marlowchair ?
Love them or loathe them you cannot deny that both @NiceCarrots and @marlowchair have added significantly to the debate. To try and close them down by outing them is quite frankly unacceptable to ordinary supporters who are kept in the dark.
In the meantime I would be grateful if someone from the Trust could confirm that no attempt is being made to out @marlowchair.
@Its_Cold_Up_North ,Marlow is too smart to be posting the way he does with an account set up with an email linked to his real name!
You raise an interesting point when you say us outsiders find it interesting to try and find out what's going on. Studying history as kids though, showed us any "Knowledge" has to be judged against bias - so knowing who the chap is, and what his link is would be "Interesting" again.
@DevC said:
for someone who denies so vehemently leaking confidential information earlier in this thread, Mr Sumner and his "mate" do seem to spend to take extraordinary delight in leaking confidential information.
It’s not confidential when the key representatives from these companies who are reasonably well known to the football capital investment market are accompanied by our president at home and away games showing them around .
@DevC said: @wandering_jock "I haven,t seen anything that shows that we can’t run the club on a sound footing and stay in the EFL."
It is a matter of fact that the club has been losing substantial money for years (excluding one offs). Presumably therefore if you believe we are able to stay in the EFL with the current structure, you believe we are able to either substantially increase revenue and/or substantially reduce costs, while maintaining onfield performance. Could you explain which and why you believe that.
Understanding whether that is reality would be a major (possibly the major) consideration for me (if I had a vote).
I don’t know if increasing revenue and decreasing costs to the best case result at our club is enough. I believe it would be , but I don’t know.
What I do know is currently we are not performing optimally in either area under current management and until we can say we are , any proposal to give up and sell our club in any capacity is ridiculously premature and derelict of duty by any director who proposes it .
@Steve_Peart said: @DevC, the Trust Board are effectively saying we cannot remain fan owned and stay in the EFL "under their management". An important qualification.
this is key. A great post .
They should step aside in good faith and let the clubs position and potential to be measured objectively.
I've been doing a little bit of googling of Seaport Capital and actually they don't seem a bad lot. It's a New York-based private equity firm which specialises in investing in communication and tech firms, but the owners have a thing for minor-league baseball and, until recently, owned nine clubs through their offshoot Mandalay Baseball Properties.
They sold up those clubs in 2014 but were bitten by the bug again last year, starting a new company called Shore Town Baseball and buying their local team, Lakewood BlueClaws. One of the Seaport Capital partners, Bob Tamashunas, had this to say on the new investment: "Foundationally, we love baseball and the business of baseball as well. We had the chance to invest in a small business in our backyard. And I’m a big Phillies fan. When the opportunity arose, we said, hey, this is something we want to do personally, and from a business perspective, we felt we could do well."
It was the managing partner of Seaport Capital, Bill Luby, who sat on the board of Derby County and presumably is leading any bid to invest in Wycombe. One significant note of caution -- he and his other partners in the US-consortium that bought Derby loaned that club $48m over the course of their ownership; all of which was converted to equity, according to this report. Not unusual from a business perspective - but, as we know, it means that the future owner has to take on the debt and makes it very difficult for a supporters' trust to take on the club afterwards. We got away with it after Steve Hayes, not least because he wiped significant sums of loan notes, but it would be naive to think we'd be so lucky again.
Anyway, there's no particular criticism of Seaport's sport ownership vehicles from baseball fans in the States - and they only played a small part in Derby's consortium, which all ended pretty well with a sale to the Derby-based guy who built Candy Crush. But it still begs the question - why Wycombe? Easy enough to jet in from JFK to Heathrow and plenty of Yanks at the nearby airbase and in London who might be tempted to start supporting the club with the right marketing. But still. They must realise returns will be incremental, at best. I can only imagine buying an English soccer team must give them all certain cachet when they summer in the Hamptons?
Final reason not to dismiss this out of hand... on buying Lakewood BlueClaws the new partnership set out their plans: closely assessing operations; hiring a new general manager; short-term investments in the squad; longer-term investments to keep the club sustainable. Tamashunas said: "We’re not at a point where we can disclose what that will entail because we haven’t yet figured it out. We have a lot of ideas. But we’re looking forward to being in the ballpark over the next 30 days to learn from the fans and sponsors about what they like the most, and figure out what investments would make the most positive impact.”
It's hard not to be cynical about anyone wanting to come in and invest in WWFC. But - in all fairness - that doesn't sound too bad to me...
@Steve_Peart said: @DevC, the Trust Board are effectively saying we cannot remain fan owned and stay in the EFL "under their management". An important qualification.
this is key. A great post .
They should step aside in good faith and let the clubs position and potential to be measured objectively.
Whilst I fully agree the current Board should step aside, particularly the Chairman but excepting Mr Cecil, this is only feasible if there are competent replacements prepared to stand.
Thanks for that @aloysius. Very interesting and helpful.
In terms of the general debate it’s sad to see we have very much gone with the current trend for polarising every issue.
Trust think we can’t be sustainable as a football club in the long run. Bad bad people. They must go.
New people think they can run us as a sustainable club in the long run (although I have yet to see any real evidence for how - shades of Brexit?). Good, good people. They must be voted in.
In reality there will be shades of views and opinions on both sides that sensible informed debate should help shape the views of the people who will ultimately make the decision.
I am more interested in understanding why the current board seem to think we are unsustainable. Does the evidence support this for example or do they come with a pre-conceived bias?
Equally, what evidence do the ‘board out’ posters on here have to support their view that we could be sustainable (in fairness we have had occasional glimpses of this but little quantifiable) or, again, do they come with pre-conceived bias?
I have seen very very little on here that has actually helped me build any informed view on either side.
@bookertease That's why I was asking for publication of the detailed accounts, before the AGM. I suspect that the club is sustainable in the EFL, but we're being told one thing by the FD and another by the proponents of external investment. eg How much are we spending on the bench, how much are we paying in interest, etc etc. It just feels odd that all of a sudden we are not sustainable and therefore need to give the club to Yankees.
And by the way, you cant exclude one-offs DevonC - they happen, and are a fact of business as a football club and that works both ways, costs and revenue windfalls. That's what contingency planning is for.
We were certainly much worse off in the Beeks/Hayes era than we have been recently under Trust ownership.
I need to clarify that I am not “ board out” in totality, I think the trust board are mostly excellent choices and representatives. I don’t believe they are properly informed of important information from
The football club board until too late or decisions have already been made often.
So I don’t think the majority of the good trust board are able to or have able to operate to the best of their ability as a result.
I believe the driving forces behind the sale process who have nailed their colours to the mast should step aside and allow objective consideration.
Howard and Burrell have done so and should be wholly applauded for such governance. The chairman should do also in my opinion for reasons stated above but also his unwillingness to date to declare the long term conflict of interest issue.
Interesting post @aloysius, though the American system of franchise sports is a million miles away from an EFL club, especially in the minor leagues. Would be interested to hear thoughts from @floyd and @shev who’ll both be vastly more informed than I.
Well said @bookertease a very reasonable summation.
We need much more varified information before being able to make any kind of judgement either for or against investment.
However, I do believe that DevC asks a valid question about what we would be prepared to accept as a consequence if we decide to not accept investment. Relegation down to Conference South isn't necessarily an inevitable outcome but IF it happened would we be prepared to.accept it?
I believe we should all, as individuals, be asking ourselves that question, because it MIGHT happen.
Likewise we should all be asking ourselves what MIGHT happen if we to accept an outside investment and it goes badly wrong.
For my money we have to be prepared to accept the worst outcome we can conceive our chosen path could lead to, not be blinded by the headline promise.
Minor league baseball is a fabulous thing, but almost night an day different from the EFL. There are none of the variables that affect the finances of a football club, no promotion and relegation, no transfer market and I don’t think it’s up to the minor league franchise to set and meet a wage bill.
On the positives, minor league owners have to be great at marketing their teams to draw a crowd, hence regular game promotions and odd team names (Richmond Flying Squirrels, Hertford Yard Goats, Akron Rubber Duckies etc). They might be able to attract some newer fans. Plus, the minor leagues is hardly a money spinner, so it’s encouraging I suppose that they’re not just in it to make a quick buck.
Thanks @floyd, especially for those team names. As I understand it, minor league player wages are around the $20k pa mark. Running a minor league team seems closer to running a theatre to me than an EFL club. One thing that concerns me about this is that the “cash cow” for minor league teams is usually the stadium. Buying an American sports team is pure property speculation. There’s a few very interesting espisodes of the Freakonomics podcast about it.
I am curious, as I think all Trust members must be, about what exactly motivates the potential investors. To suggest that they want to be involved “for the ride” and to join in the fun seems naively disingenuousness. After initial head scratching, I wondered briefly If, given the additional investment on the playing side (despite concerns about the overall financial situation) there might be a perception that promotion to the Championship within a couple of seasons was a realistic prospect. Unlikely.
More realistically, it occurred to me that, since Andrew Howard had mentioned at a meeting a couple of years ago that (provided the EFL sanctioned it) he would not be averse to an artificial playing surface, the potential sale of the training ground might be a factor especially if the potential income quoted by an earlier poster is realistic.
There is a tendency on here to foist blame on the Board for everything (hospitality/catering and awareness campaigns being examples). However, we must remember that a major factor in this perception of mismanagement is that staff numbers at the club are extremely low due to the cost saving required to be Trust owned. They are not resourced to cover the full scope of a League Club's requirements. Both Trust and Club Board members are volunteers and cannot be expected to keep on filling in for missing/non-existent staff. To me, this is the crux of the investment and financial debates, let alone the playing budget. We cannot remain a serious proposition as a League club if we continue to rely on the voluntary efforts of our sadly small support base.
The Board(s) by definition have final responsibility for the day to day running and although I believe they individually have the best interests of the Club at heart, they will surely make wrong turns and questionable decisions occasionally. How we all react to and countenance this will define us as we move forward. I'd personally love to think that the fan owned/Trust model is viable and the way forward but in truth I and I'm sure very many others, recognize it's flaws. I've had enough conversations over the last couple of years with both senior Trust and Board members to have faith in them and what they propose. The majority of the human race I've come across have been honest, fair, trustworthy and reliable. Even Steve Hayes did some things for us at the end which has contributed to our present relative stability. I see no reason to believe that the Board members or any potential investors that they recommend will be any different.
WWFC is a fairly large and complex business and as such has to stand and function just like any other.
I will not have a vote as I'm not a Legacy member.
@drcongo & @floyd - I definitely think the whole approach to sports ownership is so different here. It still annoys me that all of the major sports - with the exception of the great sport of ice hockey - present the championship trophy to the owner before any players get their hands on it. Ultimately, despite the genuine love Americans have for sports, major franchise ownership is usually cold-eyed, dispassionate and based almost entirely on business. I am convinced the NFL would move the Cowboys to Shanghai, the Packers to Cape Town and the Steelers to Rio overnight, if it would double their income.
For this reason, even if they are enthusiastic and eager about ownership over in England, I find it hard to trust that Americans can have the requisite appreciation of what a football club means to it's hometown. I think the whole MK Dons episode would not be anywhere near as controversial over here in America - people do get angry about franchises leaving, but it happens often enough to be a part of sports life, and there are often other sports teams remaining in the town to give focus to (if the city is large enough).
That may be patronizing to Americans as a stereotype (and, I am actually half American myself), but as a general rule, it is true, at least at the major league level. I am not as informed on the minor league ethos, though - I did use to go to a fair amount of minor league ice hockey games in Vegas, and a couple of minor league baseball games, and the ownership situations did seem more difficult, with Las Vegas basically losing the ice hockey team because the arena refused to renew the lease for the club, if I remember rightly.
On the flip side, the business focus could be argued to be a good thing in certain situations, of course. Also, despite the rather silly nature of the "fun ride" quote, Americans do know how to make sporting events great fun - we go to ice hockey games here in Denver, and it is quite a spectacle.
Just to add to floyd's minor league name list, it is hard to beat the New Orleans Baby Cakes!
@micra, what motivates these investors is the first question I would ask at the presentation evening, with the BS Detector at the ready. Making money from football seems only possible at the top end, unless your motivation is asset stripping. Although the stadium is safe for now, that can change with time, devious people tend to be very clever operators and know how to get around obstacles.
In terms of assessing motivation it might be useful to consider the chronology.
7th July 2015 Bucks Free Press announces Beeks to go back onto the F.C. board.
1st August 2015 Beeks takes his place on the F.C. board
6th August 2015 letter sent by Beeks and the gang informing that we had defaulted on the lease and had lost the training ground.
Trust members are told this letter was issued "reluctantly."
And how "this meant the option for the club to buy back the facility had come to an end." (Source: WWST Dec. 3 2015)
Since then "the artificial pitch considerations' have receded but they've allegedly had a couple of nibbles on the planning front hence the reason they are keen to host potential suitors raising concerns about the Chairman's independence.
We were told if "the training ground was ultimately sold to a third party then the TGF would allocate a share of any potential profits being generated back to the club. To be negotiated in future but the Group have a signed letter confirming the option."
Has anyone seen the letter? Does it exist? Why can't we see it?
The fact that this was written by those who stood to benefit from the deal ought in no way make one question the findings.
Comments
@Wendoverman
I will not have a vote, unless it extends to all trust members which I don't think s the plan.
Were I to have a vote, I would want to understand the two options to the best of my ability.
Option A: Existing structure
As I understand the situation, the Trust Board believe that the likelihood of staying with the current structure is that costs would have to be cut so far that we would be likely to slip out of the league. Given that conference national finances are, I understand, worse than lg2, I understand that to mean conference south at best.
I am open to being persuaded that is not the case but I would want to see a credible explanation why the trust board are wrong. In the absence of a credible alternative, I have to assume the trust board are correct in their analysis
Option B: Investment
I would want to know who the proposed investor was and to hear his plans for the club and get to know what I can about his background.
I think where I am is that if I believed the club could sustain league football under fan ownership, I would vote for that unless there was a very strong reason not to. If I believed the club could not sustain league football under fan ownership, I would vote for investment unless there was a strong reason not to
@drcongo , I don't understand your point. IF you believe the trust board and we are not able to financially sustain league football, then by definition we go first into conference national but there the finances are worse than lg2 so I don't see how we could sustain that but not Lg2. So next we go to conference south. I am open to persuasion that the trust are wrong about league sustainability or I am wrong about conference national.
Phew!
No season ticket then Dev?
@braywanderer, there is still an outdoor pool on the Rye. I hadn't realised that it was heated and open all year:
https://www.fusion-lifestyle.com/centres/wycombe-rye-lido/
@devc you’re parroting repeatedly, without proof, the assertion that the only alternative to selling up is conference south football. It’s a pretty tedious straw man and very Farage.
The assertion you’re so fond of is merely a dead cat designed to shift the Overton window by encouraging the hard of thinking to bang on about the conference south instead of the risk of losing our whole club. You’re doing their work for them. Well done.
"Given the weasels are trying so hard to out Marlow Chair I hope the moderators will protect and preserve his, or her, anonymity".
We have already had one breach of confidentiality when a Moderator used his access to Gasroom 2.0 to out @NiceCarrots. Are you suggesting another Moderator is now using his access to try and identify @marlowchair ?
Love them or loathe them you cannot deny that both @NiceCarrots and @marlowchair have added significantly to the debate. To try and close them down by outing them is quite frankly unacceptable to ordinary supporters who are kept in the dark.
In the meantime I would be grateful if someone from the Trust could confirm that no attempt is being made to out @marlowchair.
@Its_Cold_Up_North ,Marlow is too smart to be posting the way he does with an account set up with an email linked to his real name!
You raise an interesting point when you say us outsiders find it interesting to try and find out what's going on. Studying history as kids though, showed us any "Knowledge" has to be judged against bias - so knowing who the chap is, and what his link is would be "Interesting" again.
It’s not confidential when the key representatives from these companies who are reasonably well known to the football capital investment market are accompanied by our president at home and away games showing them around .
I don’t know if increasing revenue and decreasing costs to the best case result at our club is enough. I believe it would be , but I don’t know.
What I do know is currently we are not performing optimally in either area under current management and until we can say we are , any proposal to give up and sell our club in any capacity is ridiculously premature and derelict of duty by any director who proposes it .
this is key. A great post .
They should step aside in good faith and let the clubs position and potential to be measured objectively.
I've been doing a little bit of googling of Seaport Capital and actually they don't seem a bad lot. It's a New York-based private equity firm which specialises in investing in communication and tech firms, but the owners have a thing for minor-league baseball and, until recently, owned nine clubs through their offshoot Mandalay Baseball Properties.
They sold up those clubs in 2014 but were bitten by the bug again last year, starting a new company called Shore Town Baseball and buying their local team, Lakewood BlueClaws. One of the Seaport Capital partners, Bob Tamashunas, had this to say on the new investment: "Foundationally, we love baseball and the business of baseball as well. We had the chance to invest in a small business in our backyard. And I’m a big Phillies fan. When the opportunity arose, we said, hey, this is something we want to do personally, and from a business perspective, we felt we could do well."
It was the managing partner of Seaport Capital, Bill Luby, who sat on the board of Derby County and presumably is leading any bid to invest in Wycombe. One significant note of caution -- he and his other partners in the US-consortium that bought Derby loaned that club $48m over the course of their ownership; all of which was converted to equity, according to this report. Not unusual from a business perspective - but, as we know, it means that the future owner has to take on the debt and makes it very difficult for a supporters' trust to take on the club afterwards. We got away with it after Steve Hayes, not least because he wiped significant sums of loan notes, but it would be naive to think we'd be so lucky again.
Anyway, there's no particular criticism of Seaport's sport ownership vehicles from baseball fans in the States - and they only played a small part in Derby's consortium, which all ended pretty well with a sale to the Derby-based guy who built Candy Crush. But it still begs the question - why Wycombe? Easy enough to jet in from JFK to Heathrow and plenty of Yanks at the nearby airbase and in London who might be tempted to start supporting the club with the right marketing. But still. They must realise returns will be incremental, at best. I can only imagine buying an English soccer team must give them all certain cachet when they summer in the Hamptons?
Final reason not to dismiss this out of hand... on buying Lakewood BlueClaws the new partnership set out their plans: closely assessing operations; hiring a new general manager; short-term investments in the squad; longer-term investments to keep the club sustainable. Tamashunas said: "We’re not at a point where we can disclose what that will entail because we haven’t yet figured it out. We have a lot of ideas. But we’re looking forward to being in the ballpark over the next 30 days to learn from the fans and sponsors about what they like the most, and figure out what investments would make the most positive impact.”
It's hard not to be cynical about anyone wanting to come in and invest in WWFC. But - in all fairness - that doesn't sound too bad to me...
Whilst I fully agree the current Board should step aside, particularly the Chairman but excepting Mr Cecil, this is only feasible if there are competent replacements prepared to stand.
Thanks for that @aloysius. Very interesting and helpful.
In terms of the general debate it’s sad to see we have very much gone with the current trend for polarising every issue.
Trust think we can’t be sustainable as a football club in the long run. Bad bad people. They must go.
New people think they can run us as a sustainable club in the long run (although I have yet to see any real evidence for how - shades of Brexit?). Good, good people. They must be voted in.
In reality there will be shades of views and opinions on both sides that sensible informed debate should help shape the views of the people who will ultimately make the decision.
I am more interested in understanding why the current board seem to think we are unsustainable. Does the evidence support this for example or do they come with a pre-conceived bias?
Equally, what evidence do the ‘board out’ posters on here have to support their view that we could be sustainable (in fairness we have had occasional glimpses of this but little quantifiable) or, again, do they come with pre-conceived bias?
I have seen very very little on here that has actually helped me build any informed view on either side.
@bookertease That's why I was asking for publication of the detailed accounts, before the AGM. I suspect that the club is sustainable in the EFL, but we're being told one thing by the FD and another by the proponents of external investment. eg How much are we spending on the bench, how much are we paying in interest, etc etc. It just feels odd that all of a sudden we are not sustainable and therefore need to give the club to Yankees.
And by the way, you cant exclude one-offs DevonC - they happen, and are a fact of business as a football club and that works both ways, costs and revenue windfalls. That's what contingency planning is for.
We were certainly much worse off in the Beeks/Hayes era than we have been recently under Trust ownership.
I need to clarify that I am not “ board out” in totality, I think the trust board are mostly excellent choices and representatives. I don’t believe they are properly informed of important information from
The football club board until too late or decisions have already been made often.
So I don’t think the majority of the good trust board are able to or have able to operate to the best of their ability as a result.
I believe the driving forces behind the sale process who have nailed their colours to the mast should step aside and allow objective consideration.
Howard and Burrell have done so and should be wholly applauded for such governance. The chairman should do also in my opinion for reasons stated above but also his unwillingness to date to declare the long term conflict of interest issue.
Interesting post @aloysius, though the American system of franchise sports is a million miles away from an EFL club, especially in the minor leagues. Would be interested to hear thoughts from @floyd and @shev who’ll both be vastly more informed than I.
Well said @bookertease a very reasonable summation.
We need much more varified information before being able to make any kind of judgement either for or against investment.
However, I do believe that DevC asks a valid question about what we would be prepared to accept as a consequence if we decide to not accept investment. Relegation down to Conference South isn't necessarily an inevitable outcome but IF it happened would we be prepared to.accept it?
I believe we should all, as individuals, be asking ourselves that question, because it MIGHT happen.
Likewise we should all be asking ourselves what MIGHT happen if we to accept an outside investment and it goes badly wrong.
For my money we have to be prepared to accept the worst outcome we can conceive our chosen path could lead to, not be blinded by the headline promise.
Minor league baseball is a fabulous thing, but almost night an day different from the EFL. There are none of the variables that affect the finances of a football club, no promotion and relegation, no transfer market and I don’t think it’s up to the minor league franchise to set and meet a wage bill.
On the positives, minor league owners have to be great at marketing their teams to draw a crowd, hence regular game promotions and odd team names (Richmond Flying Squirrels, Hertford Yard Goats, Akron Rubber Duckies etc). They might be able to attract some newer fans. Plus, the minor leagues is hardly a money spinner, so it’s encouraging I suppose that they’re not just in it to make a quick buck.
Hertford Yard Goats? That has made my day. Who wouldn’t support a team named that.
Thanks @floyd, especially for those team names. As I understand it, minor league player wages are around the $20k pa mark. Running a minor league team seems closer to running a theatre to me than an EFL club. One thing that concerns me about this is that the “cash cow” for minor league teams is usually the stadium. Buying an American sports team is pure property speculation. There’s a few very interesting espisodes of the Freakonomics podcast about it.
I am curious, as I think all Trust members must be, about what exactly motivates the potential investors. To suggest that they want to be involved “for the ride” and to join in the fun seems naively disingenuousness. After initial head scratching, I wondered briefly If, given the additional investment on the playing side (despite concerns about the overall financial situation) there might be a perception that promotion to the Championship within a couple of seasons was a realistic prospect. Unlikely.
More realistically, it occurred to me that, since Andrew Howard had mentioned at a meeting a couple of years ago that (provided the EFL sanctioned it) he would not be averse to an artificial playing surface, the potential sale of the training ground might be a factor especially if the potential income quoted by an earlier poster is realistic.
Should read “naively disingenuous”.
There is a tendency on here to foist blame on the Board for everything (hospitality/catering and awareness campaigns being examples). However, we must remember that a major factor in this perception of mismanagement is that staff numbers at the club are extremely low due to the cost saving required to be Trust owned. They are not resourced to cover the full scope of a League Club's requirements. Both Trust and Club Board members are volunteers and cannot be expected to keep on filling in for missing/non-existent staff. To me, this is the crux of the investment and financial debates, let alone the playing budget. We cannot remain a serious proposition as a League club if we continue to rely on the voluntary efforts of our sadly small support base.
The Board(s) by definition have final responsibility for the day to day running and although I believe they individually have the best interests of the Club at heart, they will surely make wrong turns and questionable decisions occasionally. How we all react to and countenance this will define us as we move forward. I'd personally love to think that the fan owned/Trust model is viable and the way forward but in truth I and I'm sure very many others, recognize it's flaws. I've had enough conversations over the last couple of years with both senior Trust and Board members to have faith in them and what they propose. The majority of the human race I've come across have been honest, fair, trustworthy and reliable. Even Steve Hayes did some things for us at the end which has contributed to our present relative stability. I see no reason to believe that the Board members or any potential investors that they recommend will be any different.
WWFC is a fairly large and complex business and as such has to stand and function just like any other.
I will not have a vote as I'm not a Legacy member.
@drcongo & @floyd - I definitely think the whole approach to sports ownership is so different here. It still annoys me that all of the major sports - with the exception of the great sport of ice hockey - present the championship trophy to the owner before any players get their hands on it. Ultimately, despite the genuine love Americans have for sports, major franchise ownership is usually cold-eyed, dispassionate and based almost entirely on business. I am convinced the NFL would move the Cowboys to Shanghai, the Packers to Cape Town and the Steelers to Rio overnight, if it would double their income.
For this reason, even if they are enthusiastic and eager about ownership over in England, I find it hard to trust that Americans can have the requisite appreciation of what a football club means to it's hometown. I think the whole MK Dons episode would not be anywhere near as controversial over here in America - people do get angry about franchises leaving, but it happens often enough to be a part of sports life, and there are often other sports teams remaining in the town to give focus to (if the city is large enough).
That may be patronizing to Americans as a stereotype (and, I am actually half American myself), but as a general rule, it is true, at least at the major league level. I am not as informed on the minor league ethos, though - I did use to go to a fair amount of minor league ice hockey games in Vegas, and a couple of minor league baseball games, and the ownership situations did seem more difficult, with Las Vegas basically losing the ice hockey team because the arena refused to renew the lease for the club, if I remember rightly.
On the flip side, the business focus could be argued to be a good thing in certain situations, of course. Also, despite the rather silly nature of the "fun ride" quote, Americans do know how to make sporting events great fun - we go to ice hockey games here in Denver, and it is quite a spectacle.
Just to add to floyd's minor league name list, it is hard to beat the New Orleans Baby Cakes!
@micra, what motivates these investors is the first question I would ask at the presentation evening, with the BS Detector at the ready. Making money from football seems only possible at the top end, unless your motivation is asset stripping. Although the stadium is safe for now, that can change with time, devious people tend to be very clever operators and know how to get around obstacles.
An excellent post by Valley Wanderer that provides a balance to some of the frankly hysterical outpourings by some other posters.
In terms of assessing motivation it might be useful to consider the chronology.
7th July 2015 Bucks Free Press announces Beeks to go back onto the F.C. board.
1st August 2015 Beeks takes his place on the F.C. board
6th August 2015 letter sent by Beeks and the gang informing that we had defaulted on the lease and had lost the training ground.
Trust members are told this letter was issued "reluctantly."
And how "this meant the option for the club to buy back the facility had come to an end." (Source: WWST Dec. 3 2015)
Since then "the artificial pitch considerations' have receded but they've allegedly had a couple of nibbles on the planning front hence the reason they are keen to host potential suitors raising concerns about the Chairman's independence.
We were told if "the training ground was ultimately sold to a third party then the TGF would allocate a share of any potential profits being generated back to the club. To be negotiated in future but the Group have a signed letter confirming the option."
Has anyone seen the letter? Does it exist? Why can't we see it?
The fact that this was written by those who stood to benefit from the deal ought in no way make one question the findings.
And right on cue.......
Fortunately, some supporters have legitimate concerns over the future of our great club and are not prepared to bury their heads in the sand.