The issue Alan is that it is likely that many, surely most, perhaps all those 500 supporters would have come to the game anyway - so it is hard to see much additional revenue being earned. It is possible (but far from certain) that the ground capacity may be increased but we very rarely fill the 9000 capacity so again very limited if any additional revenue from this source. Meanwhile the road would need to be of sufficient strength to cope with 500 traffic movements in a day in the winter - so would need to be of decent quality which doesn't come at all cheap. With relatively high cost and very little additional revenue, it is hard to see how the economics of this could possibly stack up , even before you come on to the planning difficulties of building a road through protected land.
Agree 100%. Given that we have now signed 5 first team squad players, and are expecting to sign another 5 in the coming weeks, it seems that we will be in a strong position to challenge for top 6 this season, especially when you consider the financial issues affecting some other L1 clubs.
So, in terms of RC passing the baton to a potential new owner, the ideal scenario would be promotion this season, followed by survival in the Championship in 24/25.
If he were to sell the club today, it would probably be worth somewhere between £10m and £15m. Whereas, as an established Championship club, it could easily be worth more than double that. Maybe that's the way he's thinking.
So, the new road would add a maximum of 1,000 (250*4) to the capacity? Again, the maximum from these 1,000 for 23 games at £30 per go doesn't seem game changing to me but I hope that I'm wrong!
Rob didn’t come here to own a League 1 club ‘sustainably’. The ambition was & is the Championship. They partially delivered. They’ve realised they can’t shift the dial on attendances sufficiently enough to cover their outlay. Pete was the succession plan & can no longer commit. It’s not entirely surprising to see them now selling in the next few years. Let’s hope the finances aren’t a basket case by then. Judging by our signings thus far and the social activity about our budget for this season, I can’t imagine our finances holding up well in a few years.
Let’s be optimistic and look at it differently, albeit tongue in cheek, Rob puts lots of money into the team this season knowing that a Championship club could sell for 3 times the value of a league 1 club.
Matt then guides us to automatic promotion. Rob clears the debts and sells to a Ryan Reynolds look alike for £25 million and he puts a ten year plan in place, invests heavily in the team and we push to the top of the Championship.
The road is built and our capacity is expanded to 15,000. Stands are rebuilt and the new owners get involved in the local community and are seduced by the local history.
That would do me.
Joking aside, owners will come and go, as do players but we will be here until we can’t be.
I think if Rob is signalling he'll be out in four years max, that puts paid to plans for a new road. It's extremely unlikely it would be planned, receive planning permission, go to appeal, be called in by the govt, go to judicial review, be built and be opened in time. And that's before we talk about funding for it - which I can't believe would ever be secured anyway.
I've always said that I thought Rob's exit plan included getting outline planning permission for a new stadium (or now scaled down to a road, perhaps) then selling the club for more with the value added promise that it was 'Championship ready'. I still think that is the plan.
But making it so public that he's leaving can only have been done with one motivation in mind - to stimulate interest among potential new owners. In which case, I suspect Rob is keen to get out within a year - and the club is now defacto on the market.
We all struggled to understand why anyone would buy us...given attendances and the site of AP but the Couhigs have done us all right in my view. Football moves on like managers. I hope this season persuades a few multimillionaires we are worth losing a few bob for 'the journey'.
I'd be happy with that! Think Rob and the Couhig family have been great for us, but it always seemed like a short-mid term project for them in my view. Agree with your earlier post too around not being surprised at seeing a sale sooner rather than later, but would agree that they've steadied the ship and as a fan I've been pleased with them for the most part.
For me, the access road was always going to be a tricky one with the legal and planning issues around it and it hampers our ability to expand, which makes it less appealing to a business minded owner. Will be interesting to see what happens to us in the future, and I wonder if the previously rumoured Bergkamp, Larsson and Kuyt led consortium rears its head again.
If I were an American who owned a small English football club and discovered, thanks to Wrexham, that my fellow Americans had suddenly taken an interest in small English football clubs then I'd be looking to sell in four minutes, not years.
It looks like the Couhigs have been super lucky in getting in at the start of a bubble and they'd be fools not to cash in. Good for them. They were part of one of the greatest seasons this club has ever had and when the access road is built in 2050 it should be named Couhig Way.
Have to disagree. An extra 1,000 fans would generate circa £700k in gate receipts alone over the season. Add in additional spending whilst at the ground, plus an improvement in atmosphere and I think it would make a huge difference.
He made a bit of sense on this for me, basically said if the club and the landowner are ok with it and it gets people in and out a bit quicker on the 25 days a year it gets used and eases traffic elsewhere then what's the problem, sounds like he's finding planning permission a bit more difficult.
No I don’t as long as we are in League One but if we are in the Championship, yes I do. In any case, I was responding to the poster who doubted if an increase in attendances of 1,000 people would make a significant difference to our finances.
If it was provided free and ignoring the planning and environmental issues, I would agree with you that it can't do any harm.
Its hard to see though how you could restrict access to just those who wouldn't have come otherwise and hence any incremental revenue is likely to be very small. And the cost is likely to be very high. Its very hard to see how the business case could ever stack up even if planning wasn't an issue.
Out of curiosity, where would those additional cars go when they get to Adams Park? Unless we build a new car park surely it will be pretty much the same people who currently pay to park on the side of the hill, albeit the journey out at the end of the game will be a lot easier.
I think if we do build an access road it would make a lot more sense to me to make it 'bus only' with a park and ride field the other end. Can't imagine it would take more than 5-10 minutes for a bus to make the trip, and even if you timetable a wait in for a return bus that may be quicker and a lot easier than 250 cars all snaking along the same road
It must be remembered that just before they came in, super upbeat Gareth was doing interviews noticeably looking bleak about the future on a shoestring. The Couhigs changed that.
However, on the flip side the Couhigs massively lucked out in having his incredible management, mixed with things just going our way that promotion season. Without Gareth's management, we don't get near the championship, and you'd suspect more scrutiny would have been placed on the price increases and most other changes. The undeniable successes, such as new floodlights, wifi and boards, arguably wouldn't have happened, so you wonder what we'd have been left with without promotion.
Nobody can quantify accurately how many people have tutted in the queue home and decided never to return or thought about coming but decided it was too much hassle. They could be future season ticket holders. There's also those who would benefit from the advantages of a quick shuttle bus to the station or the ability to get away reasonably quickly after a game for something else, and eventually if we did want to go to 12,000 or so seats or more or even back to using 10k at some point access would no doubt be argued as an issue.
Not at any price of course but if all RC manages to do is get an agreement with the Dashwoods and some kind of idea of costs and what would be acceptable to the council I'd say he'd have got more progress than many. If it's all part of a plan to attract investment into the club then that might not be all bad either.
Yes, they were only here to churn the business after all. Hopefully, they can find someone to pass it along to as the contrary doesn't look good at all........
250 cars would equal £700,000 of extra turnover if they were inhabited by four new people for 23 games per season at £30 per head. However, this looks rather unrealistically positive to me but I might well be wrong.
This all seems like gambling roughly £3,000,000 per year on the Championship and then flogging it on. If this doesn't work, I can't help feeling that we'd look on this rather differently if it was another club..........
All football ownership is a gamble...I don't think they blew anything on getting to the Championship...the team Gareth assembled was essentially a L1 one and with hard-work and some luck...achieved what (surely) we all thought we would never see. The problem for them was expecting it again! (Though we nearly did it for goodness sake!)
Yea we nearly did it and maybe when they look back they may being thinking ‘what if we had strengthened the squad in January and got those extra points’?
We will never now but that may have helped us stay in the Championship and thus get at least another share of the TV money.
What I meant was we nearly made it again via the playoffs but I get your point but again I think we came down because we drew two games we were winning at the tail-end of the season as I recall...those four points would have done it....so would a striker or a defender have secured survival? Or should we greedily have had both? Or have confidence in the assembled squad? That ownership thing is tricky. That and having no money is why I would not do it.
If we were a Championship side we would sell out almost every home game without extra parking, flushing loos, bag snacks. If not we won’t, no matter how good the road, bogs, chips are.
What this factory makes is football. And winning football gets bums on seats. The owners need to accept this.
So invest in the football and everything may follow. Don’t and it certainly won’t.
Comments
Didn’t he ‘promise’ to run the club in a sustainable fashion…rather than one that was losing circa £3m a year?
The issue Alan is that it is likely that many, surely most, perhaps all those 500 supporters would have come to the game anyway - so it is hard to see much additional revenue being earned. It is possible (but far from certain) that the ground capacity may be increased but we very rarely fill the 9000 capacity so again very limited if any additional revenue from this source. Meanwhile the road would need to be of sufficient strength to cope with 500 traffic movements in a day in the winter - so would need to be of decent quality which doesn't come at all cheap. With relatively high cost and very little additional revenue, it is hard to see how the economics of this could possibly stack up , even before you come on to the planning difficulties of building a road through protected land.
Agree 100%. Given that we have now signed 5 first team squad players, and are expecting to sign another 5 in the coming weeks, it seems that we will be in a strong position to challenge for top 6 this season, especially when you consider the financial issues affecting some other L1 clubs.
So, in terms of RC passing the baton to a potential new owner, the ideal scenario would be promotion this season, followed by survival in the Championship in 24/25.
If he were to sell the club today, it would probably be worth somewhere between £10m and £15m. Whereas, as an established Championship club, it could easily be worth more than double that. Maybe that's the way he's thinking.
So, the new road would add a maximum of 1,000 (250*4) to the capacity? Again, the maximum from these 1,000 for 23 games at £30 per go doesn't seem game changing to me but I hope that I'm wrong!
Rob didn’t come here to own a League 1 club ‘sustainably’. The ambition was & is the Championship. They partially delivered. They’ve realised they can’t shift the dial on attendances sufficiently enough to cover their outlay. Pete was the succession plan & can no longer commit. It’s not entirely surprising to see them now selling in the next few years. Let’s hope the finances aren’t a basket case by then. Judging by our signings thus far and the social activity about our budget for this season, I can’t imagine our finances holding up well in a few years.
£10m to £15m for a business that is substantially loss making and seemingly has little chance of ever trading profitably seems a tad optimistic to me.
If it was a "big club" with a large latent customer base that could be mobilised by success, just possibly but realistically that's not us.
Frankly I doubt they will recover their loans let alone sell at a large profit.
Let’s be optimistic and look at it differently, albeit tongue in cheek, Rob puts lots of money into the team this season knowing that a Championship club could sell for 3 times the value of a league 1 club.
Matt then guides us to automatic promotion. Rob clears the debts and sells to a Ryan Reynolds look alike for £25 million and he puts a ten year plan in place, invests heavily in the team and we push to the top of the Championship.
The road is built and our capacity is expanded to 15,000. Stands are rebuilt and the new owners get involved in the local community and are seduced by the local history.
That would do me.
Joking aside, owners will come and go, as do players but we will be here until we can’t be.
The only way that Wycombe is worth £10,000,000 is with dodgy money!
I think if Rob is signalling he'll be out in four years max, that puts paid to plans for a new road. It's extremely unlikely it would be planned, receive planning permission, go to appeal, be called in by the govt, go to judicial review, be built and be opened in time. And that's before we talk about funding for it - which I can't believe would ever be secured anyway.
I've always said that I thought Rob's exit plan included getting outline planning permission for a new stadium (or now scaled down to a road, perhaps) then selling the club for more with the value added promise that it was 'Championship ready'. I still think that is the plan.
But making it so public that he's leaving can only have been done with one motivation in mind - to stimulate interest among potential new owners. In which case, I suspect Rob is keen to get out within a year - and the club is now defacto on the market.
We all struggled to understand why anyone would buy us...given attendances and the site of AP but the Couhigs have done us all right in my view. Football moves on like managers. I hope this season persuades a few multimillionaires we are worth losing a few bob for 'the journey'.
I'd be happy with that! Think Rob and the Couhig family have been great for us, but it always seemed like a short-mid term project for them in my view. Agree with your earlier post too around not being surprised at seeing a sale sooner rather than later, but would agree that they've steadied the ship and as a fan I've been pleased with them for the most part.
For me, the access road was always going to be a tricky one with the legal and planning issues around it and it hampers our ability to expand, which makes it less appealing to a business minded owner. Will be interesting to see what happens to us in the future, and I wonder if the previously rumoured Bergkamp, Larsson and Kuyt led consortium rears its head again.
If I were an American who owned a small English football club and discovered, thanks to Wrexham, that my fellow Americans had suddenly taken an interest in small English football clubs then I'd be looking to sell in four minutes, not years.
It looks like the Couhigs have been super lucky in getting in at the start of a bubble and they'd be fools not to cash in. Good for them. They were part of one of the greatest seasons this club has ever had and when the access road is built in 2050 it should be named Couhig Way.
Have to disagree. An extra 1,000 fans would generate circa £700k in gate receipts alone over the season. Add in additional spending whilst at the ground, plus an improvement in atmosphere and I think it would make a huge difference.
He made a bit of sense on this for me, basically said if the club and the landowner are ok with it and it gets people in and out a bit quicker on the 25 days a year it gets used and eases traffic elsewhere then what's the problem, sounds like he's finding planning permission a bit more difficult.
We have planning controls in this country especially on protected land though. I think that is generally a good thing.
Do you really think @glasshalffull that our attendances would increase from c 5000 to c 10,000 because of the new road?
No I don’t as long as we are in League One but if we are in the Championship, yes I do. In any case, I was responding to the poster who doubted if an increase in attendances of 1,000 people would make a significant difference to our finances.
What makes you think (assuming we stay in Lg1) that a new road would increase average attendances by 1000 or even 500?
As I said, I was responding to another poster. I do think a new route in to Adams Park would make a difference but to what extent I have no idea.
Fair enough Alan.
If it was provided free and ignoring the planning and environmental issues, I would agree with you that it can't do any harm.
Its hard to see though how you could restrict access to just those who wouldn't have come otherwise and hence any incremental revenue is likely to be very small. And the cost is likely to be very high. Its very hard to see how the business case could ever stack up even if planning wasn't an issue.
Out of curiosity, where would those additional cars go when they get to Adams Park? Unless we build a new car park surely it will be pretty much the same people who currently pay to park on the side of the hill, albeit the journey out at the end of the game will be a lot easier.
I think if we do build an access road it would make a lot more sense to me to make it 'bus only' with a park and ride field the other end. Can't imagine it would take more than 5-10 minutes for a bus to make the trip, and even if you timetable a wait in for a return bus that may be quicker and a lot easier than 250 cars all snaking along the same road
It must be remembered that just before they came in, super upbeat Gareth was doing interviews noticeably looking bleak about the future on a shoestring. The Couhigs changed that.
However, on the flip side the Couhigs massively lucked out in having his incredible management, mixed with things just going our way that promotion season. Without Gareth's management, we don't get near the championship, and you'd suspect more scrutiny would have been placed on the price increases and most other changes. The undeniable successes, such as new floodlights, wifi and boards, arguably wouldn't have happened, so you wonder what we'd have been left with without promotion.
Nobody can quantify accurately how many people have tutted in the queue home and decided never to return or thought about coming but decided it was too much hassle. They could be future season ticket holders. There's also those who would benefit from the advantages of a quick shuttle bus to the station or the ability to get away reasonably quickly after a game for something else, and eventually if we did want to go to 12,000 or so seats or more or even back to using 10k at some point access would no doubt be argued as an issue.
Not at any price of course but if all RC manages to do is get an agreement with the Dashwoods and some kind of idea of costs and what would be acceptable to the council I'd say he'd have got more progress than many. If it's all part of a plan to attract investment into the club then that might not be all bad either.
Yes, they were only here to churn the business after all. Hopefully, they can find someone to pass it along to as the contrary doesn't look good at all........
250 cars would equal £700,000 of extra turnover if they were inhabited by four new people for 23 games per season at £30 per head. However, this looks rather unrealistically positive to me but I might well be wrong.
This all seems like gambling roughly £3,000,000 per year on the Championship and then flogging it on. If this doesn't work, I can't help feeling that we'd look on this rather differently if it was another club..........
All football ownership is a gamble...I don't think they blew anything on getting to the Championship...the team Gareth assembled was essentially a L1 one and with hard-work and some luck...achieved what (surely) we all thought we would never see. The problem for them was expecting it again! (Though we nearly did it for goodness sake!)
Yea we nearly did it and maybe when they look back they may being thinking ‘what if we had strengthened the squad in January and got those extra points’?
We will never now but that may have helped us stay in the Championship and thus get at least another share of the TV money.
Know not now
We needed The Player? 😉
What I meant was we nearly made it again via the playoffs but I get your point but again I think we came down because we drew two games we were winning at the tail-end of the season as I recall...those four points would have done it....so would a striker or a defender have secured survival? Or should we greedily have had both? Or have confidence in the assembled squad? That ownership thing is tricky. That and having no money is why I would not do it.
"What if we had listened to Aloysius's advice over signing The Player"
If we were a Championship side we would sell out almost every home game without extra parking, flushing loos, bag snacks. If not we won’t, no matter how good the road, bogs, chips are.
What this factory makes is football. And winning football gets bums on seats. The owners need to accept this.
So invest in the football and everything may follow. Don’t and it certainly won’t.