How can bfc justify charging top of the league prices

Your post and I don't mean this negatively to you, leaves me in despair.
The game is ****ed into a cocked hat. A season like we had and we STILL lose money. Somethings got to give

 

You think that bfc buy shirts for £22.50? The same shirts that can be purchased online minus the club badge for about £12?

There are far more than 10,000 fans. You know that the pay on the day fans from match A are not the exact same people as match B right? You know that don't you?

You also know that Patrick cryne had to subsidise those fans due to his own mismanagement right? Failing to maximise the revenue streams meant he had to bridge the gap. Now according to him there would still be a gap to fund and I agree but where we differ is that he /you thinks 'we still a loss so what's the point' where as I think that if we can reduce that loss then it's less money he has to put in

 

Not only that but I'd still love to know where the chuff the money goes

 

Why would a company, Barnsley FC, not want to bring something in that makes money? They'd be all over it. That's where your argument falls down. I understand your frustration about seats not being cleaned and peeling paint and the like. But that's the club running a tight ship, not wanting to spend a bit extra on that sort of stuff. But this is different, this would make them money, if you're right. They would do it if it made money, absolutely they would.

 

OK, we make £33 per shirt and we sell say 2000 shirts through the club shop so we make £66,000 gross profit selling shirts. How much are the direct costs of the club shop in your opinion.

 

You say we should expect better facilities OR lower prices. But what about the quality of the product on the pitch, is that not what matters most?

Prices have gone up this season for non ST holders (it remains to be seen by how much), but so has the amount we've spent on players and so will the quality of football we watch at Oakwell. If I was in a cafe and the prices had gone up, I'd expect the quality of the food to improve. The surroundings are a nice to have but not an essential. And that's what is most likely to suffer when said cafe is losing millions of pounds a year.

The football is our bread and butter and the club have made a concerted effort to invest in players and improve the quality of the football. What are we getting for our money this season? Same facilities (scoreboard apart) but better quality football (hopefully from us but certainly from the opposition). As I've said before in this thread, the clubs priorities are correct as good football is what gets the customers through the gates.

In any case, the status quo isn't working. We're losing money hand over fist and that will continue to be the case if something doesn't change, regardless of how good the facilities are. Cost savings need to be made and revenue needs to increase if we're going to continue as a club. We're heavily reliant on one fan who pumps in millions and that just isn't sustainable.

I'd love to hear an alternative to option from anyone as to how we can become profitable. Nothing is forecoming though but pressure to keep the prices low, improve the facilities and to be competitive in a league where we have a bottom three budget.

 

Can I recommend that you get a copy of the club accounts. They are available from companies house web site and can be down loaded and printed out. Although the accounts are 24 pages in length, this is the only cost that you will incur. They may answer one or two of your questions.

If a player is paid £4k per week, this is say £210k per year. If the average price of a season ticket, taking account of OAPs and juniors is £300 per season it takes 700 season ticket holders to pay for that player's wages. This is back of a *** packet stuff, and takes no account of the clubs other income streams, but it is instructive to look at things like this I think.

My problem with your posting style is that you love to pose questions and leave them hanging. It would be much more helpful if you explained the logic of your questions and attempted to justify that logic by providing facts and figures.

 

Plenty of fan's forums , Q and A sessions where you can voice these concerns - club does a lot to engage with the fans . I'm sure Patrick or Linton will be happy to answer any questions.

 

Do you know the fine details of that 50/50 deal? Often it's 50% of any profit, but 100% of any loss. Any revenue generated firstly pays off the monthly instalment for the equipment and any running costs. If there is any left, quids in, 50% of profits. But if the revenue generated doesn't cover the cost then the club make that up. I just don't see how advertisement revenue from 2 games a month playing to just a few thousand people could possibly cover the cost. Happily stand corrected if you can point me in the direction of any figures Chesterfield have published claiming otherwise.

 

Not wanting to sound like Billy Big Balls or owt, but if Chesterfield, Walsall, Shrewsbury and Colchester can have video screens, you'd have to assume we can too.

 

Yes, as entertainment for the fans, I'm just sceptical about the argument that it's a source of income. Not saying it can't be, I'm just far from convinced.

 

That all makes complete sense

 

Don't forget, we've lost about 1/3 of a million on Ryan Williams.

 

But why would clubs with a smaller turnover than us, have one if it cost them money?

 

Vanity

 

Two words: shirts, food.

Those would make them money but they don't 'do it'. As Red Rain says, this is a lower down the tree problem but that does not excuse them from being so poor. They are paying staff wages anyway, having someone scanning a shirt through the till rather than saying 'sorry we haven't got any' would not cost anymore in terms of wages. Surely paying staff to stand around with nothing to sell is a bigger waste of wages. The idea of having stock left over is laughable as we don't even order enough to see us through Open Day. I've said it before, put a 'pre-order' button on the website then we can have a fair idea of the number of people still wanting shirts or at least a minimum number. As it is, they don't have a clue how many we still need so the batch in September could be far too small or far too large. No doubt if they don't sell all this batch they will say that they had too many and use it as an excuse to defend not having enough in the first place rather than realising that a lot of people will have changed their mind.

 

Had any been in stock this month I would definitely have bought one as a present. Now that they have none in stock I won't be buying one as a present regardless of how many they buy in September as the birthday as gone.

 

I have not stated anywhere that we'd be able to get anywhere near the money they do on theirs, that's a different planet. I was just stating l was given a quotation from the firm that supplied Man City's, they also done a few football league clubs. He stated in the email to have a look at Man City's for size comparison.

And judging by the amount that this Club from league 1 charge, l'd say the earnings are pretty spot on.

Big Screen Package Prices:

1 Game Package £400 + VAT
5 Game Package £1,500 + VAT
10 Game Package £2,000 + VAT
Seasonal Package £3,500 + VAT
Celebratory Message £30 + VAT

Page 6 for Chesterfield prices
http://www.chesterfield-fc.co.uk/documents/hospitality-brochure-201646-3140577.pdf

Chesterfields write up about their the video board and their clients is also interesting

 

Well the shop manager needs to pull their finger out of his/her arse then. I couldn't care less who's job it is, they need to do it better because they are costing the club money.

 

When I was in the club shop (admittedly a few years ago) I spoke to the shop manager at the time who told me that she was dismayed by what she had to sell but sadly she had a 'market stall budget to fill a huge shop' she couldn't afford to buy a lot of stock of kits because they wouldn't authorise the budget. She couldn't stock hugh quality merchandise because they wouldn't authorise it due to a lack f shop budget. Instead there were a few shirts spread out and cheaper merchandise placed to fill the shelves. I have no idea who 'thry' were who wouldn't increase the budget for stock holding or whether this has changed in the last few years but it shows that at one time in the past few years at least the person running the shop was unable to order more goods because of instructions from above.