And 100% on merit - and we are 12th favourites for promotion with the online bookies. They're not often wrong, but some are offering 66/1, even sky have us at 50/1. I'm not a big gambler but i might have a few quid at those prices. Yes we've lost players, but we've new ones; yes we've got a tough looking February - but I doubt any of the sides fancy playing us. There's one thing just about for sure, we won't go down. Can hardly say it would be a disaster to finish mid table - but I'd love to stick it to all the moneybags lot and sneak through. Imagine what premier league money would do for our club. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ruin us completely, I'd say. Promotion last time was unforgettable, but gave us the best & worst of times. Changed perceptions & expectations of the whole club, top to bottom, from both outside and within. No more 'win or lose......we'll have a booze' mentality from the fans, who until then just wanted a good afternoon out and see their side put a right good shift in. There'd never been mention of "we should be beating these" until we came back from that giddy adventure. Obviously, I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but I'm not sure it did the club any favours long-term.
That all depends on what you use the money for surely. It could be used to build a PROPER supporters bar, install proper big screens (even Rotherham's puts us to shame big style), to do you the stadium properly, to pay for a traffic management company to help people get to and from the stadium for years to come, to replace or renovate the west stand. It could do all that and still leave us with £100m in the bank which could easily be put into a trust fund with only a certain amount allowed to be released each year securing the future of the club for decades and stopping our reliance on one man.
That about sums it up for me. One season in the Premier League and with the right financial management the club's future is secured for the next 15-20 years. Another reason why we don't want any dubious foreign consortiums coming in. The current model is working just fine. I see no reason to change it, and with continuity and the current scouting system, I'll stick my neck out and say we'll do it within the next three years.
Last time the rewards were huge - but chicken feed in comparison to now. Barnsley's premier league income (prize money and subsequent parachute payments only) for 97/98 was less than £8million; (spreadex.com - using publicly available figures). As recently as 2006/7, including guaranteed parachute money, it was £40m. Now, it's c£175m (bottom of the premier league gets about £100million [likely to be anywhere between £97 and £105million depending on how many games are broadcast live], with a minimum £75million in parachute payments). So even parachute payments are a lot bigger and potentially for longer (it's only two years if you only stay up one season). And that is assuming relegation after just one season. If you happen to survive the first year, the guaranteed figure is nearly £300million, as the first year you'd get slightly more 'prize' money; and there'd be a an extra year of guaranteed parachute money. All in all if the club miraculously does get promoted, it would earn a bare minimum of £175 million over three years. That is just in premier league money. We would also have all the income - likely hugely increased - for gate receipts, match day purchasing, merchandise sales. So you are looking at more than £200million, including the other incomes, over three years for just one season in the premier league. Or roughly 25 times more than we got 20 years ago. An average of about £70million a year. In the last public accounts published for 2014/15 the company turned over less than £5million. We are also now not being run by an owner and chairman that is prepared to throw money we haven't got at player signings, wage packets for foreign imported players who weren't that great, sacking managers and paying a new one even more. John Dennis was a good guy IMO but chased 'the dream' a bit too much. Mr Cryne may also have removed managers from their role, but never ones who were arguably a missed penalty off getting us promoted the year before - and he's personally bankrolled us without ever risking the club going under with long term unsustainable wage deals for players. He and his advisors have made mistakes in their managerial appointments, and they happened upon our current gaffer by luck rather than judgement, but they gave him a go. I do not think for one second they would mismanage the hugely increased finances should promotion be achieved. If anything I think they'd be over cautious and under invest - making relegation likely. Damn, we'll have to make do with only £200million... and financial security for potentially decades if used properly, but years and years even if recklessly frivolous. We could also pay back an ill man every penny he has given the club. So, ruin the club? No. Not really. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I agree with this in the main but as others have said if the money you got frm promotion is invested into the future rather than the present and we clearly said what are aims were then it might have a better positive impact rather than the negative one (overall) that it had last time.
There were a lot of factors last time that led to everything going tits up. Obviously Mike Sheron's contract was one of them, but I presume it was agreed on using projected income from ITV Digital to cover it, the collapse of which couldn't really have been forseen. Unbelievable to think that objectively it's taken until this season to fully recover from that fiasco. However, what I would say is that I think that had we not been promoted to the Premier League, a lot of things would have been even worse. The ITV digital collapse would have happened anyway. Being promoted pulled up our core home support from around 7,000 in the second tier, to at least 9-10,000. Before promotion, anything over 8,0000 was considered a pretty solid crowd, and indeed when I first started watching, 5-6,000 was the norm, sinking to 4,000 during Wilson's first season, when ironically, we were absolutely superb. Also, the stint in the Premier League and subsequent sale of Ashley Ward led directly to us being able to finance major ground improvements at Oakwell. While in might be argued that the extra capacity has been rarely utilised, the flipside of the coin is that fact that better facilities arguably have a positive effect on potential signings when trying to attract them to the club.
