FFP

[Stu82]

It’s showing real progress, and we will have a hit this year with dropping to the Europa league, but commercial will continue to develop to offset some.

Outside of sky six and Newcastle, we are leaving other teams in our wake.

Yes there are bumps in the road but the figures suggest to me we are on our way to be a 5-600m Euro club able to compete at the top level.

How though Stu?  That figure was the result of us being in the Champions League and having a full house for pretty much every game.  How does the club generate that additional £100m - £150m on top of that?

This isn't a game where "one extra thing" suddenly generates another £100m.  This is a process of incremental gains.  The recent new 'training kit' sponsor being just one example of that.  Each of these smaller extra revenue streams adds up to a bigger number at the end of the year. 

It's no surprise that the clubs with the biggest revenue are the ones that have sponsors coming out of their arses for every conceivable element of the club.  Man Utd have an official wine partner, an official mattress partner, and an official skin care partner, for example - and PLENTY of others.  I'm sure none of these individually is megabucks, but they all add millions to the bottom line every year.  But you don't get businesses like that looking for any possible way to align with you unless you're successful.  And that part is starting now.  Our profile is growing, and sponsors will want to be part of that, some betting on us continuing our journey upwards.

In addition, our EXISTING revenue sources will grow as our profile and success continues to grow.  Sponsors will pay more while we're a team at the top end of the league and in Europe.  Corporates will pay more as a day out at the Villa is seen as more prestigious.  We'll earn more when we're in Europe as our coefficient will be higher.  Again, all these increase revenues, not in huge jumps individually, but in aggregate it can add up to millions.

I'll be honest, if the €450m figure is accurate, then we're already closer than I thought we were.  I genuinely thought it would be another 5 years of regular top 6 finishes and maybe some silverware before we were properly on the tails of the 'big 6', but we're not far away now, and I could see us up at Chelsea's level in another couple of years (assuming current on-pitch trajectories continue).

I was going to give a quick response, however Smithy has nailed it.
The key areas of the business are all growing, and a 52k stadium will grow matchday revenue a lot.

Next year will dip, however probably not as much as feared, as new deals come in.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The gap is commercial deals. Shirt sponsorship, partners etc.

Aren't we having a new sponsor next season? Let's pray Francesco Calvo can do a better job at finding one than he did at Juventus.

[paul_e]

Looking at the deloitte stuff we were listed as 71% earning:wages ratio which is slightly higher than I expected (I predicted it as being just under 70% given what we were paying Rashford, Asensio, etc.). I hope that doesn't mean that we end up still under the same restrictions next season because that would be crippling for us.

[DennisHodgetts]

Can someone cleverer than me explain why say ourselves, Newcastle and a couple of other clubs with the right owners have a Summer tournament sponsored by our respective owners companies with massive prize money? No worse than the nonsense Man City seem to be able to do with connected airlines etc and suddenly ourselves and Newcastle have "won" millions of pounds extra to go to our commercial income etc?

[LeeB]

Can someone cleverer than me explain why say ourselves, Newcastle and a couple of other clubs with the right owners have a Summer tournament sponsored by our respective owners companies with massive prize money? No worse than the nonsense Man City seem to be able to do with connected airlines etc and suddenly ourselves and Newcastle have "won" millions of pounds extra to go to our commercial income etc?

The Tyne-Tame Super Cup, contested each year solely by Villa and Newcastle, the winners receive £150,000,001 and the runners up £149,999,999.

[Monty]

Can someone cleverer than me explain why say ourselves, Newcastle and a couple of other clubs with the right owners have a Summer tournament sponsored by our respective owners companies with massive prize money? No worse than the nonsense Man City seem to be able to do with connected airlines etc and suddenly ourselves and Newcastle have "won" millions of pounds extra to go to our commercial income etc?

The Tyne-Tame Super Cup, contested each year solely by Villa and Newcastle, the winners receive £150,000,001 and the runners up £149,999,999.

Nothing could improve Villa-Toon relations more.

[Pat Mustard]

Of course, there is absolutely nothing remotely suspicious about the fact that Manchester City's matchday and broadcasting incomes are broadly comparable to ours, but their commercial income is only outstripped by Real, Barca and Bayern.

Also, Barca's matchday income (bettered only by Real Madrid) appears a bit shady given they haven't been playing at the Nou Camp for the whole of the year covered and were getting crowds of less than half their usual size.

[Kevin Dawson]

Can someone cleverer than me explain why say ourselves, Newcastle and a couple of other clubs with the right owners have a Summer tournament sponsored by our respective owners companies with massive prize money? No worse than the nonsense Man City seem to be able to do with connected airlines etc and suddenly ourselves and Newcastle have "won" millions of pounds extra to go to our commercial income etc?

That's an excellent idea. Also, with GA+ seats, could the owners pay, say, £5m per game for their seats?

[AV82EC]

All turnover items particularly sponsorships and match day income and transfer fees need to pass a “fair value” test. If they are seen as inflated PL and UEFA will just reduce the value of the item in your submission.

[lovejoy]

Explain to me how the sale of the Chelsea ladies team for £200m gets through this fair value test? It has £12m income and £20m costs (in the period of sale), and attendances less than 10,000.

[thick_mike]

Can someone cleverer than me explain why say ourselves, Newcastle and a couple of other clubs with the right owners have a Summer tournament sponsored by our respective owners companies with massive prize money? No worse than the nonsense Man City seem to be able to do with connected airlines etc and suddenly ourselves and Newcastle have "won" millions of pounds extra to go to our commercial income etc?

That's an excellent idea. Also, with GA+ seats, could the owners pay, say, £5m per game for their seats?

Or they could put £25 behind the bar for every spectator…would increase matchday revenue by £1m per game

[Chris Harte]

Every club in that list with the exception of Benfica (19th) & West Ham (20th) have commercial revenues far in excess of our own. Our own figure of €83m is dwarfed by next highest Stuttgart (€106m) and then Newcastle at €139m.

While it's easy to say we'll have a new sponsor next season and that'll help, I can't help thinking the ban on gambling companies on front of shirt sponsors could water down any amount we get.

Where I do think there is room for improvement is the sleeve sponsor. I looked into this previously and found that most Premier League clubs had a sleeve sponsor who's value was between a third and a fifth of the front of shirt sponsor. Villa's sleeve sponsor reportedly pays a tenth of the amount Betano currently do. That said, I'm unclear on when the sleeve sponsor contract is up for renewal.

Other information.
Newcastle Front of Shirt - Sela £25m
Newcastle Sleeve - Noon £7.5m (30% of Fos)
Tottenham Front of Shirt - AIA £40m
Tottenham Sleeve - Kraken £10m (25% of Fos)
Villa Front of Shirt - Betano £20m
Villa Sleeve - Trade Nation £2m (10% of Fos)

[paul_e]

While it's easy to say we'll have a new sponsor next season and that'll help, I can't help thinking the ban on gambling companies on front of shirt sponsors could water down any amount we get.

Not going to quote the whole thing but this bit is worth a reply. The current £20m was signed before we had a UCL QF and a Europa League R16 (as it stands) under our belts and when our challenge towards the top of the league could easily have been a flash in the pan, rather than 4 seasons in a row. That means the 'market rate' should be at least £30m by any measure. If we can't get that from anyone else there's absolutely nothing to stop us adding a Sawaris/Edens/Atairos company on there for that sort of figure.

Add to that other changes and I can see our commercial revenue taking a fair jump next year. I'd be surprised if we don't, at the very least, overtake Stuttgart in that list.

[Sexual Ealing]

As we're the PL's most televised club, there must be a fair market value case to be made that ours ought to be at least as much as Tottenham's, and probably more on account of them being just, fucking hell, Spurs.

[Chris Harte]

While it's easy to say we'll have a new sponsor next season and that'll help, I can't help thinking the ban on gambling companies on front of shirt sponsors could water down any amount we get.

Not going to quote the whole thing but this bit is worth a reply. The current £20m was signed before we had a UCL QF and a Europa League R16 (as it stands) under our belts and when our challenge towards the top of the league could easily have been a flash in the pan, rather than 4 seasons in a row. That means the 'market rate' should be at least £30m by any measure. If we can't get that from anyone else there's absolutely nothing to stop us adding a Sawaris/Edens/Atairos company on there for that sort of figure.

Add to that other changes and I can see our commercial revenue taking a fair jump next year. I'd be surprised if we don't, at the very least, overtake Stuttgart in that list.

It's a fair point about when the deal was done, Paul, I just can't help thinking the gambling sponsor ban will adversely affect the values of new deals. Now it could be the next FoS sponsor pays £30m a season, I just think without the gambling ban it might be above that purely because with the betting ban there will be less companies bidding for the Fos deal.