Chris Heck - President of Business Operations

[chrisw1]

At least at Spurs and Arsenal, in return for getting fleeced you get two modern stadiums with facilities fit for watching football in the 21st century. And with Arsenal, it's a piece of piss to both get to, and away from.

Of course, but nevertheless it's clearly not true to say that other clubs have continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.  Infact, without googling I strongly suspect that with the exception of Man City our league match day prices are cheaper than all the other 'Big 6' clubs we are trying to compete with.

For John's sake I will reconfirm my view that the CL prices were far too high.  The truth is they could have sold all seats at a Cat A prices (which I again feel is too high but that is now an established price for this season) and surely there would have been much less outcry.  As season ticket holders are paying that price anyway, we'd only be talking about knocking £15 off for what, about 6k general admission tickets?

[kippaxvilla2]

‘Just don’t go, GO!
Just don’t go! 

You’ve been asked for a lot of cash.  Just say no.  Just don’t go just don’t go! ‘

[The Edge]

At least at Spurs and Arsenal, in return for getting fleeced you get two modern stadiums with facilities fit for watching football in the 21st century. And with Arsenal, it's a piece of piss to both get to, and away from.

Of course, but nevertheless it's clearly not true to say that other clubs have continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.  Infact, without googling I strongly suspect that with the exception of Man City our league match day prices are cheaper than all the other 'Big 6' clubs we are trying to compete with.

For John's sake I will reconfirm my view that the CL prices were far too high.  The truth is they could have sold all seats at a Cat A prices (which I again feel is too high but that is now an established price for this season) and surely there would have been much less outcry.  As season ticket holders are paying that price anyway, we'd only be talking about knocking £15 off for what, about 6k general admission tickets?

Newcastle and Liverpool have both recently done deals with concessions when playing in the Champions league. Liverpool even did a cheapest kids one for £9. Our fans are being hammered in their pockets. Whether you think it's justified or not is a different matter. My current circumstances mean I can afford it but I'm not a bloke in his thirties with a massive mortgage and young kids to feed. Ordinary people like that with averagely paid jobs are  being frozen out and it's those people I'm voicing concern for. Lose 'em young and you risk losing 'em forever.

[Mister E]

Robbing the loyal fanbase is the lazy, easy and pathetic option. What Heck should be focusing on is driving up the commercial sponsor revenue streams , that's where the big untapped opportunities lie.

If it were that easy, it would have been done.
Sponsors and other commercial deals take time to be completed, and the putative partners are not just going to rock up and part with their dosh. If we're a regular Chumps League combatant, we'll get good, long-term and lucrative deals - for now, we've got what Heck has arranged. But it'll take time.
Unless you believe in the fabled money tree ...

[Paul.S]

Are the club are interested in attracting young, long term supporters to be the lifeblood of this club for years?

[chrisw1]

At least at Spurs and Arsenal, in return for getting fleeced you get two modern stadiums with facilities fit for watching football in the 21st century. And with Arsenal, it's a piece of piss to both get to, and away from.

Of course, but nevertheless it's clearly not true to say that other clubs have continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.  Infact, without googling I strongly suspect that with the exception of Man City our league match day prices are cheaper than all the other 'Big 6' clubs we are trying to compete with.

For John's sake I will reconfirm my view that the CL prices were far too high.  The truth is they could have sold all seats at a Cat A prices (which I again feel is too high but that is now an established price for this season) and surely there would have been much less outcry.  As season ticket holders are paying that price anyway, we'd only be talking about knocking £15 off for what, about 6k general admission tickets?

Newcastle and Liverpool have both recently done deals with concessions when playing in the Champions league. Liverpool even did a cheapest kids one for £9. Our fans are being hammered in their pockets. Whether you think it's justified or not is a different matter. My current circumstances mean I can afford it but I'm not a bloke in his thirties with a massive mortgage and young kids to feed. Ordinary people like that with averagely paid jobs are  being frozen out and it's those people I'm voicing concern for. Lose 'em young and you risk losing 'em forever.

It's not just about the CL though is it?  Would you be happy with minimum £1k + season tickets and £100+ pw ticket prices if we did a deal on the CL games?  As that's what the alturistic 6 have been charging for years.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that other clubs have not continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.

I also don't think Newcastle are the greatest example as they are also fucked by PSR, just like us and they have the benefit of a 52k seater stadium.

[chrisw1]

Are the club are interested in attracting young, long term supporters to be the lifeblood of this club for years?

I don't think it's Heck's priority right now no.  We seem to be making decisions on an incredibly short-term basis right now.  I guess their gamble is that if we are successful the popularity with kids will follow, which is why you see Chelsea shirts in Wales and have Man U and Man C fans in Cornwall.

[Accent Guy]

"Just don't go" is about the only thing you can actually do though. If the response to price increases was a drop in attendance that left us with 80% occupancy and no increase in turnover then the club would be forced to reconsider.

From the perspective of Heck/the club they'll have 5-6 initiatives (pricing, GA+, the fanzone, new shop, the warehouse thing to come later and maybe others) which individually might be worth a relative pittance but if between them it adds up to £25-30m a season that's a big percentage of the 'gap' between where we are and the targeted £400m. Have the same (or more) from sponsors and then add in the CL money and it all adds up to a big jump in revenue that they'll see as us giving Emery the funds he needs to take another big step forward.

We'll then be looking to take yet another big step forward with finances (and is when I suspect the big stadium changes would come in) because £500m gets us in the same area as the London clubs from the 'big 6'.

Sponsors is where the big increase in income should be coming from.  I've stated before, if ManU can partner up with pressure washing and compressor companies why can't we do similar?  Okay, it needs sustained achievements to become interesting to these organisations as our global reach becomes bigger but we can start with more of them on a smaller scale.  It will take a lot of effort and hard work but it's what we should be aiming at.  Heck wants to use the low hanging fruit to get almost instant gratification in an effort to get his bonus.

but I literally said that, if you'd just included the start of the sentence you added a bold bit to. Yes we need to get more money from sponsorship but it's just silly to ignore matchday revenue as a stream. From the last set of published accounts gate receipts were less than 19m, commercial was a little over 30m and sponsors were a shockingly low 16m for a total about 55m. In context in that same year Arsenal and Chelsea made over 300m each and the other 'big 6' were all over 400m.

To compete in the long term we need to improve on all 3 measures. GA+, hospitality, better merchandising and improved concession sales are where I'd have liked the club to focus but I'm not surprised that they've pushed on the gate receipts as well because there are only so many levers they can shift and the longer we take in closing that gap the harder it will become.

I'm not a Heck apologist (whatever the fuck that even means) but I think "he's just trying to earn his bonus" completely ignores the fact that if he has a bonus set at us hitting £400m t/o then getting to that figure is important to the owners and there's every chance that they have set the timescale.

I agree with your points but there's not a hope in hell that we will ever turnover that kind of money. £400m? We have a 42,000 seater stadium in one of the most unfashionable cities in the UK.

Not being in London, Manchester or Liverpool really makes a difference. The majority of people I meet around the world (Asia/Africa/Latin America) have never even heard of Birmingham. We can thank our shit neighbours for that.

Manchester having the name of the city in it's two massive clubs names, as with Liverpool, is a huge factor. And London is London.

[Toronto Villa]

Are the club are interested in attracting young, long term supporters to be the lifeblood of this club for years?

The club will get them by being successful and being marketed well playing in the best competitions. Nobody wanted to be a Man City or Chelsea fan when they were shit. There are loads of us on here who remember those days well.

[Paul.S]

Are the club are interested in attracting young, long term supporters to be the lifeblood of this club for years?

I don't think it's Heck's priority right now no.  We seem to be making decisions on an incredibly short-term basis right now.  I guess their gamble is that if we are successful the popularity with kids will follow, which is why you see Chelsea shirts in Wales and have Man U and Man C fans in Cornwall.

I agree, it’s definitely not his priority but it should be one of the owners priorities. I don’t think he’ll be here anywhere long enough to see kids from other cities wearing our shirts.
Celebrating our 150th anniversary by rinsing the loyal support whilst they wade in piss seems to be the thing.

[RamboandBruno]

"Just don't go" is about the only thing you can actually do though. If the response to price increases was a drop in attendance that left us with 80% occupancy and no increase in turnover then the club would be forced to reconsider.

From the perspective of Heck/the club they'll have 5-6 initiatives (pricing, GA+, the fanzone, new shop, the warehouse thing to come later and maybe others) which individually might be worth a relative pittance but if between them it adds up to £25-30m a season that's a big percentage of the 'gap' between where we are and the targeted £400m. Have the same (or more) from sponsors and then add in the CL money and it all adds up to a big jump in revenue that they'll see as us giving Emery the funds he needs to take another big step forward.

We'll then be looking to take yet another big step forward with finances (and is when I suspect the big stadium changes would come in) because £500m gets us in the same area as the London clubs from the 'big 6'.

Sponsors is where the big increase in income should be coming from.  I've stated before, if ManU can partner up with pressure washing and compressor companies why can't we do similar?  Okay, it needs sustained achievements to become interesting to these organisations as our global reach becomes bigger but we can start with more of them on a smaller scale.  It will take a lot of effort and hard work but it's what we should be aiming at.  Heck wants to use the low hanging fruit to get almost instant gratification in an effort to get his bonus.

but I literally said that, if you'd just included the start of the sentence you added a bold bit to. Yes we need to get more money from sponsorship but it's just silly to ignore matchday revenue as a stream. From the last set of published accounts gate receipts were less than 19m, commercial was a little over 30m and sponsors were a shockingly low 16m for a total about 55m. In context in that same year Arsenal and Chelsea made over 300m each and the other 'big 6' were all over 400m.

To compete in the long term we need to improve on all 3 measures. GA+, hospitality, better merchandising and improved concession sales are where I'd have liked the club to focus but I'm not surprised that they've pushed on the gate receipts as well because there are only so many levers they can shift and the longer we take in closing that gap the harder it will become.

I'm not a Heck apologist (whatever the fuck that even means) but I think "he's just trying to earn his bonus" completely ignores the fact that if he has a bonus set at us hitting £400m t/o then getting to that figure is important to the owners and there's every chance that they have set the timescale.

Pail, I generally agree with lots of what you post, but the current financial strategy or at least that aimed at putting up matchday prices, is the height of short termism for our club.
Man Utd have been average for years but they have such a global pull from their history since the 50s/60s, that it hasnt really mattered so far, in terms of their global brand, shirt sales, sponsorship deals and match day attendances.

If we dont make the champions league this year or actually if and when Emery leaves and we possibly suffer a downturn, all of us regular attenders who are being squeezed slowly but surely out now, very well may not return. My one vice is im not a gambler but i would pretty much bet my house that the new corporate brigade or even the punters that fork out £90 odd for my seats against Bolgona, won’t be there if we have a season where it looks like we’ll finish say 12th.

Heck will be long gone having met his remit, but there are risks being taken here on us becoming this global brand, where ultimately ‘us lot’ dont matter. Bayern Munich doesn’t matter in all this, but albeit a cliche, Brentford on a wet Sunday in November in  two or three years might.

[simboy]

Add to the general approach to the existing facilities, the terrace view limiting the upper. STH buying tickets and not having real seats; the debacle over the disabled car parking; the uefa ticket pricing; the away “strategy” for UCL; the uncovered seating for the “cells”; moving STH’s around; not filing uefa accounts on time and attracting a fine; staff unable (or unwilling) to pour a pint

A lot of the above will push fans who go to B6 away to the comfort of a pub or the settee. A dip in form and the value of “GA” cash might be appreciated. God forbid we ever end up in the championship again.

As we stand currently Villa have got it very right on the pitch but pretty wrong off it. The value  of the people attending was highlighted in Covid when no one attended. The game was sterile notwithstanding the 7-2.

[The Edge]

At least at Spurs and Arsenal, in return for getting fleeced you get two modern stadiums with facilities fit for watching football in the 21st century. And with Arsenal, it's a piece of piss to both get to, and away from.

Of course, but nevertheless it's clearly not true to say that other clubs have continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.  Infact, without googling I strongly suspect that with the exception of Man City our league match day prices are cheaper than all the other 'Big 6' clubs we are trying to compete with.

For John's sake I will reconfirm my view that the CL prices were far too high.  The truth is they could have sold all seats at a Cat A prices (which I again feel is too high but that is now an established price for this season) and surely there would have been much less outcry.  As season ticket holders are paying that price anyway, we'd only be talking about knocking £15 off for what, about 6k general admission tickets?

Newcastle and Liverpool have both recently done deals with concessions when playing in the Champions league. Liverpool even did a cheapest kids one for £9. Our fans are being hammered in their pockets. Whether you think it's justified or not is a different matter. My current circumstances mean I can afford it but I'm not a bloke in his thirties with a massive mortgage and young kids to feed. Ordinary people like that with averagely paid jobs are  being frozen out and it's those people I'm voicing concern for. Lose 'em young and you risk losing 'em forever.

It's not just about the CL though is it?  Would you be happy with minimum £1k + season tickets and £100+ pw ticket prices if we did a deal on the CL games?  As that's what the alturistic 6 have been charging for years.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that other clubs have not continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.

I also don't think Newcastle are the greatest example as they are also fucked by PSR, just like us and they have the benefit of a 52k seater stadium.

Why would we have to pay a grand for season tickets and 100 quid for matchday tickets in the PL just because the club offered concession package deals in the CL? As many on here have pointed out numerous times the price of a match  ticket is a small percentage of the clubs overall revenue so it's just so unnecessary to squeeze the pips out of the fans. Add that to all the other crap things Heck has presided over and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. In his short spell at the club he has  created a lot of animosity at a time when we should be having the time of our lives.

[chrisw1]

At least at Spurs and Arsenal, in return for getting fleeced you get two modern stadiums with facilities fit for watching football in the 21st century. And with Arsenal, it's a piece of piss to both get to, and away from.

Of course, but nevertheless it's clearly not true to say that other clubs have continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.  Infact, without googling I strongly suspect that with the exception of Man City our league match day prices are cheaper than all the other 'Big 6' clubs we are trying to compete with.

For John's sake I will reconfirm my view that the CL prices were far too high.  The truth is they could have sold all seats at a Cat A prices (which I again feel is too high but that is now an established price for this season) and surely there would have been much less outcry.  As season ticket holders are paying that price anyway, we'd only be talking about knocking £15 off for what, about 6k general admission tickets?

Newcastle and Liverpool have both recently done deals with concessions when playing in the Champions league. Liverpool even did a cheapest kids one for £9. Our fans are being hammered in their pockets. Whether you think it's justified or not is a different matter. My current circumstances mean I can afford it but I'm not a bloke in his thirties with a massive mortgage and young kids to feed. Ordinary people like that with averagely paid jobs are  being frozen out and it's those people I'm voicing concern for. Lose 'em young and you risk losing 'em forever.

It's not just about the CL though is it?  Would you be happy with minimum £1k + season tickets and £100+ pw ticket prices if we did a deal on the CL games?  As that's what the alturistic 6 have been charging for years.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that other clubs have not continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.

I also don't think Newcastle are the greatest example as they are also fucked by PSR, just like us and they have the benefit of a 52k seater stadium.

Why would we have to pay a grand for season tickets and 100 quid for matchday tickets in the PL just because the club offered concession package deals in the CL? As many on here have pointed out numerous times the price of a match  ticket is a small percentage of the clubs overall revenue so it's just so unnecessary to squeeze the pips out of the fans. Add that to all the other crap things Heck has presided over and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. In his short spell at the club he has  created a lot of animosity at a time when we should be having the time of our lives.

Right, the point I'm making is that all the 'Big 6' have not 'continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket'
I supported this by pointing to their £1k+ season tickets and £100 match day tickets for league games.

You responded by saying their CL tickets are cheaper.  Implying that they indeed are not 'hammering loyal supporters' as per the original hypothesis.

And I responded to this by asking if you would prefer the higher League match ticket prices in return for the lower CL prices these clubs charge.  This was my way of demonstrating to you that these clubs do indeed hammer their fans even if their CL tickets are cheaper than ours.

Sorry if this comes across badly, but I'm just trying to draw a line under this part of the discussion which was just in reference to that comment.  I entirely agree that our CL prices are too high, I'm just pointing out that all the clubs we are trying to compete with (perhaps bar Man City - I haven't looked) also fleece their fans - and over the course of a season by substantially more than we do.

[VillaTim]

My point was the on-field success has put it on a plate to get better commercial deals. Anyone could have done it off the back of Emery's magic.

and your point is largely wrong, aside from anything else we had to negotiate exits from our existing deals which were both supposed to run for this season before we even started talks with replacements, that's not easy and should be shrugged away as something anyone could do.

After that, and given the time involved, the deals will also have been in talks since last Autumn (with Adidas almost certainly signed by about November at the latest) when all we had was a good start the season (with a couple of heavy defeats mixed in).

Is it really so hard for you to accept that there are things that Heck has done well since he arrived?

Given Sawari's is on the board at Adidas and one of the main shareholders any credit given to Heck for brokering the Adidas deal is laughable . Thank you Nas, Fuck off Heck