Some interesting numbers being trotted out to rubbish Beds which is unkind. I agree with his sentiments if not his figures.
You can quote figures from the large majority of EFL clubs and the conclusion has to be the financial performance generally throughout the leagues is awful, the stuff of nightmares for the likes of Melbourne.
The latest figures available are for the 2017-2018 season and looking up the EFL ladder only 2 clubs in the Championship reported operating and pre-tax profits, Burton and Hull City. The losses of the other clubs are substantial. The average income for clubs in the 3 divisions is Championship £31m, L1 £6M and L2 £4m. In L1, which is probably the highest level NTFC can expect to achieve in the near future pre-tax losses doubled to £81m which equates to an average loss of £3.375,000 per club. One other interesting and worrying statistic is that the wages to revenue ration in L1 was a frightening 94% and in L2 78%. Not healthy reading.
That is why I posted a week ago that to my mind the ownership model of the private limited company owned by an individual or same number of individuals is broken and needs to be changed.
As a club NTFC could and should make more of its catchment area. The club attracts about 2% of the population to home matches and that is dismal. Of course, success on the pitch has to be a critical factor in improving numbers but any success has to be sustained with much better infrastructure and planning. Then the people of Northampton will become more interested, newcomers included. Part of achieving that has to be much better connections with and participation with Northampton residents and Northampton businesses. Down the road at MK the owner there is embarking on a bold venture to converting National Bowl into a training facility with 12 pitches and a community hub for use 365 days a year. This from an owner who has incurred losses twice that of our owners. Meanwhile at Moulton College
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Good post. Burton, complete one off fluke. They even managed to get there with JFH sowing the seeds!
In all seriousness though, Im convinced that having arguably the best training facilities in the country means they can box way above their natural level, enabling them to bring in players looking 'at the long game' rather than the short term extra cash. I sat with JFH at the sponsors evening a couple of seasons back, he was on our table. I had a really long chat about his time at Burton and he couldn't make the point more forcefully that their training facilities gave them a huge advantage over other clubs. Hard to argue to be fair! With regards to Hull, parachute payments combined with chairman pulling the £ plug Id guess is the answer to that one!
