Skip to main content

How do League Two clubs survive?

The latest accounts for Exeter City have come out. They are in the small company format, so there is limited information, but they lost £792,000 in a year. However, they only owe money to the Supporters' Society who are an industrial and provident trust and the sole owners.

One challenge for Exeter is they are in a city with a very successful rugby union side. The surrounding area has a high retired population who may not be inclined to come to matches and/or have allegiances to up country clubs.

Accrington Stanley are having a very successful season, but they are sandwiched between a Premier League club at Burnley and Blackburn Rovers that fell on hard times, but are now reviving. A Burnley fan tells me that some of their fans do treat Accrington as a second club if they want to see a game when the Clarets aren't playing. In 2016/17 they had the lowest average home attendance in League Two at 1,699. The figure for Exeter was 4,166. Lower league clubs are very reliant on gate money whereas it is only around 15 per cent of the income of a typical Premier League club.

Stadium occupancy in the Premier League is 96.5 per cent, in League Two it is 52 per cent in much smaller stadiums.

The club is on a more stable financial footing since Andy Holt, a local businessman, bought it in 2015. When three players left last summer, the fact that they were on longer term contracts meant that £750,000 could be recouped in transfer fees. About £2m has been invested to improving the decaying facilities that caused the floodlights to trip out when a substituted player went for a shower and tripped the power during the play off game against Wimbledon. There are plans for a new stand to replace the 'cow shed' that runs along one side of the pitch and also for a new training ground (players currently train at the local leisure centre).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Threat of financial calamity removed from Baggies

West Bromwich Albion had effectively been in decline ever since the club was sold to a Chinese consortium in August 2016, paying a figure north of £200m to buy former owner Jeremy Peace’s stake. Controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai’s ownership was fairly disastrous for the club, but his unloved tenure finally came to an end after Bilkul Football WBA, a company ultimately owned by Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel and his father Dr Kiran Patel, acquired an 87.8% shareholding in West Bromwich Albion Group Limited, the parent company of West Bromwich Albion Football Club. This change in ownership was urgently required, due to the numerous financial problems facing West Brom, including growing high-interest debt and serious cash flow concerns, following years of no investment from the former owner. Indeed, West Brom’s auditors had already rung the alarm bell in the 2021/22 accounts when they cast doubt on the club’s ability to continue as a going concern without making player s...
1 comment
Read more

Gold standard ground boosts Tottenham's income

The gold standard in European football grounds is the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in north London, a £1bn construction project completed in 2019. Its impact on the club’s finances has become increasingly clear as the effects of the pandemic have faded. Previously, the average fan would spend less than £2 inside the ground on a typical match day, but now that figure is about £16, thanks to new facilities including the longest bar in Europe and an on-site microbrewery. Capacity has gone up from 36,000 at the club’s previous home of White Hart Lane to 62,000.  The new stadium — built on land adjacent to White Hart Lane — has opened the door to a broad range of other events that have helped to push commercial income up from €117mn in 2018 to €215mn in 2022. Last year, Tottenham hosted US singer Beyoncé for five nights on her global Renaissance tour, two NFL matches, as well as rugby games and heavyweight boxing bouts.  Money brought in from football has gone up too. Match day ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs to sell minority stake

Tottenham Hotspur is in talks to sell a minority stake in a deal that could value it at up to £3.75 billion and pave the way for Joe Lewis and his family to sever ties with the Premier League football club. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is seeking an investment that values the club at between £3.5 billion and £3.75 billion, including debt. While the terms of any deal have not been finalised, City sources expect Spurs to sell about 10 per cent. The club is being advised by bankers from Rothschild on the sale. Tottenham wants to raise fresh capital for new player signings and to help fund the development of an academy for its women’s team, as well as a 30-storey hotel next to its north London stadium. The financier Amanda Staveley, who brokered the deal for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to take over Newcastle United, is understood to be among the parties to have expressed an interest in Tottenham. Staveley’s fund, PCP Capital Partners, has raised about £500 million to ...
Post a Comment
Read more