Gamble?

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wizardofos
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Gamble?

Post by wizardofos » Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:32 am

It's pretty clear that Styche and Syers have been moved on to pay for the new Commercial Manager.
Whilst it seems sensible on paper, it's a huge gamble:
Losing these two players may be what costs us our place in the NLN, with the attendant reduced income from lower crowds and (no doubt) lower admission prices.
On the other hand we have a dedicated person trying to attract income from non-turnstile sources. Our total commercial revenue (according to the accounts) from the last 2 years was circa £60k a year. So the Commercial Manager has to raise at least this, plus his costs, to move forward.
And he hasn't got anything particularly attractive to sell. Even less so if we are in the Evostik League.
I think it might have been sensible to focus revenue on maintaining our league status and hiring a Commercial Manager in the summer, when he/she would have had a new season's packages to offer to partners.

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Quaker85
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Re: Gamble?

Post by Quaker85 » Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:44 am

That’s the reality of running a football club under our fans funded model. The board will live or die by their decisions.

Personally, I believe it was the wrong decision as is continuing with Wright at the helm. Things should become clearer after the netcafe on Friday.


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al_quaker
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Re: Gamble?

Post by al_quaker » Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:47 am

We should have had a paid commercial manager in the run up to our move back to Darlington - he was a long overdue appointment.

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Re: Gamble?

Post by PierremontQuaker03 » Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:50 am

Please ask this question at the Netcafe.
We need to debate the current funding model of the club.
I remember when we signed Styche from Tamworth and the quote "We have been blown out of the water by the offer they have made him. Some of the money on offer at the moment across all of football is frightening and I'm not sure I like it."
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Robbie Painter
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Re: Gamble?

Post by Robbie Painter » Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:32 am

wizardofos wrote:It's pretty clear that Styche and Syers have been moved on to pay for the new Commercial Manager.
Whilst it seems sensible on paper, it's a huge gamble:
Losing these two players may be what costs us our place in the NLN, with the attendant reduced income from lower crowds and (no doubt) lower admission prices.
On the other hand we have a dedicated person trying to attract income from non-turnstile sources. Our total commercial revenue (according to the accounts) from the last 2 years was circa £60k a year. So the Commercial Manager has to raise at least this, plus his costs, to move forward.
And he hasn't got anything particularly attractive to sell. Even less so if we are in the Evostik League.
I think it might have been sensible to focus revenue on maintaining our league status and hiring a Commercial Manager in the summer, when he/she would have had a new season's packages to offer to partners.
This is completely incorrect. The departure of players has nothing to do with the appointment of the commercial manager.

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Re: Gamble?

Post by Darlogramps » Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:40 am

Robbie Painter wrote:
wizardofos wrote:It's pretty clear that Styche and Syers have been moved on to pay for the new Commercial Manager.
Whilst it seems sensible on paper, it's a huge gamble:
Losing these two players may be what costs us our place in the NLN, with the attendant reduced income from lower crowds and (no doubt) lower admission prices.
On the other hand we have a dedicated person trying to attract income from non-turnstile sources. Our total commercial revenue (according to the accounts) from the last 2 years was circa £60k a year. So the Commercial Manager has to raise at least this, plus his costs, to move forward.
And he hasn't got anything particularly attractive to sell. Even less so if we are in the Evostik League.
I think it might have been sensible to focus revenue on maintaining our league status and hiring a Commercial Manager in the summer, when he/she would have had a new season's packages to offer to partners.
This is completely incorrect. The departure of players has nothing to do with the appointment of the commercial manager.
I was going to say just this. Surely Styche and Syers' departures is to do with playing budget for the season (while Craig Morley's salary won't fall into that).

Our attendances and projected income are down, so it's the playing budget we have to cut to balance the books. Nothing to do with hiring Craig Morley.

I don't think it was ever the case that hiring a commercial manager would take away anything from the playing budget. Therefore the OP is entirely wrong with his post.
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Re: Gamble?

Post by wizardofos » Tue Dec 11, 2018 11:19 am

The money’s all coming out of the same pot.
If not, which budget did it come out of?
This is a £450k turn over business - they can’t just magic a full time wage out of “another budget’”

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Re: Gamble?

Post by Darlogramps » Tue Dec 11, 2018 11:46 am

wizardofos wrote:The money’s all coming out of the same pot.
If not, which budget did it come out of?
This is a £450k turn over business - they can’t just magic a full time wage out of “another budget’”
You're wrong - the playing budget was set before the start of the season, and they didn't take anything out of the playing budget to pay for the commercial manager. Our playing budget isn't £450k, so the money for the commercial manager will come out of the turnover that isn't assigned for the playing budget (plus any extra funds Morley manages to generate).

Your point of causality is wrong. You've said hiring a commercial manager caused us to sell Styche and Syers. I'm telling you that's incorrect. Hiring a commercial manager has not led to a reduction in our playing budget. Fewer fans than anticipated through the doors on matchdays has led to the reduction and subsequent sales of Styche/Syers - the club have said as much themselves.

Therefore your initial point is wrong. Now if you want to have a debate about which is more valuable - having a commercial manager or having Styche + Syers, fine (I would say commercial manager every day of the week BTW). But saying hiring a commercial manager has directly led to their departures is incorrect.
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QuakerPete
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Re: Gamble?

Post by QuakerPete » Tue Dec 11, 2018 11:55 am

Quaker85 wrote:That’s the reality of running a football club under our fans funded model. The board will live or die by their decisions.

Personally, I believe it was the wrong decision as is continuing with Wright at the helm. Things should become clearer after the netcafe on Friday.


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We should have had a paid commercial manager several seasons ago. The commercial streams have been sadly overlooked for some time with the “usual suspects” of Tempest Jones, Sherwoods and Glenwoods being main match sponsors in the absence of others. That can’t continue indefinitely. It’s an area that DJ has admitted his own shortcomings.
Agree that this role is not going to be easy but he will have come into the position with his eyes wide open and believe he can make a financial difference. I hope there is an element of his salary based on good results rather than flat rate


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Re: Gamble?

Post by SwansQuaker83 » Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:02 pm

wizardofos wrote:It's pretty clear that Styche and Syers have been moved on to pay for the new Commercial Manager.
Whilst it seems sensible on paper, it's a huge gamble:
Losing these two players may be what costs us our place in the NLN, with the attendant reduced income from lower crowds and (no doubt) lower admission prices.
On the other hand we have a dedicated person trying to attract income from non-turnstile sources. Our total commercial revenue (according to the accounts) from the last 2 years was circa £60k a year. So the Commercial Manager has to raise at least this, plus his costs, to move forward.
And he hasn't got anything particularly attractive to sell. Even less so if we are in the Evostik League.
I think it might have been sensible to focus revenue on maintaining our league status and hiring a Commercial Manager in the summer, when he/she would have had a new season's packages to offer to partners.
The appointment of the Commercial Manager isn't the reason we sold Syers and Styche... Tommy Wright is... his dreadful performance against his targets has cost us a lot of money in lost gates, cup revenue etc...

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Re: Gamble?

Post by LoidLucan » Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:05 pm

The waning interest in the club under TW's disastrous managership has made this guy's job a whole lot harder. That will impact not just on attendances but sponsorship, fundraising and everything commercial. Not much in the way of feelgood factor at the moment.

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Re: Gamble?

Post by super_les_mcjannet » Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:14 pm

Robbie Painter wrote:
wizardofos wrote:It's pretty clear that Styche and Syers have been moved on to pay for the new Commercial Manager.
Whilst it seems sensible on paper, it's a huge gamble:
Losing these two players may be what costs us our place in the NLN, with the attendant reduced income from lower crowds and (no doubt) lower admission prices.
On the other hand we have a dedicated person trying to attract income from non-turnstile sources. Our total commercial revenue (according to the accounts) from the last 2 years was circa £60k a year. So the Commercial Manager has to raise at least this, plus his costs, to move forward.
And he hasn't got anything particularly attractive to sell. Even less so if we are in the Evostik League.
I think it might have been sensible to focus revenue on maintaining our league status and hiring a Commercial Manager in the summer, when he/she would have had a new season's packages to offer to partners.
This is completely incorrect. The departure of players has nothing to do with the appointment of the commercial manager.
I think what wizardofos is saying, if you have Commercial of 60k baked into budget and you spend say 30k on Commercial Manager then in theory you have 30k left and a 30k hole in the budget which must come from somewhere.

However if said Commercial Manager moves you to 100k commercial revenue then you now have 60k for budget, 30k for CM and 10k extra to put wherever.

I would assume Morley will increase revenue by his wage + extra which make him cost effective year one. However for me, even if year one was a slight negative, what he could bring the next year and onwards is worthwhile to take an initial slight hit.

The success of Morley can't be just reported on short term, it needs a long term view and that's how you build up Commercially.

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Re: Gamble?

Post by onewayup » Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:22 pm

Wizardofos, The football club did not sell players to fund the commercial manager you really don't have a clue do you, making up post because you don't have anything good or factual to say is just wrong, as is the case with what you perceive to be correct. The club is at a low ebb at the moment, it does not need rubbish like this being posted. We as fan's are the only thing that can help pull the club up out of this depression, get behind the team giving them a lift, it's more preferable to knocking them down.

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Re: Gamble?

Post by en passant » Tue Dec 11, 2018 12:25 pm

wizardofos wrote:The money’s all coming out of the same pot.
If not, which budget did it come out of?
This is a £450k turn over business - they can’t just magic a full time wage out of “another budget’”
I'd love to know the answer to the general point you make here and the OP. I'm not as gifted as some on here about how the budget streams within the club work, nor am I party to the fine detail of financial planning made by the club and would have to bow to the superior knowledge of those who are more intimate with what is being arranged by JT and DJ. But there is a certain amount of common sense in the point that if you take a new person onto the payroll, who had not been factored into the budget at the start of the year, be it an extra player or an extra manager, physio or coach, the money has to be found from somewhere. Now I have heard that the arrangements for employing the CM are less impacting on the club finances than you might imagine, but it is only a whisper that I've heard and may not be reliable for that. As I say, I have no real knowledge of the detail surrounding this, but if it does raise questions in your mind then it may well be worth raising the point at the Netcafe event.

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divas
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Re: Gamble?

Post by divas » Tue Dec 11, 2018 1:04 pm

Let’s break it down.

Say there was £100K in the budget for commercial revenue and we were forecasting only £50K so a £50K shortfall. The business then has to come up with a plan to either close that shortfall OR re-adjust other areas of the business to make up for that shortfall - reduce playing budget for instance as that is the easiest way as most other costs are pretty fixed. Worst case scenario is you have to do both.

It’s pretty clear that we’ve moved players out to reduce the commercial shortfall AND also put a plan in place to bridge the gap by employing a commercial manager.

The commercial manager obviously comes at a cost that wasn’t previously factored into any budget. Given it’s unlikely we’ll have a magic pot of unallocated cash we’ll need the commercial manager to drive incremental revenue over and above his salary to offset the commercial revenue forecast shortfall. As long as that happens it’s a good move. If it doesn’t then you need to look at cutting even more to support a wage of a commercial manager which is in excess of the revenue generated.

Depending on whether that’s happening depends which scenario depicted in the posts above is true.

Either way we’ll not get anywhere near the commercial targets set for this season I’d imagine as your not going to make up a shortfall AND pay wages that were never factored in. Longer term I believe it’s a positive move though as long as commercial revenue is sensibly budgeted and the obvious cost is now associated. Only time will tell whether the incremental revenue with a dedicated commercial manager is in excess of the commercial revenue we were previously bringing in.

* All numbers are purely hypothetical

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theoriginalfatcat
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Re: Gamble?

Post by theoriginalfatcat » Tue Dec 11, 2018 2:30 pm

I hope you don't think you've cleared anything up with that post Divas! Personally I don't understand it.

Are you saying, Wizard has a point?
That Craig might not generate more £ than his wages this season?
That our meagre playing budget at the start of the season (not inc BTB) was part financed by an incorrect estimate of potential commercial revenue?
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Re: Gamble?

Post by Darlogramps » Tue Dec 11, 2018 2:43 pm

theoriginalfatcat wrote:I hope you don't think you've cleared anything up with that post Divas! Personally I don't understand it.

Are you saying, Wizard has a point?
That Craig might not generate more £ than his wages this season?
That our meagre playing budget at the start of the season (not inc BTB) was part financed by an incorrect estimate of potential commercial revenue?
It's that any shortfall in our commercial revenues may have to be covered by a reduction in the playing budget (which is what we're seeing with the departures of Styche and Syers). Indeed the club confirmed this is the case.

However the appointment of Morley himself wasn't necessarily part of that reduction, provided he covers his own wage with the money he brings in.

That's not the same as WizardofOs' claim, which was that we had to sell Styche and Syers to directly fund Morley. That bit isn't true at all, if we take DJ's statement a couple of weeks ago to be correct.

Ultimately we don't know how much Morley is being paid, or indeed how he is paid (is it a flat fee, or is he paid more for the more money he generates?). We don't know and frankly, that sort of information isn't really our business. If he doesn't cover his wage, it may be that this also needs to come out of this season's playing budget. But we don't know that, as he's only just started.

The playing budget was set on an estimate of income from attendances and commercial revenue etc. As it has transpired, the total revenue generated is lower than forecast, so we're having to make the reductions now, rather than ask fans to bail the club out to cover the losses once again early next year.

That's how I read it anyway. Could be wrong.
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Re: Gamble?

Post by theoriginalfatcat » Tue Dec 11, 2018 3:42 pm

Darlogramps wrote:The playing budget was set on an estimate of income from attendances and commercial revenue etc.
Okay, this bit helps.

But I can't think of anywhere apart from the playing budget that costs can be cut , to me Divas makes out that there is something else at the end of his first paragraph
"worst case scenario/we do both" bit.

Of course is selling our best players a good way to attract paying people through the gate?
Whether or not this plan actually helps balance the books is debatable too.
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Re: Gamble?

Post by tezza » Tue Dec 11, 2018 4:38 pm

divas wrote:Let’s break it down.

Say there was £100K in the budget for commercial revenue and we were forecasting only £50K so a £50K shortfall. The business then has to come up with a plan to either close that shortfall OR re-adjust other areas of the business to make up for that shortfall - reduce playing budget for instance as that is the easiest way as most other costs are pretty fixed. Worst case scenario is you have to do both.

It’s pretty clear that we’ve moved players out to reduce the commercial shortfall AND also put a plan in place to bridge the gap by employing a commercial manager.

The commercial manager obviously comes at a cost that wasn’t previously factored into any budget. Given it’s unlikely we’ll have a magic pot of unallocated cash we’ll need the commercial manager to drive incremental revenue over and above his salary to offset the commercial revenue forecast shortfall. As long as that happens it’s a good move. If it doesn’t then you need to look at cutting even more to support a wage of a commercial manager which is in excess of the revenue generated.

Depending on whether that’s happening depends which scenario depicted in the posts above is true.

Either way we’ll not get anywhere near the commercial targets set for this season I’d imagine as your not going to make up a shortfall AND pay wages that were never factored in. Longer term I believe it’s a positive move though as long as commercial revenue is sensibly budgeted and the obvious cost is now associated. Only time will tell whether the incremental revenue with a dedicated commercial manager is in excess of the commercial revenue we were previously bringing in.

* All numbers are purely hypothetical
Excellent explanation: however I suspect the semantic squad will still keep harping on ...just for the hell of it ...

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Re: Gamble?

Post by Darlo_Pete » Tue Dec 11, 2018 5:10 pm

Running a football club is always a gamble, as it involves making numerous decisions, some will come off and some won't. Like others I believe the sale of players had nothing to do with the appointment of a commercial manager. I believe we are not very good when it comes to commercial opportunities and so many clubs higher up the pyramid depend on commercial activities to sustain their clubs. I would be interested to know how many clubs in our division have a paid commercial manager?

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Re: Gamble?

Post by jjljks » Tue Dec 11, 2018 7:14 pm

People on this Forum have not factored in the Brexit dividend. We did have access to the money tree on Blackwell golf course, but the Council chopped it down. ;)

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Re: Gamble?

Post by Darlo-and-Back » Tue Dec 11, 2018 8:48 pm

Bottom line is that the guy needs to be bringing in 4K of extra profit month on month to pay his wage etc. Would hope his package is structured to incentivise him to bring in significantly more than this. No pressure on the lad then.

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Re: Gamble?

Post by Spyman » Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:02 pm

You're
Darlo-and-Back wrote:Bottom line is that the guy needs to be bringing in 4K of extra profit month on month to pay his wage etc. Would hope his package is structured to incentivise him to bring in significantly more than this. No pressure on the lad then.
You're suggesting that after pension and national insurance costs, he's costing us £50k?

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Re: Gamble?

Post by quakersfan » Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:53 pm

QuakerPete wrote:
Quaker85 wrote:That’s the reality of running a football club under our fans funded model. The board will live or die by their decisions.

Personally, I believe it was the wrong decision as is continuing with Wright at the helm. Things should become clearer after the netcafe on Friday.


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We should have had a paid commercial manager several seasons ago. The commercial streams have been sadly overlooked for some time with the “usual suspects” of Tempest Jones, Sherwoods and Glenwoods being main match sponsors in the absence of others. That can’t continue indefinitely. It’s an area that DJ has admitted his own shortcomings.
Agree that this role is not going to be easy but he will have come into the position with his eyes wide open and believe he can make a financial difference. I hope there is an element of his salary based on good results rather than flat rate


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I heard Tempest was doing it part time but the club didn’t honour the agreement so he stopped selling in August. A full time appointment seems sensible to me and Craig seems to be paying dividends.

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Re: Gamble?

Post by lo36789 » Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:58 pm

“The club” didn’t honour an agreement to its director...so he didn’t honour the agreement to himself?

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Re: Gamble?

Post by jjljks » Wed Dec 12, 2018 8:13 am

Is it true Craig Morley missed training again? He wasn't even on the bench last game. :shock: :?

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Re: Gamble?

Post by Comfortably_numb » Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:01 pm

Tenuos link to football gambles, but....

'The' Rangers have been knocked out of Europe tonight thanks to a defeat at Rapid Vienna.

You would not believe the funding....but running at a loss... shenanigans they have done this season to

1. Try progress in the europa league
2. Use the money generated from that to try sustain a challenge to stop sellick winning the league 10 times on the trot

We may be struggling just now, but at least we are in control of our own destiny...

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