calscot 0 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Agreed that there would be more than 600 home fans @ Ibrox. The real questions are: How much does it cost to run Ibrox on match day??? Costs could possibly be reduced by only opening certain stands. Some costs are still fixed regardless of volume through the turnstiles. I have no idea on this but agree they'd be substantially reduced by say opening only one stand. There are fixed costs but most are probably scalable and so would scale down. There would be a large overhead of running such a large stadium and MP but you'd hope that the team we could afford once that is subtracted would be at least be of that of a 5000 average club - enough to trounce those with 500. How many fans would show up??? I think initially, turn out would be decent, but even with an average of 10,000 per home game, would that be enough to sustain the daya-to-day costs??? The attendances would depend on the loyalty of the fans. I have faith that there will be at least 10k die-hards and under the circumstance possibly a lot more. If Aberdeen can run their club on less that 10k fans with an SPL team. I'm sure we can - but with bigger overheads meaning a lesser team - but still good enough to trounce the 3rd division. Player wages??? The majority of 3rd div players will be lucky to be on £200 per week, and the majority are part-time. Even with a squad of young players, we would probably be paying averages around £2k per week - that's still a substantial wage bill to maintain. I would presume that we'd have wages more based on a lower end SPL team to start - like ICT. They can afford it on a 4000 attendance so we could possibly do the same on 10k - although we'd also have a shortfall in TV money and sponsorship over a current SPL club. Season tickets??? Would the majority of fans still be willing to shell out £500+ per season for ticket books??? Therefore a reduction of cost would be implemented. Couple this with the ticketus agreement (if still valid at the time), would represent a massive reduction in revenue. I think prices would have to drop but probably to a level of the likes of ICT or a 1st division team. Fans would have to acknowledge the club needs the money to move back up. Alloa charge £12 a ticket but I think we could justify at least £18 for watching a better class of player than at Alloa - and at a better stadium. Sponsorhsip?? Would Tennents still be wanting to sponsor the shirts @ the current rate??? Would businesses still pay for hospitality??? I think we'd suffer a reduced sponsorship but would still be commensurable with the size of our support. So depends how many fans we keep. Exposure would also be less due to lack of TV but then you'd expect the 3rd div to be able to do a cheap TV deal with say STV as there would be an audience there. I think that the costs would simply be too great and the club would die without SERIOUS down sizing. Then you have the issue of when the club gets back to the SPL....how competitive will the squad be??? How much investment would be required to get it back up to the top of the table??? The club would have to start with a squad equivalent to the attendances and income minus the extra costs over a similarly supported club. As we move up the divisions, the squad would be improve in line with gate receipts and other income. Getting back to the top of the table would probably take some time although getting to compete for 2nd place should be straight forward as we'd instantly be better off than the rest of the league. Competing with Celtic would be difficult to start but then they'd also be suffering with reduced income for the previous years due to us not being there. I think they'd be struggling to have a big gap between them and the rest as they come down to their level. We have not always been miles ahead of the rest when Celtic were struggling - and they were still in the league. However, as most money in running a top club is spent on wages, it's pretty easy to catch up quickly. Being successful doesn't put any money in the bank and as we've found out it can do the opposite. You only have to look at Stoke, Norwich, Swansea etc to see how easy it is to quickly compete with established clubs once you're on a similar income. In fact we did it in the 80's and Celtic did it in the 90's. IMHO, Div3 is completely unrealistic!!! It might be difficult but I come to the conclusion that it's doable. The biggest problem is that the longer is takes to get back, the more the lower leagues rub off on you and you lose impetus. The ideal scenario would be having a consortium investing money every year to make sure of promotion and then getting repaid the dividends after we're back at the top. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
calscot 0 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 PS I'm assuming this would all be after liquidation with a new company with zero debt. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darthter 542 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 The ideal scenario would be having a consortium investing money every year to make sure of promotion and then getting repaid the dividends after we're back at the top. Definitely....if a 5 year plan was agreed, with regular year on year investment, increasing as the club went up through the division, it would make it that bit easier - the question then, would a consortium be interesting in doing that??? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Definitely....if a 5 year plan was agreed, with regular year on year investment, increasing as the club went up through the division, it would make it that bit easier - the question then, would a consortium be interesting in doing that??? If we moved to England with that idea, then there would be many consortium's falling over each other for a piece of that action. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 I jsut had a look at Leeds United and this Leeds United 2007 thing ... and exactly nothing about them is mentioned on the Leeds United wikipedia site, which should feature it in some capacity. That is the "liquidation" and newco and losing history and all this. So was the mention of them wrong? Were they ever "liquidated", "newco'ed" or somesuch? On another sidenote: Leeds Utd....recent online research indicates that they are in the top five most supported clubs in England. They are struggling to reach the Premiership even with a large support, so there would be no guarantee Rangers could get there. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Port Vale would be pretty much perfect for the England scenario however I'm not sure how well received it would be down south if Rangers effectively killed one of their oldest clubs. Their club is dying anyway, so I don't think Rangers could be blamed for that. Port Vale? Excellent suggestion, hope it happens. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 4,119 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 On another sidenote: Leeds Utd....recent online research indicates that they are in the top five most supported clubs in England. They are struggling to reach the Premiership even with a large support, so there would be no guarantee Rangers could get there. I was more interested in the often-cited Leeds United 2007 (?) stuff, people saying that their "history" ended when the newco was created. I did not find anything about either, the newco or the "ending" of Leeds United as a team being run since 18xx. As of their attempts to reach the EPL. We have to keep in mind that the English leagues are far larger and far more competitive than the Scottish ones. A hypothetical Rangers with players being paid 1k+ a week should wipe the floor with these teams (over the season) and go on a string of promotions. You would need fans and a chairman/board with the stamina to sustain these wilderness years, of course. While we are not in Europe, we could try to initiate a Anglo-Scottish Cup, or a some US challenge games to raise money over a season, invite European clubs for friendlies and whatnot. Just as food for thought. All that said, I'm still under the assumption that liquidation in whatever form is not a likely outcome of this crisis. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Again on the 'England' idea...think of the interest that would create, 'Scottish' club Rangers are coming to town. TV would be very interested. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 All that said, I'm still under the assumption that liquidation in whatever form is not a likely outcome of this crisis. Yeah, I suppose I'm getting carried away with myself. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 (edited) I was more interested in the often-cited Leeds United 2007 (?) stuff, people saying that their "history" ended when the newco was created. I did not find anything about either, the newco or the "ending" of Leeds United as a team being run since 18xx. Agreed, their history is still there so then, so would ours 'only' if we didn't buy another club and changed their name like the Airdrie Utd/Clydebank thing. As you say Airdrie United have no history, Airdrionians do but they are gone forever just like Third Lanark, which would be the case with Rangers if they 'bought' another club. Edited March 8, 2012 by 54andcounting I'm a dick 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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