Blackburn Rovers football club accounts

[aletheia]

Herbie

Many thanks-that works.

[bluebruce]

22 hours ago, Herbie6590 said:

The wage bill isn’t £10m…

82 seems a high figure for the number of senior football players and management. 20-odd players, sure, and what, maybe 10 or so footballing management team (gaffer, assistant and coaches). I guess this might include our meagre board, commercial directors etc, although I don't know whether they fall under 'Administration'. Seems to be almost double the figure I'd expect, who am I not thinking of?

Where would kiosk staff come under? Stewards? I'd have thought maybe the last category, but it seems a bit small to include them as well as groundskeepers and maintenance staff etc. Perhaps they don't count as they're only employed on matchdays?

[Herbie6590]

10 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

82 seems a high figure for the number of senior football players and management. 20-odd players, sure, and what, maybe 10 or so footballing management team (gaffer, assistant and coaches). I guess this might include our meagre board, commercial directors etc, although I don't know whether they fall under 'Administration'. Seems to be almost double the figure I'd expect, who am I not thinking of?

Where would kiosk staff come under? Stewards? I'd have thought maybe the last category, but it seems a bit small to include them as well as groundskeepers and maintenance staff etc. Perhaps they don't count as they're only employed on matchdays?

The staff will be all those on the BRFC payroll. So if any service is outsourced (e.g. catering to Sodexo) they won’t be included.

Re-playing staff - we have two full squads beside the seniors…

 

So that will multiply the numbers of support staff I guess - coaching, medical, scouting, admin, welfare, educational….🤷‍♂️

 

 

[bluebruce]

20 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

The staff will be all those on the BRFC payroll. So if any service is outsourced (e.g. catering to Sodexo) they won’t be included.

Re-playing staff - we have two full squads beside the seniors…

 

So that will multiply the numbers of support staff I guess - coaching, medical, scouting, admin, welfare, educational….🤷‍♂️

 

 

Is all the catering at the kiosks outsourced then?

Yeh we have those other squads besides the seniors, but they would come under 'academy football players and management', attributed on there as a different section with a further 60 staff. Admin was also a separate section. So the 82 still seems awfully high. Although I had forgotten about scouts and data analysts. Admin was also a separate section.

Edited April 4, 2022 by bluebruce

[tomphil]

Wouldn't surprise me if there are a few names we aren't familiar with on that payroll.

[JHRover]

I suppose the question is whether the U18s or ladies team come under 'seniors'

If you add up all this seasons first team squad and u23 squad (including loans) and the coaching staff/medical staff and the U18s then you hit 80 odd people. But I would always treat the u18s as the academy so those should form part of the academy 60 staff members. Maybe the ladies squad makes up for the difference.

[tomphil]

We pay the ladies ?

I thought that was covered by separate sponsorship.

[Herbie6590]

4 hours ago, bluebruce said:

Is all the catering at the kiosks outsourced then?

https://www.prestigevenuesandevents.sodexo.com/venues/blackburn-rovers-football-club
 

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2019/june/rovers-link-up-with-sodexo

 

[JWU-Andy]

2 hours ago, tomphil said:

We pay the ladies ?

I thought that was covered by separate sponsorship.

surely the ladies would be covered within BLACKBURN ROVERS LADIES FOOTBALL CLUB LIMITED - 12033373

[tomphil]

12 minutes ago, JWU-Andy said:

surely the ladies would be covered within BLACKBURN ROVERS LADIES FOOTBALL CLUB LIMITED - 12033373

So it is a separate entity but looks like it's funded by the club/grants and sponsorship.

[Herbie6590]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1511593262636752897.html

 

[RoverCanada]

Was just about to post that! Swiss Ramble with one of his inimitable account review threads for Rovers: 

I'll give the accounts a skim through at some point, just been slammed with work of late! But one of my first impressions is they're not as bad as I had suspected/amateurishly forecasted (if still 'bad', albeit 'more of the same'...)

Edited April 6, 2022 by RoverCanada

[Herbie6590]

29 minutes ago, RoverCanada said:

Was just about to post that! Swiss Ramble with one of his inimitable account review threads for Rovers: 

I'll give the accounts a skim through at some point, just been slammed with work of late! But one of my first impressions is they're not as bad as I had suspected/amateurishly forecasted (if still 'bad', albeit 'more of the same'...)

@RoverCanada No major surprises...we knew what they were doing to address Covid & they duly did it. The key for me is the revenue. Unless & until we can grow that we are pushing water uphill...

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

@RoverCanada No major surprises...we knew what they were doing to address Covid & they duly did it. The key for me is the revenue. Unless & until we can grow that we are pushing water uphill...

Except it is brown stuff, not water...

[tomphil]

As said time and again promotion is the only saving grace and being in the position we were just hammers home how costly it might be not making the right moves in Jan.

Otherwise a cost cut to suit income ratio would be the only other thing and that doesn't bare thinking about.

There are many other ways of boosting income though and with assets on the books now we can at least be a trading club. Why they don't take on proper sponsorship and make real efforts at filling the ground and corporate sections with a bold pricing initiative is plain daft. 

Expect more fixed asset sales and house building in the near future i'm afraid.

[Mashed Potatoes]

2 hours ago, tomphil said:

As said time and again promotion is the only saving grace and being in the position we were just hammers home how costly it might be not making the right moves in Jan.

Otherwise a cost cut to suit income ratio would be the only other thing and that doesn't bare thinking about.

There are many other ways of boosting income though and with assets on the books now we can at least be a trading club. Why they don't take on proper sponsorship and make real efforts at filling the ground and corporate sections with a bold pricing initiative is plain daft. 

Expect more fixed asset sales and house building in the near future i'm afraid.

I think you are  a bit harsh on the club's efforts regarding income from commercial sources. The accounts show commercial income of £4.79m; the most obviously comparable club to us for last year in terms of division, location and size of town would be Preston whose accounts show commercial income of just under £1.2m. Whilst no doubt there is always going to be room for improvement I would like someone to provide an example of a club whose accounts for last year show a demonstrably better performance in this area, taking in to account location and size of population.

How does the club not have"proper sponsorship" ?

We are in a time when corporate budgets are coming under considerable pressure from rising costs. Sadly that will lead to cutbacks in certain areas and I suspect that sponsorship and involvement with Championship level football clubs will be near the top of the list.

[tomphil]

6 minutes ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

I think you are  a bit harsh on the club's efforts regarding income from commercial sources. The accounts show commercial income of £4.79m; the most obviously comparable club to us for last year in terms of division, location and size of town would be Preston whose accounts show commercial income of just under £1.2m. Whilst no doubt there is always going to be room for improvement I would like someone to provide an example of a club whose accounts for last year show a demonstrably better performance in this area, taking in to account location and size of population.

How does the club not have"proper sponsorship" ?

We are in a time when corporate budgets are coming under considerable pressure from rising costs. Sadly that will lead to cutbacks in certain areas and I suspect that sponsorship and involvement with Championship level football clubs will be near the top of the list.

We've never had proper sponsorship since they've been here really that shouldn't need explaining.

Doesn't that commercial income include TV money ?  I find it hard to believe we've taken so much more than Preston under normal circumstances.  Have the owners found another way to inject some funds ?   There must be something in there that takes it way above the norm.

[Mashed Potatoes]

Just now, tomphil said:

We've never had proper sponsorship since they've been here really that shouldn't need explaining.

Doesn't that commercial income include TV money ?  I find it hard to believe we've taken so much more than Preston under normal circumstances.  Have the owners found another way to inject some funds ?   There must be something in there that takes it way above the norm.

To me it does need explaining so please could you do so. 

TV and media money for us was £8.91m and for Preston was £8.89m.

[JHRover]

Hmm. Brentford's wage bill last year bigger than Derby, Forest, Wednesday? 

The only challenge we face is getting better people into key positions at the Club. Until they do that and run the club properly then we will continue to go nowhere. The quality of staff at Ewood in the last 10 years embarrassing.

Yet some would argue Mowbray and Waggott are as good as we can hope for and expect.

It is them and the owners mental way of operating that is holding us back. It starts at home.

[Mashed Potatoes]

15 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Hmm. Brentford's wage bill last year bigger than Derby, Forest, Wednesday? 

The only challenge we face is getting better people into key positions at the Club. Until they do that and run the club properly then we will continue to go nowhere. The quality of staff at Ewood in the last 10 years embarrassing.

Yet some would argue Mowbray and Waggott are as good as we can hope for and expect.

It is them and the owners mental way of operating that is holding us back. It starts at home.

Per their accounts Brentford's wage bill for last season was £41.44m. However that included costs of £11.95m in bonuses for achieving promotion to the Premier League. Take that away and they would be below the clubs you refer to.

[RoverCanada]

50 minutes ago, tomphil said:

We've never had proper sponsorship since they've been here really that shouldn't need explaining.

Doesn't that commercial income include TV money ?  I find it hard to believe we've taken so much more than Preston under normal circumstances.  Have the owners found another way to inject some funds ?   There must be something in there that takes it way above the norm.

TV money is under 'Media' income.

It is something I've been curious about for years now. Lots of criticism on here about Rovers' commercial nous, some with plenty of merit, yet we've also for years been "punching above our weight" on commercial income since relegation. Part of the reason we've been plunking along at ~£15m turnover vs the £10-12m you see from the likes of Wigan, Barnsley, PNE, etc.

One interesting addition to the accounts this year is under 29. Related Party Transactions, which previously only touched on Blackburn Rovers Community Trust rent/expenses, but now includes the details of the training ground sale, as well as now mentioning that Venky's provides £795,000 of advertising income. (A suspiciously round number could suggest that's the max the EFL allows Venky's to pump in before it's considered to be on 'non-commercial' terms...). So, that would suggest Venky's is part of the explanation, but not entirely. Given our apparent brief transfer embargo and the training ground sale, I suspect the EFL demanded some more clarity from our accounts this year before clearing us of FFP.

It's hard for me to judge against other clubs, and I'm not as in tune to the commercial team's apparent failings as others on here, but there does usually seem to be a decent stream of sponsors trumpeted on Rovers' social media. Recoverite snafu this year aside (and perhaps the commercial team should get some credit for quickly pivoting to Totally Wicked, if imperfectly!), perhaps our shirt and kit sponsor deals have been decently lucrative after all? I don't know!

Edited April 6, 2022 by RoverCanada

[JHRover]

Or the other way of looking at it is that despite a decade of destruction and employment of substandard executives our commercial income still holds up to competitive levels because this is a bigger club than those others mentioned.

For example PNE - why on earth should their commercial performance be as good as Rovers? We have a recent history of success and as a result a huge fanbase outside of Blackburn (which the club seems determined to ignore)

Preston, Barnsley and others have done nowt.

Just imagine what we could do if we nurtured it and took it seriously.

[tomphil]

3 hours ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

To me it does need explaining so please could you do so. 

TV and media money for us was £8.91m and for Preston was £8.89m.

Well we had the WEC Darwen End not long ago and i'm sure there was an issue not financial that made them pull the plug.

We had various names of the Riverside stand and gave the shirt sponsorship away for free to Princes Trust one season....in the Prem.

Seems they've got their act together a bit in recent times but still a way to go.

Kudos to the ownership though for paying for their own advertising now.

[tomphil]

10th highest debt in the whole of England yet 9 highest payers of directors in the Championship.

[Exiled in Toronto]

On 04/04/2022 at 10:37, tomphil said:

Wouldn't surprise me if there are a few names we aren't familiar with on that payroll.

You do realise that they don’t need to take on a business that loses £20+ million/year in order to put a few names on a payroll? They could put them on the VLL payroll and not have to bother paying Ayala, Gallagher, Mowbray, Waggott et al for doing even less.