If I were in charge at Rovers, the first thing I'd change is......

[Sweaty Gussets]

7 minutes ago, goozburger said:

My hunch is that Waggott feels he has no choice but to keep season ticket prices at this level. I think he is given annual financial targets, and there isn't much he feels he can do ("we've done all we can").

This could be solved if Venky's stopped being stubborn and sold players properly. This is something I wholeheartedly agree with Broughton on, and it's surely the correct way to run a club such as ours. I honestly reckon our lack of selling activity is a big reason as to why the club is trying to claw that money back from supporters. If we sold players properly, some of that could be used to alleviate pressure on supporters' pockets and behave like a normal club again, and one that looks like it cares about supporters. I think that's all supporters ask at the moment.

Then he's not the right man for the job, which fundamentally is the point. 

I agree, he daren't take the plunge to lower prices for the reasons you stated, but his justification for not doing so rings hollow. He said somewhere recently (FF minutes?) that the lack of take-up for lower-priced ticket offers at the end of the season proved reducing ST prices wouldn't attract buyers (or words to that effect). That is clearly nonsense. He is out of touch and out of ideas. It's time for him to go. 

 

[Mattyblue]

To choose Reading, a midweek red button game in March as your *one* tenner offer for the season and then when the ground shockingly isn’t packed for it, use that as a rationale as to why cheap tickets don’t work shows he’s a cynical/crafty fecker too.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Mattyblue

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

Then he's not the right man for the job, which fundamentally is the point. 

I agree, he daren't take the plunge to lower prices for the reasons you stated, but his justification for not doing so rings hollow. He said somewhere recently (FF minutes?) that the lack of take-up for lower-priced ticket offers at the end of the season proved reducing ST prices wouldn't attract buyers (or words to that effect). That is clearly nonsense. He is out of touch and out of ideas. It's time for him to go.

If the owners have to sign-off on everything (this is a small family business trait if ever I heard one, having worked for a few for my sins), I think the bigger problem is the owners.

Broughton is right about one thing - we have to sell as well as buy. It's blatantly obvious that you have to do this in order to achieve financial sustainability, as has been banged on about for some time, now. And yet it seems that the owners are the ones who have blocked all of those avenues.

I bet part of Broughton's presentation in India will be why we should sell players in order to buy new ones. 🤦‍♂️ I'm convinced, twelve years in, that they still don't get the game at all. It would be great if they provided the money and let people who know the game make the correct (and normal!) decisions. The problem is that Venky's are unlikely to ever put their trust in anyone ever again. And that's the irony of today's problems. They trusted Anderson, Kean, Shagnew, etc., and now they won't trust people who could actually get us out of this hole.

Edited May 30, 2023 by goozburger

[Sweaty Gussets]

4 minutes ago, goozburger said:

If the owners have to sign-off on everything (this is a small family business trait if ever I heard one, having worked for a few for my sins), I think the bigger problem is the owners.

Broughton is right about one thing - we have to sell as well as buy. It's blatantly obvious that you have to do this in order to achieve financial sustainability, as has been banged on about for some time, now. And yet it seems that the owners are the ones who have blocked all of those avenues.

I bet part of Broughton's presentation in India will be why we should sell players in order to buy new ones. 🤦‍♂️ I'm convinced, twelve years in, that they still don't get the game at all. It would be great if they provided the money and let people who know the game make the correct (and normal!) decisions. The problem is that Venky's are unlikely to ever put their trust in anyone ever again. And that's the irony of today's problems. They trusted Anderson, Kean, Shagnew, etc., and now they won't trust people who could actually get us out of this hole.

Venky's didn't sell because, presumably,  they were happy to cover the losses. That's got nothing to do with Waggott choosing not to lower ST prices even though it's quite conceivable he could have generated the same revenue from doing so as he generates from current ST prices. 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Sweaty Gussets

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

Venky's didn't sell because, presumably,  they were happy to cover the losses. That's got nothing to do with Waggott choosing not to lower ST prices even though it's quite conceivable he could have generated the same revenue from doing so as he generates from current ST prices. 

Not selling players causes losses into the millions, or even tens of millions in our case. Waggott is trying to get that back by penny-pinching from supporters, closing stands, not maintaining the stadium, etc. It all stems from stupidity by the owners. If we start selling players properly, we might actually see some improvement in terms of what we can spend in the transfer market, and all of the match-day issues that affect supporters.

[Mattyblue]

 Is he though, particularly when it comes to STs? Or is he just set an arbitrary figure from the owners to hit (which would’ve been the same even if Rothwell et al had gone for a fee)?

Edited May 30, 2023 by Mattyblue

[Sweaty Gussets]

7 minutes ago, goozburger said:

Not selling players causes losses into the millions, or even tens of millions in our case. Waggott is trying to get that back by penny-pinching from supporters, closing stands, not maintaining the stadium, etc. It all stems from stupidity by the owners. If we start selling players properly, we might actually see some improvement in terms of what we can spend in the transfer market, and all of the match-day issues that affect supporters.

Again, that's irrelevant to the point I'm making. I'm talking about ST sales/revenue in isolation. 

9000 x £400 = £3.6m

14000 x £250 = £3.5m

Add in extra sales through food, merch etc and the club hasn't lost anything. 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Sweaty Gussets

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Mattyblue said:

 Is he though, particularly when it comes to STs? Or is he just set an arbitrary figure from the owners to hit (which would’ve been the same even if Rothwell et al had gone for a fee)?

I just think he'll be given a figure of revenue to generate at the club (excluding player sales), and it's then up to him. So you could say, a bit of both. You see the results of it through season tickets, outsourcing to Sodexo, the state of the stadium, etc.

Or we could just sell players at the right time and alleviate the pressure on all of that. It's like there are two separate things going on in order to avoid FFP. Keep the players, lose out on revenue from their sales, but make it back up through supporters, maintenance, etc. It's all wrong, but it sounds like things will change in terms of player sales at least.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

Again, that's irrelevant to the point I'm making.

9000 x £400 = £3.6m

14000 x £250 = £3.5m

Add in extra sales through food, merch etc and the club hasn't lost anything. 

 

The club loses ~£20m per year, of which the owners are apparently "plugging £13m, and we have to find £7m (to prevent ourselves from entering FFP), which is what you're getting at with the above figures (?). And so if ST prices were dropped, and uptake wasn't massively increased (which I think is what Waggott is afraid of), then we actually start having gaps. Put some player sales in, problem solved, and then some.

Edited May 30, 2023 by goozburger

[Sweaty Gussets]

15 minutes ago, goozburger said:

The club loses ~£20m per year, of which the owners are apparently plugging £13m, and we have to find £7m, which is what you're getting at with the above figures (?). And so if ST prices were dropped, and uptake wasn't massively increased (which I think is what Waggott is afraid of), then we actually start having gaps. Put some player sales in, problem solved, and then some.

And Waggott said the reason we aren't doing it is because the low sales of end-of-season matchday ticket offers PROVE that reduced prices would not equate to increased ST sales. It's nonsense, out-of-context nonsense, that PROVES nothing of the sort.

Player sales were not mentioned in his justification for not reducing ST prices. 

And the point I was making with the above figures is that if you reduce prices and increase sales (like Bolton) it doesn't follow you reduce revenue.

Again, nothing to do with player sales. 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Sweaty Gussets

[Guest]

Just now, Sweaty Gussets said:

And the point I was making with the above figures is that if you reduce prices and increase sales (like Bolton) it doesn't follow you reduce revenue.

Except it could. If he reduce the prices by, say £100, and only got 1,000 additional ST holders out of it, then he's lost. I'm not saying he shouldn't do it, or that we'd only get another thousand supporters out of it, but I reckon that's what he and his team think. There's a risk attached to doing it, which is why he probably doesn't do it.

Regarding player sales, why Waggott was never publicly raised it as an issue, and yet Broughton has, probably says something about the aims of the two. I don't really care if Waggott has or hasn't said something because the actions by him speak louder than words. However, at least Broughton has raised it as an issue and is looking to do something about it. It's been an obvious problem for us for too many years, and I doubt anybody could deny that if we brought more revenue in from it, then other problems could be solved. Don't ask me why Waggott hasn't publicly acknowledged that, but I maintain it's part of the problem.

[Sweaty Gussets]

2 minutes ago, goozburger said:

Except it could. If he reduce the prices by, say £100, and only got 1,000 additional ST holders out of it, then he's lost. I'm not saying he shouldn't do it, or that we'd only get another thousand supporters out of it, but I reckon that's what he and his team think. There's a risk attached to doing it, which is why he probably doesn't do it.

I know that's why he doesn't do it, I've already said that. But his justification for it was bullshit. 

And that's why he's out of touch. 

Waggott Out. 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Sweaty Gussets

[Sweaty Gussets]

41 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

To choose Reading, a midweek red button game in March as your *one* tenner offer for the season and then when the ground shockingly isn’t packed for it, use that as a rationale as to why cheap tickets don’t work shows he’s a cynical/crafty fecker too.

I'm glad someone gets it!

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

I'm glad someone gets it!

I'm not answering on behalf of Waggott, which is what you appear to be thinking. If he's lying about why he won't reduce ticket prices (which he has rarely done anyway), that's another issue. I'm just stating the problems and what should be done to solve them. We all realise Waggott is short-sighted, but I reckon he'll be given short-sighted targets, too.

A CEO that stood up to the owners and managed to get them to listen wouldn't go amiss!

Edited May 30, 2023 by goozburger

[bluebruce]

50 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

To choose Reading, a midweek red button game in March as your *one* tenner offer for the season and then when the ground shockingly isn’t packed for it, use that as a rationale as to why cheap tickets don’t work shows he’s a cynical/crafty fecker too.

Has he actually publicly used the low uptake on that game as an excuse for not reducing season tickets? If so, it's well worth pointing out that's precisely what several on here predicted he would do when the Reading pricing was announced.

[Mattyblue]

Reading between the lines of the FF minutes, more that Swag reckons lowering ticket prices doesn’t work all round…

Edited May 30, 2023 by Mattyblue

[Sweaty Gussets]

16 minutes ago, goozburger said:

I'm not answering on behalf of Waggott, which is what you appear to be thinking.

It never crossed my mind, but it has now Steve😁

[chaddyrovers]

2 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

The owners, somehow. Everything pales into insignificance whilst they continue to mismanage us, even the CEO.

If we assume that the question is after the owners have left, then replace Waggott and a total re think of pricing.

@Miller11 is right too on the attitude.

I think the question was that you would owned the club not with the current owners in place and as you as CEO 

44 minutes ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

Again, that's irrelevant to the point I'm making. I'm talking about ST sales/revenue in isolation. 

9000 x £400 = £3.6m

14000 x £250 = £3.5m

Add in extra sales through food, merch etc and the club hasn't lost anything. 

 

Food is outsourced to Sodexo

Your figures don't take into account the prices of different categories of Senior, young adults, under 18's and under 12's. I would suggest the figure is around 2.5 million. Also would a lower price result in another five thousand fans taking up ST's. Its why they need to be sale longer and earlier from March plus the same price all summer and kept on sale throughout the season as different people circumstances changed and they can afford a ST then the club shouldn't be penalised them for that as me and @Miller11discussed

we sold 8,779 last season by the fans forum meeting on the 10th October 2022.  

[Sweaty Gussets]

Just now, chaddyrovers said:

I think the question was that you would owned the club not with the current owners in place and as you as CEO 

Food is outsourced to Sodexo

Your figures don't take into account the prices of different categories of Senior, young adults, under 18's and under 12's. I would suggest the figure is around 2.5 million. Also would a lower price result in another five thousand fans taking up ST's. Its why they need to be sale longer and earlier from March plus the same price all summer and kept on sale throughout the season as different people circumstances changed and they can afford a ST then the club shouldn't be penalised them for that as me and @Miller11discussed

we sold 8,779 last season by the fans forum meeting on the 10th October 2022.  

You don't know what my figures take into account. I was providing an average for illustrative purposes. Don't presume you know what I'm thinking. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I think the question was that you would owned the club not with the current owners in place and as you as CEO 

Food is outsourced to Sodexo

Your figures don't take into account the prices of different categories of Senior, young adults, under 18's and under 12's. I would suggest the figure is around 2.5 million. Also would a lower price result in another five thousand fans taking up ST's. Its why they need to be sale longer and earlier from March plus the same price all summer and kept on sale throughout the season as different people circumstances changed and they can afford a ST then the club shouldn't be penalised them for that as me and @Miller11discussed

we sold 8,779 last season by the fans forum meeting on the 10th October 2022.  

8,779 is absolutely embarrassing, no two ways about it. 

All 3 league one teams coming up this year will sell far more than that.

[Ulrich]

If I could change anything then I'd change the shirt.  Blue and white are not my fav colours.  I think luminous orange and pink check tops would look great and make us truly stand out 👍

[Mattyblue]

Believe Barnsley already have too, Mellor…

Edited May 30, 2023 by Mattyblue

[philipl]

Unfortunately, since the justifiable anger at how Rovers were destroyed 2010-12 in particular and the farce until TM arrived, about 50% of Rovers natural market has turned its face against the club. 

So accepting there is a limit to the number of cheap tickets we could sell, I'd offer a super cheap season ticket deal in the Riverside with a pre-offer period of priority booking to people receiving State benefits.

I wouldn't touch the pricing structure anywhere else in the ground.

 

[chaddyrovers]

46 minutes ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

You don't know what my figures take into account. I was providing an average for illustrative purposes. Don't presume you know what I'm thinking. 

You posted 9k sales at £400 resulting in £3.6 mil. I think figures overall from what we sold last summer were around 2.5 million cash flow if I remember correctly. 

39 minutes ago, Mellor Rover said:

8,779 is absolutely embarrassing, no two ways about it. 

All 3 league one teams coming up this year will sell far more than that.

That was last season figure. 

Of course we would all like more ST sold and more fans on including walk ons. Question is how you increase the sales. 

Edited May 30, 2023 by chaddyrovers

[Sweaty Gussets]

2 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

You posted 9k sales at 4000. I think figures overall from what we sold last summer were around 2.5 million cash flow if I remember correctly. 

I didn't.