Relegation Thread 2018-19 Cancelled? FL Propose Changes

[JJ1532]

To be fair, whilst team would lose money from those 4 lost home games, they would also save a fair bit in: travel costs(4 coach journeys, hotels, team meals etc), injury expenses(8 games less a season means less wear and tear and should hopefully lead to reduced injuries), costs of hosting matches during the week(stewards, lightning, club staff, police etc).

From the fans point of view, 4 less away games to travel to might mean they go to more Saturday away games or even attend more home games due to there being less of a strain on the wallet.

There are some benefits to losing the 4 games. I would imagine that every team will run the costs and work out how much money they stand to save/lose from these proposals.

 

[Murphy]

Not a cat in hell's chance they'd reach 65 out of the 72 'aye's' required to get this passed. Bradford's chairman Mark Lawn has been quite vocal about it, and I imagine he speaks for a lot of clubs.

 

[Laker]

To be fair, whilst team would lose money from those 4 lost home games, they would also save a fair bit in: travel costs(4 coach journeys, hotels, team meals etc), injury expenses(8 games less a season means less wear and tear and should hopefully lead to reduced injuries), costs of hosting matches during the week(stewards, lightning, club staff, police etc).

From the fans point of view, 4 less away games to travel to might mean they go to more Saturday away games or even attend more home games due to there being less of a strain on the wallet.

There are some benefits to losing the 4 games. I would imagine that every team will run the costs and work out how much money they stand to save/lose from these proposals.

By that logic, there's clearly positives to reducing the number of fixtures by 46 down to zero. You're basically saying that midweek games only lead to clubs making a loss from them. Which is clearly not right.

 

[dedwardp]

I ran a quick guesstimate on how much this proposal could realistically cost Grimsby based on a fair estimation of ticket prices next season.

So let's presume we sell around 3k season tickets at a rough average of £330. Now let's not forget, the paying customer is going to feel a bit short changed by losing 4 games in a season and paying the same price, either the fans or the club end up paying more. Let's say for arguments sake the club are forced to take the prices down at the percentage of games we lose (about 17%) so now our tickets stand at £280 PP. The club loses £50 for each of the 3000 people. Works out at £150,000.

Now match days, say we get another 2,500 through the door paying £20 each. We lose that revenue 4x in the season, £200,000. So we stand at £350,000. Let's say 1/4 of those 5,500 spend £5 at the ground on food & drinks every week. £27,500 in lost revenue. Let's say 1000 buy a programme at £4, another £16,000.

Based on a few very rough calculations and gate figures that could get higher or lower throughout the season, that leaves us around £400,000 short. How are a club of our size meant to foot a bill like that?

Maybe I'm just being stupid, but you don't appear to have factored in any costs to your numbers? Stewarding, policing, energy bills, matchday staff wages etc. At Colchester, we probably make a loss on a midweek game when we're playing the likes of Fleetwood on a January Tuesday night, even only opening three of the four stands.

I understand that clubs make approximately £1 per head on peripheral spending whilst at the game. And the programme which is £3 at Grimsby will have a profit margin of around £1.20ish per unit.

I know the bulk of your costs are more from a ticket sales side of thing though, the rest of the spending isn't that significant really so I'm not trying to be picky with those. But clubs do have a break even attendance figure and we regularly fall below ours, mostly on midweek games. So in all seriousness, losing those midweek games isn't going to be costing us much money, if anything.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

I've got to say I don't see this proposal as the evil it is being made out to be by some, and I think some of the points the proposal tries to address are fair. I really think we as a collective group of lower league football fans have to be careful about being so reactionary and negative about proposals that are at least attempting to address real issues or we risk being left with an anachronistic and unsustainable league.

I do have my concerns about this though, in particular I'd like to see or at least hear about the workings out on how this would help clubs financially, I can however see that losing midweek games may help some clubs who struggle with midweek attendances, as the Col U fan above points out. I would expect that those that have come up with this proposal have done their homework and have some actual substance to those claims.

Certainly doesn't seem as insidious as the B team idea previously proposed, (on that point lets not jump the gun and lump in B teams and this proposal together, they are clearly different and any proposal to get B teams in the pyramid would clearly need to be voted on separately).

 

[Kenneth E End]

I agree. Unfortunately, lower league football fans are outnumbered by Premier League ones.

I heard an interesting conversation between Colin Graves, Chairman of the ECB, and TMS yesterday regarding County Cricket's recent restructure and possible future developments. A lot of teams are struggling financially and possibly an equally unsustainable competition. He said that thoughts of county membership (i.e. season ticket holders) are vastly outnumbered by those who aren't. Their views are valued, but not the be all and end all. It seems to be a very similar situation here, albeit on a bigger scale.

Unfortunately, you need to market a product that the public want to watch. Without fans, the sport dies. Without TV, the sport dies (not that its going to be an issue in this case). I'm guessing over 2m people attended League 2 games this season?

 

[JJ1532]

By that logic, there's clearly positives to reducing the number of fixtures by 46 down to zero. You're basically saying that midweek games only lead to clubs making a loss from them. Which is clearly not right.

No, I was pointing out that for every bit of money you are potentially losing, there are also savings to be had. It all depends on how much you save/lose on each fixture. Some smaller clubs probably aren't working with the same margins that a team like Luton or Pompey are. Take Accy or Morecambe for example. I very much doubt they will be losing hundreds of thousands of pounds by having 4 home games cut a season. It might even save them some money, who knows? Sure, some clubs will lose a lot of money from losing fixtures, but I reckon others might be the opposite.

 

[dedwardp]

No, I was pointing out that for every bit of money you are potentially losing, there are also savings to be had. It all depends on how much you save/lose on each fixture. Some smaller clubs probably aren't working with the same margins that a team like Luton or Pompey are. Take Accy or Morecambe for example. I very much doubt they will be losing hundreds of thousands of pounds by having 4 home games cut a season. It might even save them some money, who knows? Sure, some clubs will lose a lot of money from losing fixtures, but I reckon others might be the opposite.

Exactly - as I mentioned above, every club will have a break even attendance level and it may just be that you struggle to meet it in midweek, but don't for Saturday games. So bearing in mind that the four games you are losing are supposed to be four midweek games, it isn't an argument or logic that would support reducing the games down to zero at all, absolutely not.

 

[Kenneth E End]

every club will have a break even attendance level

Ours is probably about 12,000 at the moment... in a 10,000 capacity stadium. But we choose to operate like this!

 

[George Reilly's Hairpiece]

Under the new proposals the plan is to replace some midweek league games with midweek League Trophy games. How does that help with revenue?

Also those talking about break even figures need to factor in that the biggest fixed cost are the player/coaching wages which you'll still be paying for a Tuesday night but with no income to show for it. What with the removal of emergency loans, it is unlikely that clubs will be able to carry fewer players.

 

[dedwardp]

Also those talking about break even figures need to factor in that the biggest fixed cost are the player/coaching wages which you'll still be paying for a Tuesday night but with no income to show for it. What with the removal of emergency loans, it is unlikely that clubs will be able to carry fewer players.

But if you're making a loss on said midweek fixture in the first place then there is already no income to show for it - in fact, it is worse than that. Removing said loss is better than making it in the first place, as you are still paying the wages.

Again, this is clubs who may make that loss. There will be plenty who don't.

 

[George Reilly's Hairpiece]

The loss will be including the wages of the players. There's no way that clubs would make a loss if they excluded the wages they had to pay.

 

[northstandexile]

Looks like most on here are half glass empty folk and not half glass full guys.

This will happen because the FA and PL will twist arms by bribing FL chairmen with cash, because that is what Football is about. Money.

The four missing games will be replaced by playing five home games against PL B teams. All 20 teams in each of the four FL divisions will play the same five teams.

Results from these five games will count to qualification to the later stages of the JPT trophy. To make them more important to League clubs then perhaps add the odd bonus league points for wins against these B teams.

The big question is how does the money pass to the FL clubs as this will not happen unless money is changed hands.

Season ticket prices wouldn't change much as instead of 23 league games you would get 19+5 = 24 games.

A novel idea which could well go down with supporters is make these 5 midweek games as free admission for everyone. The PL pays each club a fiver or tenner for each supporter who attends.

 

[Habbinalan]

I don't entirely hate the idea of four 20 team leagues and as someone who struggles to make it to midweek games I can see the appeal of sticking to saturdays. If I was doing it I'd probably look at making it League 2 North and South rather than adding an extra tier.

However, as people have noted above, this stinks of being a back door to Premier League B teams. The quote from the League spokesman is chillingly non-committal:

"Six teams will join the bottom rung, most likely from the National League. “There is a very clear leaning towards respecting the current pyramid,” Harvey said.

He added that while it was for the clubs to decide, the idea of Premier League B-teams joining the league is likely to remain off the agenda"

A clear leaning, likely to remain off the agenda, hmmmmmm!! I'd need far more solid language on that to go anywhere near supporting this proposal.

I assume you are thinking that Luton would be in League 2 South? That would probably mean "sacrificing" games at the Abbey, Notts County, Crewe, Doncaster and Mansfield for trips to Truro, Torquay, Forest Green, Eastleigh and Dover. That looks a bit more attractive than what we would face - losing Luton, Orient and Colchester for the prospect of Gateshead, Guisley and Wrexham. On the plus side, we would get back our trips to York and Barrow.

Of course, there are scenarios that would put Luton in League 2 North - with a strong SW axis plus London Essex and the SE filling League 2 South. How would that suit?

 

[Judge Red]

Funny what can be done with words, isn't it?
Proposal: Rename the national League as League Three (or whatever fancy name they cook up) and kick the lowest sixteen clubs in the National League into obscurity. All achieved while simultaneously lopping nearly one sixth from most clubs' gate incomes (4 over 23).
Instead they make it sound juicy by calling the fifth tier part of the football league. Having more games on a weekend should marginally increase attendances so let's be generous and say that clubs will only lose one eighth of their gate receipts. That's still a big chunk.
There are two things worse than this proposal:
(1) treating us like idiots
and
(2) taking us for c*nts.
And if they want 'B' teams, let them play in the local pub league.

 

[Bosox]

I assume you are thinking that Luton would be in League 2 South? That would probably mean "sacrificing" games at the Abbey, Notts County, Crewe, Doncaster and Mansfield for trips to Truro, Torquay, Forest Green, Eastleigh and Dover. That looks a bit more attractive than what we would face - losing Luton, Orient and Colchester for the prospect of Gateshead, Guisley and Wrexham. On the plus side, we would get back our trips to York and Barrow.

Of course, there are scenarios that would put Luton in League 2 North - with a strong SW axis plus London Essex and the SE filling League 2 South. How would that suit?

Well no, I was rather thinking that Luton would be League 1 or above by that time

Yes going North and South always causes problems for clubs in the middle, there's no perfect system. But overall more would benefit that would suffer.

 

[rudebwoyben]

What on earth would any club benefit from if the leagues were regionalised?

 

[Murphy]

What on earth would any club benefit from if the leagues were regionalised?

We'd all benefit from no more 'Should L2 be regionalised' threads appearing 4 times per season on the forum for a start.

 

[Jabba the gut]

on the principle of more-smaller divisions, it just makes moving up and down the league slightly less meaningful and slightly more of a slog, and many teams will find an extra division crowbarred in between themselves and where they want to be, and it does seem like this is a handy way to get B teams back on the agenda.

I'm not too sure the B-teams phenomenon is the main objective - or at least not the only one. I agree that this is probably a case of Machiavellian game-playing by the powerful, but I suspect it has at least as much to do with top clubs/the PL working towards an eventual breakaway - in my opinion that has been the end-game from the time the PL was formed.

We are already moving towards a de facto closed-shop, as ever-increasing parachute payments look likely to create a revolving door between the PL and the Championship - making the Championship smaller will only magnify that effect. Creating a smaller division and building an extra hurdle for small clubs will also go some way towards resurrecting PL2 by the back door and safeguarding the balance sheets of those big clubs who are out of the PL in any given season.

That has powerful implications for smaller clubs, considering the Championship is the dream for most now the PL is effectively off the agenda. You already have a generation of fans who are more and more impatient and only seem to be interested in success - I actually hear some ECFC fans say "what's the point in supporting if we can't get to the Championship?" - something we've never achieved in 94 years.

Vanishingly few clubs are ever going to "do a Bournemouth"; in fact I doubt whether Bournemouth would be able to do a Bournemouth in a few years when the money at the top has mushroomed even more with streaming rights and potentially ever-increasing TV deals. If the Championship is to be almost as unrealistic and the dream is limited to the third tier in future then that spells trouble for many clubs.

It seems on a yearly basis we hear of some leak or other about a Super-League and/or the abolition of promotion & relegation in the PL - the claims by the deputy head of the LMA that foreign owners were discussing an end to relegation, the leaked plans for a four division Superleague, the recent stories about the same things and so on. Of course there is always an attempt to play the leaks down or deny there is any truth in them, but you wouldn't expect anything else.

As the financial jamboree at the top becomes increasingly more lucrative and the consequences of being relegated off the guest list become commensurately more serious, I can't see the foreign tycoons simply lying back and thinking of the possibility of millions being wiped off their shareholding by a refereeing decision. I don't believe that the Yanks would be in English football, with more of them interested, if replicating the certainty their pro sports teams enjoy at home hadn't at least crossed their mind.

When people say "it'll never happen, there'll be too much opposition" I always remember how unlikely the PL once seemed. Where the rich and powerful have a will they very often find a way - and that is frequently to play the long game, achieving their goals by manipulation and stealth without stirring up unnecessary trouble for themselves. That is exactly how the breakaway will be attempted, creating facts on the ground by evolution. This is the first step in my opinion.

 

[ProfessorGreen]

Would it not mean 7 teams getting relegated from the Championship in the final season of the current structure? Cannot see too many current Championship Chairmen being happy about that with the PL windfall cash that keeps them afloat.

 

[Trapdoor]

Less games, less revenue.

This is a terrible idea.

 

[mowgli]

Would it not mean 7 teams getting relegated from the Championship in the final season of the current structure? Cannot see too many current Championship Chairmen being happy about that with the PL windfall cash that keeps them afloat.

You're correct but i can't see many chairmen voting for the possibility of their club being relegated down to League1.

 

[shoddycollins]

We'd all benefit from no more 'Should L2 be regionalised' threads appearing 4 times per season on the forum for a start.

Don't worry, they won't have those where you're going

I'm sorry, that is the single shittiest thing I've said since becoming a member here.

 

[Glasshalffullpools]

Daft idea on many levels . ... if you watch your team on a Sat and a Tuesday, how will you not going on a Tuesday , increase Saturdays attendence .....12 relegated from League 2 is plain stupid , that alone will get the 8 vote or whatever is needed to squash this . .. .

 

[Kenneth E End]

Daft idea on many levels . ... if you watch your team on a Sat and a Tuesday, how will you not going on a Tuesday , increase Saturdays attendence .....12 relegated from League 2 is plain stupid , that alone will get the 8 vote or whatever is needed to squash this . .. .

To play devil's advocate, I'd hope if this were to come in, all twelve wouldn't be relegated in one season.

I'm hoping, for the Football League's sake (that they don't get laughed out of the room by the chairman), that they've thought of this and stagger it over a 3-4 year period.

But it took long enough for the Conference to get a second promotion place, not to mention a third.

 

[Kenneth E End]

If something like this occurred, would more be in favour?

 

[Trapdoor]

Fuck. No.

 

[Gladders]

No, why do we even need a lge 3, and why do we even need less games, fans want to see more football not less of it. There should be two games a week everyweek, and just two weeks in pre season!

 

[Glasshalffullpools]

League 3 ( level 5 ) means 8 from level 5 still being level 5, 12 from level 4 becoming level 5 , and every non league team except 8 being relegated ( except those winning promotion to the level they are already at ! ) ....spreading out a bad idea doesn't make it any less of a bad idea

 

[Gladders]

So Harvey has now said they are asking clubs to consider allowing Celtic and Rangers in!

Not only destroying the English lower leagues, he's now happy to wipe out Scottish football too.