Bicester

Foley said:
I think that the £300k rent us misleading.
It sounds to me like the service charge is significantly more than that.
So the cost for using the ground via the licence (with very restricted use,) is significantly more than £300k.
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There is undoubtedly an argument about the way the service charge figure is derived. But it’s also misleading to suggest that it is some sort of extra that the club wouldn’t have to pay if they actually owned the stadium. I know that’s not what your saying, but there are plenty others who have fallen for the “£1m+ rent” line.
 
myles said:
Yes, to some extent the player trading model was starting to bear some fruit. But we were also fortunate with a couple of good cup runs which significantly boosted income.

But you can’t guarantee the income from either of those sources, which is why the underlying business needs to be as sustainable as possible. Grasping at one profitable year in ten and saying “See, it IS sustainable!” is a bit daft IMHO. Particularly when those profits don’t even come close to the losses from the previous couple of years.
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That Model came with issues though as players had done well and then had opportunity to move in Jan or chance to agree deals elsewhere ready for the summer. Everything that was being built always had that risk and a side broken up just as promotion was on the horizon. You then had to rely on the conveyor belt constantly finding replacements and as Mapp told us others began fishing in the same waters.

Most would agree we have some decent players but for whatever reason find ourselves at the wrong end of the table for a 2nd year..We had previously been some 30 points from sitting at the top table of the league...Even spending huge sums getting the better players to go for a decent promotion run does not guarantee that will be achieved...Meanwhile the owners have their added income source/s and after 2/3 seasons of not making it to the championship would they wish to continue funding or would they bail out having got what they were after?.
When down in non league we could only crave for games against Pompey Luton etc but i'm not sure that 4/5 seasons of Scunthorpe Accrington Burton etc will attract fans long term other than the hardcore. So you're once more left with a half empty stadium just at a new location.
 
myles said:
Yes, to some extent the player trading model was starting to bear some fruit. But we were also fortunate with a couple of good cup runs which significantly boosted income.

But you can’t guarantee the income from either of those sources, which is why the underlying business needs to be as sustainable as possible. Grasping at one profitable year in ten and saying “See, it IS sustainable!” is a bit daft IMHO. Particularly when those profits don’t even come close to the losses from the previous couple of years.
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The player trading model has been used by clubs such as Southampton to great success, but there are no guarantees and there is always the danger that the next big star doesn't come off or you sell too many and the performance suffers.

The alternatives to this model are either relying on tv money (championship as a minimum), developing secondary income strands (retail, hotel, leisure), or have an owner wealthy enough to cover losses of a couple of million a year.

You are right that DE initially went with the trading model but also hoped to cash in with the tv money by getting into the championship. Once this didn't happen, and with no chance of secondary income, he ran out of money.

Tiger and co. are looking at new build options as the secondary income option is pretty much the only one that is sustainable. However the continued investment in our youth programmes and bringing in the likes of Brannagan and Whyte could also support the player trading model in the short term.

This is why a move from the Kassam seems to be the only real option if we are ever to be sustainable, but that still depends on any deal between the club and holding company to ensure we have long term and cheap use of the stadium. This may be fanciful thinking in the eyes of @LondonRoader but I can't see an alternative without finding someone willing to gift us £2m a year!
 
Scotchegg said:
The player trading model has been used by clubs such as Southampton to great success, but there are no guarantees and there is always the danger that the next big star doesn't come off or you sell too many and the performance suffers.
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Indeed. The player trading model should be seen more as a way of subsidising what is an already-sustainable situation, rather than being the main source of income. Even Southampton, who are perceived to work this system well, have spent £50m more on players over the past 10 seasons than they have brought in from sales.

This is why a move from the Kassam seems to be the only real option if we are ever to be sustainable, but that still depends on any deal between the club and holding company to ensure we have long term and cheap use of the stadium. This may be fanciful thinking in the eyes of @LondonRoader but I can't see an alternative without finding someone willing to gift us £2m a year!
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Agreed. There are so many structural issues with the current stadium (location, lack of potential for additional income, cost to bring up to standard, cost to develop), that unless a wealthy benefactor was literally going to gift the necessary sums, it would be financial suicide for the club to buy it IMHO.
 
daveoufc said:
Tiger and co have not shown they are capable of running the club properly yet. Why they should be trusted to even think about moving us anywhere is beyond me. Have we not learnt anything from the last saga. No one should be allowed to use the club as a pawn for land deals ever again.

The Manor could of hosted our slide into non league and back again and the kassam is more than suitable for our needs now.
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I adored the Manor but that just isn't true. There was talk of having to reduce the capacity very significantly due to safety issues and the LRT was full of asbestos.........character 100%, practicality and feasibility not so much (sadly!!)
 
daveoufc said:
Tiger and co have not shown they are capable of running the club properly yet. Why they should be trusted to even think about moving us anywhere is beyond me. Have we not learnt anything from the last saga. No one should be allowed to use the club as a pawn for land deals ever again.

The Manor could of hosted our slide into non league and back again and the kassam is more than suitable for our needs now.
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The club loses around £2m a year unless we get lucky with cup runs or player sales. Without any additional forms of income we are entirely reliant on having a chairman willing to cover these costs. So the Kassam simply doesn't meet our needs now or ever, unless we can negotiate a significantly better rental agreement.
 
Scotchegg said:
The club loses around £2m a year unless we get lucky with cup runs or player sales. Without any additional forms of income we are entirely reliant on having a chairman willing to cover these costs. So the Kassam simply doesn't meet our needs now or ever, unless we can negotiate a significantly better rental agreement.
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Not strictly true, our marketing is poor, our fan communication is poor, our form on the pitch is poor, I think the club could do so much more to help themselves to raise revenue, you dismiss the supposed business model as lucky but players sales has been a good revenue earner and why shouldn't it continue to be so.

How many years do you think it will take to build this mythical stadium and move in, then how long before it actually gives the owners a decent return, do we just keep on moaning about our loses just the same as most other clubs in the leagues, a promotion push might bring in extra revenue but also extra costs, I'm not convinced these owners are here to make OUFC sustainable for the future..
 
LondonRoader said:
Not strictly true, our marketing is poor, our fan communication is poor, our form on the pitch is poor, I think the club could do so much more to help themselves to raise revenue, you dismiss the supposed business model as lucky but players sales has been a good revenue earner and why shouldn't it continue to be so.

How many years do you think it will take to build this mythical stadium and move in, then how long before it actually gives the owners a decent return, do we just keep on moaning about our loses just the same as most other clubs in the leagues, a promotion push might bring in extra revenue but also extra costs, I'm not convinced these owners are here to make OUFC sustainable for the future..
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Let's say that it takes 5 years to get a new stadium and it costs a total of £30m. At the current rate of losing £2m a year, Tiger and co. could be at -£40m before a ball is kicked on the hallowed turf. But if that stadium and all associated business brought in £5m a year profit (hotels alone would bring in a big chunk of this), then 8 years down the line it would be all profit. This is without factoring any football related successes.

The alternative is staying as we are, selling the likes of Brannaghan, Dickie and Whyte and hoping to repeat every year. That can makes us sustainable at league 1 but will effectively mirror Peterborough which might suit some ambitions but not mine.
 
Scotchegg said:
Let's say that it takes 5 years to get a new stadium and it costs a total of £30m. At the current rate of losing £2m a year, Tiger and co. could be at -£40m before a ball is kicked on the hallowed turf. But if that stadium and all associated business brought in £5m a year profit (hotels alone would bring in a big chunk of this), then 8 years down the line it would be all profit. This is without factoring any football related successes.

The alternative is staying as we are, selling the likes of Brannaghan, Dickie and Whyte and hoping to repeat every year. That can makes us sustainable at league 1 but will effectively mirror Peterborough which might suit some ambitions but not mine.
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Wouldn't that leave us in pretty much a Kassam stadium situation, with a stadium owner snaffling away the ancillary income, leaving the club running on vapours? Let's face it, Tiger's history at Reading doesn't suggest he is about to be take all that potential extra income / land and invest it on the playing side of the club.

But as a side question, is there much hotel space around Bicester village? A travelodge and a few small boutique hotels?
What's the ground we went to last year with a built in hotel, Bolton Wanderers? Sunderland have (or rather had) a big hotel next door.
 
MarkG said:
But as a side question, is there much hotel space around Bicester village? A travelodge and a few small boutique hotels?
What's the ground we went to last year with a built in hotel.
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StadiumMK has a hotel built into the stadium.
 
myles said:
Indeed. The player trading model should be seen more as a way of subsidising what is an already-sustainable situation, rather than being the main source of income. Even Southampton, who are perceived to work this system well, have spent £50m more on players over the past 10 seasons than they have brought in from sales.


Agreed. There are so many structural issues with the current stadium (location, lack of potential for additional income, cost to bring up to standard, cost to develop), that unless a wealthy benefactor was literally going to gift the necessary sums, it would be financial suicide for the club to buy it IMHO.
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You know I don’t agree. I don’t see why it would be financial suicide to buy the existing stadium. There is scope to extend the capacity, there is a possibility of a new train link, there is the potential for additional income. Plus the stadium is - just- in Oxford . People’s views re Grenoble Rd would change significantly if a fourth stand was put up.
Kassam cannot apply for change of use of the land can he?

The issue to overcome - as ever- is the landlord. Who rather than being custodian for the club just does the bare minimum and trousers the rent.


Plus - well I may be in a minority here - but I like the stadium.

And as for a new ground there is a much bigger structural issue - any residents nearby would protest tooth and nail.
 
PottersRightBoot said:
You know I don’t agree. I don’t see why it would be financial suicide to buy the existing stadium. There is scope to extend the capacity, there is a possibility of a new train link, there is the potential for additional income. Plus the stadium is - just- in Oxford . People’s views re Grenoble Rd would change significantly if a fourth stand was put up.
Kassam cannot apply for change of use of the land can he?

The issue to overcome - as ever- is the landlord. Who rather than being custodian for the club just does the bare minimum and trousers the rent.


Plus - well I may be in a minority here - but I like the stadium.

And as for a new ground there is a much bigger structural issue - any residents nearby would protest tooth and nail.
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I think its' quite simple. People would like the stadium an awful lot more if it were owned by someone else who wasn't so intent of fleecing OUFC for all he could get and doing the square root of f all in return!

If we really felt we had a viable future there and all those things you mention were the main aim of any owner/investor, then the future would look a damn site more rosy.

However, for all those things to happen, then OUFC has to be the central reason why anyone is prepared to invest. Does anyone genuinely feel thats why we have billionaires circling the club right now?
 
MarkG said:
Wouldn't that leave us in pretty much a Kassam stadium situation, with a stadium owner snaffling away the ancillary income, leaving the club running on vapours? Let's face it, Tiger's history at Reading doesn't suggest he is about to be take all that potential extra income / land and invest it on the playing side of the club.

But as a side question, is there much hotel space around Bicester village? A travelodge and a few small boutique hotels?
What's the ground we went to last year with a built in hotel, Bolton Wanderers? Sunderland have (or rather had) a big hotel next door.
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The difference is that the owner of the club and associated businesses will be the same, whereas Kassam has been milking all the revenue leaving the club to pick up scraps.

Of course, Tiger and any other owner could just use this to line their own pockets and starve the club, but there must be easier ways to make a few quid without involving the club at all. Certainly if looking at somewhere like Bicester. I would imagine a hotel, leisure and retail park around the M40 junction would be fairly easy to get approval with or without a football stadium.

Of course this is all hypothetical, and Tiger might "take us on a journey" and leave us in the shite. Until anything is out in the open we have nothing but guess work as to what our future holds.
 
myles said:
Er, the bits in brackets? I'm talking about the structure of the situation, not the actual fabric of the stadium.
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I know you were and I agree its the situation thats the problem. Just wanted to be clear that the kassam is not structurally in need of urgent repairs and decrepit etc as a reason to move.
 
daveoufc said:
I know you were and I agree its the situation thats the problem. Just wanted to be clear that the kassam is not structurally in need of urgent repairs and decrepit etc as a reason to move.
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I thought when Mr Donald was advising oxvox on the stadium, or at least on that topic thread, it was identified that if not urgent repairs, a lot of money was needed for the lack of maintenance over the years.
 
Scotchegg said:
Let's say that it takes 5 years to get a new stadium and it costs a total of £30m. At the current rate of losing £2m a year, Tiger and co. could be at -£40m before a ball is kicked on the hallowed turf. But if that stadium and all associated business brought in £5m a year profit (hotels alone would bring in a big chunk of this), then 8 years down the line it would be all profit. This is without factoring any football related successes.

The alternative is staying as we are, selling the likes of Brannaghan, Dickie and Whyte and hoping to repeat every year. That can makes us sustainable at league 1 but will effectively mirror Peterborough which might suit some ambitions but not mine.
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I think you should of ducked out when you said you were going too, never mind you are creating an amount of humour in your guesswork.
I’m still worried about getting past the 19th unscathed, you on the other hand are off spending £50m of someone else’s money and expect them to gift us a slice of the pie.
 
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