Lincoln City

Quoted from moosey_club

It's ok trying to have a dig at Lincoln but that last paragraph could quite easily describe us.
It's football....without massive, nigh on bottomless, investment most provincial football clubs have ups and downs, either striking lucky with a manager or a striker and elevating themselves above their natural status for a period, I have seen it early 80's and then again early 2000's with Buckley mk2.
It's the circle of football life that about 80 out of 92 teams face to one extent or another.

I think the day will have to come soon where football players will have to accept a lot less in wages.
I think once the top six leave for whichever super league gets going it’ll at least give the rest of the remaining clubs more realistic ambitions.
We probably won’t have clubs like Brentford and Luton with a wage bill in the 100s of millions and all the other clubs further down the leagues will reduce accordingly.


Our club is probably in a lot worse state than many others as the infrastructure needs a lot spending on it too .

I noticed how their away followings have plummeted - 350 to Cambridge the other midweek, we count that distance as a local derby.

I’m not sure whether their home “ attendances” are tickets sold or the actual crowd like ours. Their ST numbers are about the same as ours. They have more away fans visiting SB but if they declare real attendances then they must have a lot better utilisation by their STH than we do. A £3 million loss is a scary number whichever.

Quoted from Mappers

I see why Jason 'got tetchy ' at the fans forum , would love to know how deep him and Pettit  are in now , being left with BP in a state of disrepair ,tucked up by our former leader and then taking some flak from the less optimistic section of our  fanbase.

I’m sure Jason & Andrew did all the correct due diligence when they bought the club. They must have known what they were buying. They can’t really complain now. It can’t be a surprise that BP is falling apart at the seams around them.

I imagine any frustration might be with their own failure to find suitable people to come on board as additional co-owners to lighten the financial burden on them both.

Quoted from Limerick Mariner

I noticed how their away followings have plummeted - 350 to Cambridge the other midweek, we count that distance as a local derby.

I’m not sure whether their home “ attendances” are tickets sold or the actual crowd like ours. Their ST numbers are about the same as ours. They have more away fans visiting SB but if they declare real attendances then they must have a lot better utilisation by their STH than we do. A £3 million loss is a scary number whichever.

They’ve always had terrible support to be honest , they seem to have been able to get fans to attend at the Bank for the last few years but this hasn’t been backed up with their away support .

I can remember them bringing 400 on a Boxing Day one year which kind of says it all.
Even at our  lowest we always sold all our tickets for our local games

Quoted from GollyGTFC

I’m sure Jason & Andrew did all the correct due diligence when they bought the club. They must have known what they were buying. They can’t really complain now. It can’t be a surprise that BP is falling apart at the seams around them.

I imagine any frustration might be with their own failure to find suitable people to come on board as additional co-owners to lighten the financial burden on them both.

I don't know a good analogy might  be a second hand  car - you can look under the bonnet and everything looks fine , the seller  tells you his good lady will run forever ,  but then a few months later something goes that the new owner didn't know about followed by many other problems .

I agree on the second paragraph though ,he touched on it at the forum - selling investors (legitimate, not wrong uns) something that isn't going to make them anything financially is a hard sell (unless there are some multi millionaire town fans out there somewhere )  it's probably a lot more difficult than they thought it would be and they are having to put in more £££££ than they thought they would  for no return ; and as Stockwood pointed out it's a unique business in that the better you do the more it costs/you lose .

They must have a limit as to what they are willing to put in surely .

I would be interested as to how Lincoln managed to recruit all of these outside American investors - maybe they have sold them the dream of going right through ?

What are the US investors hoping to achieve? I assume it’s not simply a vanity project so what is the endgame? Get into the Championship and then sell on for a profit?

In that case they would need someone willing to part with over ten million to acquire an unsustainable club with a small fan base requiring regular six figure cash injections.

I just don’t get it. Anyone got an ideas?

Quoted from RonMariner

What are the US investors hoping to achieve? I assume it’s not simply a vanity project so what is the endgame? Get into the Championship and then sell on for a profit?

In that case they would need someone willing to part with over ten million to acquire an unsustainable club with a small fan base requiring regular six figure cash injections.

I just don’t get it. Anyone got an ideas?

To do a Luton and go right through gradually Ron I think

Look at Swann at our neighbours wanting take them right through , and how that ended .

I don't think that will happen at Lincoln tbf but I can't see them getting to the Champ and eventually drop a little bit when the more heavily bankrolled clubs end up in league 1 .

Same as many others will chase the dream , a one in a million chance .

That's always my question when it comes to Lincoln and their investors, what's the drive behind investment?

Not a chance in hell they're investing for the good of it, nor should they either.  It'll be the same when 1878 bring outside investment into the club, whoever is investing money in the set-up will want a return on it at some point.  

Will player sales bring that?  Probably not.  

If Lincoln get to the Championship, does that make them sellable enough to recoup in excess of £10million?  Or probably a better question would be how much more investment do they need just to get to the Championship.  Luton went through but to my knowledge they're not funded by outside investment.  Luton are historically a far, far bigger club than Lincoln with a far more established fanbase.  Their worst season was a 7th place in the Conference (12/13) yet they still average 5800 at home games that season.  Whilst Lincoln have averaged better than that  for the last 5 seasons, the last time they bettered it was 1977.  The same season Luton only got 5800 coming through their gate, Lincoln averaged 2100 in the same league.

I'm not close enough to say it's sustainable or not, I don't think any of us are.  I don't think a slight drop-off this season in gates is an indicator that the bubble has burst. Nor do I think their away followings are either, they've never travelled well and ultimately how many fans you take on the road has intercourse all input financially to your club.   But from the outside looking in, it doesn't look like a model that can take them any further than this position of trying but not quite breaking into those promotion challengers in League One.    

If I was a Lincoln fan I would be a little nervous that the position is very dependent on ongoing investment, but those investments keep coming and coming...

This is just a very rough calculation, basically based on not much, and assuming each club has a squad of 20 players plus manager, any assistants other coaches admin staff etc would all be additional.

Premiership, average weekly wage, £80k = £87 million plus a year.
Championship, average weekly wage £20k =£21 million plus a year
League 1, average weekly wage £5k = £5 million plus a year
League 2, average weekly wage £1500 = £1.6 million plus a year

Therefore it’s purely tv money that is allowing clubs to pay the wages they do, and could town afford promotion without additional investors coming on board, considering that  Blundell Park is nearly full now. Obviously the above figures do not show income, gate receipts tv money etc.

I think any club that is having significant sums pumped into it has a right to get nervous once it stops progressing at the current level of investment. Lincoln require £3m a year to finish mid-table in League One. The King's Lynn owner is now begging for investment and saying he won't plug the £300k gap in the finances this season. They are full-time with crowds of 800 in the NLN, and currently 21st. The original club, King's Lynn FC folded in 2010 after getting kicked out of the NLN for their ground not meeting requirements following promotion the previous year. I don't think there is interest in King's Lynn for a full-time team, but their owner has pumped money in, taken them to the NL, got relegated, almost got promoted last season, and now it's tough, he's spitting his dummy out. It happens all of the time and I do wonder when the Lincoln investors decide they aren't going to cover the losses anymore.