Paul Mullin

It's the exit plan that I'm also interested in.

With Shaun Harvey pulling strings, I genuinely don't believe they're being run in a sensible way. They're throwing money at it. I saw the bit where McElhenney asks: 'Is this sustainable?' and Harvey's response was: 'It's sustainable as long as you're happy to sustain it.'

I mean, that's a guy just endorsing ridiculous spending, with no plan for a future where things may change, or not work out.

Like every other club out there with a dependency on one person, or an income that will dry up at some point, the day the money stops flowing in is the day they fall back to where they were (or fall even further).

At the moment I'm sure it seems to all Wrexham fans like Hollywood will be around forever. But things change. Personal circumstances change. The owners have plenty more projects in the US. A global pandemic might come along. Who knows?

So when (not if) Wrexham's funding situation changes, will they be in a position to support themselves? Will they be breaking even on income based on attendances and standard league sponsorship?

It's likely they'll be well short. So the search will be on to find another sugar daddy to save them from falling away into the abyss once again, and the circle is complete.

The one thing that troubles me most, though, about that takeover, is that after watching the whole series I still didn't hear them answer the question: Why Wrexham?

If Wrexham are smart, then whilst the money is there they will re-brand themselves as representing all north Wales and get into all the schools and youth leagues heavily to try and create a next generation of lots of regional fans.  There's a million people neglected of any real sports up there, RGC pre-covid were getting average gates of over 1900 (over 3000 for some games) and that's only part time semi-pro rugby.  Ultimately it's too tribal to work with the current residents but there's an opportunity there to try at least - about the only thing that will sustain them once Rob and Ryan go unless they've cracked the prem by that point and can dine out on tv money.

Quoted from RichMariner

It's the exit plan that I'm also interested in.

With Shaun Harvey pulling strings, I genuinely don't believe they're being run in a sensible way. They're throwing money at it. I saw the bit where McElhenney asks: 'Is this sustainable?' and Harvey's response was: 'It's sustainable as long as you're happy to sustain it.'

I mean, that's a guy just endorsing ridiculous spending, with no plan for a future where things may change, or not work out.

Like every other club out there with a dependency on one person, or an income that will dry up at some point, the day the money stops flowing in is the day they fall back to where they were (or fall even further).

At the moment I'm sure it seems to all Wrexham fans like Hollywood will be around forever. But things change. Personal circumstances change. The owners have plenty more projects in the US. A global pandemic might come along. Who knows?

So when (not if) Wrexham's funding situation changes, will they be in a position to support themselves? Will they be breaking even on income based on attendances and standard league sponsorship?

It's likely they'll be well short. So the search will be on to find another sugar daddy to save them from falling away into the abyss once again, and the circle is complete.

The one thing that troubles me most, though, about that takeover, is that after watching the whole series I still didn't hear them answer the question: Why Wrexham?

I'm not sure there is an exit plan, from what I can see they're building some stuff around them so that they can move away from one income stream. I don't like Parkinson (personal choice) and Mullin is a chaeting f****r who actually has decent ablity at lower league level and does not have to cheat which boils my p!ss even more.

The owners seem to have got their head around most of the rules and seem like they're pretty decent and visible so fair play.

Someone said that Parkinson won't last long, not sure that's the case to be honest as when they come up they'll challenge for another promotion and while there's a chance he'll be o.k which to be fair is another positive thing from the owners as swopping and changing managers is stupid.

What I do think though is that as they progress up the league they'll need someone more credible than Harvey, in fact he could be the first victim of their success, I hope.

Quoted from OddShapedBalls

If Wrexham are smart, then whilst the money is there they will re-brand themselves as representing all north Wales and get into all the schools and youth leagues heavily to try and create a next generation of lots of regional fans.  There's a million people neglected of any real sports up there, RGC pre-covid were getting average gates of over 1900 (over 3000 for some games) and that's only part time semi-pro rugby.  Ultimately it's too tribal to work with the current residents but there's an opportunity there to try at least - about the only thing that will sustain them once Rob and Ryan go unless they've cracked the prem by that point and can dine out on tv money.

Wrexham is equivalent in size to Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Without Hollywood money they could comfortably survive as a League 1/ Championship side. I live on the midwales coast, and there are a handful of Wrexham fans here. Apparently back in the day they used to get a coach together to get to home games, so there are potential fans out here. If they handle it well they could definitely tap in to being Tîm Gogledd Cymru

There are a couple of ways we can compete with the Wrexham's of this world.

One would be  a strict salary cap for all teams, which has no loopholes to exploit, so everyone has the same pot, but that was quickly abandoned when tried and challenged. We have the SCMP and the 55% expenditure to income for league 2 clubs, but it's clear from teams like Salford that there are ways around it, namely "sponsorship". We can clearly be outspent on playing squads by teams with fewer fans, so this route is a no go for us as the owners are not willing to pump in endless amounts of their personal wealth. We could get more investors, but again, the owners won't just allow anyone into the club because they flash the cash it seems.

The second way is for us to be smarter in our recruitment, probably using the data analytics approach adopted by the likes of Brentford. This of course is nothing new, and I think most teams now do this to a certain degree. I'm hoping that with Stockwood's previous experience in the world of computer algorithms, we can be ahead of the game in this regard, or certainly at the forefront. He did make reference to this in his Guardian article the other day, and I think we are already making strides in this area.

Quoted from RichMariner

It's the exit plan that I'm also interested in.

With Shaun Harvey pulling strings, I genuinely don't believe they're being run in a sensible way. They're throwing money at it. I saw the bit where McElhenney asks: 'Is this sustainable?' and Harvey's response was: 'It's sustainable as long as you're happy to sustain it.'

I mean, that's a guy just endorsing ridiculous spending, with no plan for a future where things may change, or not work out.

Like every other club out there with a dependency on one person, or an income that will dry up at some point, the day the money stops flowing in is the day they fall back to where they were (or fall even further).

At the moment I'm sure it seems to all Wrexham fans like Hollywood will be around forever. But things change. Personal circumstances change. The owners have plenty more projects in the US. A global pandemic might come along. Who knows?

So when (not if) Wrexham's funding situation changes, will they be in a position to support themselves? Will they be breaking even on income based on attendances and standard league sponsorship?

It's likely they'll be well short. So the search will be on to find another sugar daddy to save them from falling away into the abyss once again, and the circle is complete.

The one thing that troubles me most, though, about that takeover, is that after watching the whole series I still didn't hear them answer the question: Why Wrexham?

I think there can be a difference between being just unsustainable and endangering the club.

At scunny they paid out loads more than they earned under swann, in a bid to get to the championship (not sure what the plan would have been then if they had though) but this was all paid for in loans from swann. It was pretty much all spent on high wages for players they couldn't actually afford. When swann got bored he wanted his money back and the club wasn't worth any more than it was when he walked through the door and in no way could scunny generate the money to pay back what he had lent it, or be worth that amount to somebody willing to buy a NL club. This means the entire club is in huge jeopardybof existing due to how it was run. Any enjoyment that the fans had at the good times would be massively outweighed by now being the worst team they ever have been, with no prospect of getting back to where they were. And quite possibly ceasing to exist. The upside is massively outmatched by the downside.

For Wrexham however I think its different. Yes of course the Hollywood's will eventually walk away, but what will they leave afterwards? Well so far they are already setting in plans to have an increased capacity to 15k starting work this year - that just initself is a huge capital investment right there- it's been done to death on here about how important it is to do for us, and yet also how incredibly difficult it will be to achieve.
Sure they are massively overspending on wages, but big chunks of that ARE coming from huge actual increases in revenue (sell out crowds due to the increased interest, sponsorships from tik tok and aviator, massive shirt sales across the world (forbthat level of club) and also the moneyspinnibg Disney documentary obviously). If in a few years the Hollywood's walk away the fans will have had a far more interesting few years than they otherwise would have done, with a ground that's over 50% bigger, with a lot of that paid for in revenue generated. Even if they do then fall back to the abyss of NL they are Still better off than they were before and had a hell of a ride in the meantime. Of course it could be that Reynolds and the other one walk out on them leaving them in huge debts that nobody else is interested in picking up and the club folds. However I honestly don't think that is their intention and they would avoid that if possible due to the damage to their reputation if nothing else. More likely they will leave an improved club which intrinsically generates more cash than it did before they arrived and the supporters have some great times during their spell watching them win - but that club won't be able to sustain the spending it does now and they may drift back down the leagues. But just because they can't continue to generate that level of cash once Reynolds leaves isn't automatically a problem, unless they insist on spending like they can. If he walks away and 3 years later they're in league 2 with a 15k stadium they're still ahead of where they were when he arrived.

Quoted from scrumble

Wrexham is equivalent in size to Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Without Hollywood money they could comfortably survive as a League 1/ Championship side. I live on the midwales coast, and there are a handful of Wrexham fans here. Apparently back in the day they used to get a coach together to get to home games, so there are potential fans out here. If they handle it well they could definitely tap in to being Tîm Gogledd Cymru

Do I like that ..... looks like we are capable of going back right through to The Champ after all

Quoted from scrumble

Wrexham is equivalent in size to Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Without Hollywood money they could comfortably survive as a League 1/ Championship side. I live on the midwales coast, and there are a handful of Wrexham fans here. Apparently back in the day they used to get a coach together to get to home games, so there are potential fans out here. If they handle it well they could definitely tap in to being Tîm Gogledd Cymru

I'm old enough to remember when Town were promoted to the second tier under George Kerr and one of the teams waiting for us in that old second divison were Wrexham... I don't recall how long they'd been at that level but they were able to get there under their own steam back in the day

I know times change and money talks more than ever nowadays but if they are to get out of the National League this season and then push on through League 2 and beyond, I'd have thought they would have a fanbase that could maybe sustain the club at least at League 1 level ( especially given teams like Accrington, Oxford, Burton etc can do this)

Quoted from FishOutOfWater

I'm old enough to remember when Town were promoted to the second tier under George Kerr and one of the teams waiting for us in that old second divison were Wrexham... I don't recall how long they'd been at that level but they were able to get there under their own steam back in the day

I know times change and money talks more than ever nowadays but if they are to get out of the National League this season and then push on through League 2 and beyond, I'd have thought they would have a fanbase that could maybe sustain the club at least at League 1 level ( especially given teams like Accrington, Oxford, Burton etc can do this)

You can add Wycombe , Morecambe (up until this season ) ,Exeter ,Cheltenham and Cambridge to that list as well .

All those clubs have not thrown bucket loads of money at it , so it definitely gives hope that it is possible to survive in league 1 with a modest budget and in Wycombe actually thrive .

All this talk about only operating on sustainable income . What is sustainable income? Is TV money sustainable income wasnt when ITV Digital went bust. If you go down TV money falls with parachute payments now regarded as bad then that protection would fall. Crowds fall away if teams perform badly so how do you decide how much crowd income is sustainable. Football will always be the same it’s driven by dreams if the money is available it will be spent. If the ‘sustainable ‘ lobby get there way League position in the long run will simply be determined by size of town and stadium and the dream will die