Always a Wasp

Quote from: The Falcon on October 17, 2022, 11:16:31 AM

Quote from: InBetweenWasp on October 17, 2022, 11:11:33 AM

I don't know for sure, but I doubt the plan relied on bumper crowds - I suspect it was more around better utilisation of the Stadium and Conferencing facilities in terms of days used.    Bumper crowds would have been a bonus, rather than a need.

Supposing you're right, was there a plan B for when it became apparent plan A wasn't working? I'm unsure.

Not sure if you're on a wind-up or not? - Really there's two 'plans' rugby teams can operate:

Plan A: Rugby related income (Matchday income, sponsorship, centralised income)
Plan B: Non-rugby related income (Non-rugby use of Stadium/Assets)

Final option; have a very wealthy benefactor to cover year-on-year losses

Plan A is rarely enough for clubs operating it (Quins, Saints, Gloucs, Bath, Irish, Sale, Newcastle) and adding Plan B to Plan A (Tigers, Chiefs, Sarries).  Not sure whether Bristol get much use out of Ashton gate on non-matchdays or whether it's part of their plans.

It was clear, that the vision for Derek and Co was to supplement A with B by increasing utilisation of non-rugby related stadium complex use. 

What alternatives did they have that you would have considered a viable alternative to the above? This is also the big piece that those who have been confidently predicting our demise and criticising the business plan seem to struggle with.

It's fine to say move back to Greater London and find a 10-15k seater stadium.  But what would that cost to build/buy? If you don't build/buy your own stadium, how do you generate enough income to sustain the Club?

Quins as the best example are the closest to making it work properly, but when the cap goes up another £2m in a season or twos time, how do they generate that extra income?

The conclusion I'm coming to is that this was an enormous unaffordable gamble. Non-sporting stadium use would have needed to have run at around £15 million plus a year in profit to be able to afford the bond repayment that was pencilled in for 2022, taking into account the large losses on the rugby side of the business.

You're also right that the alternatives in London wouldn't have solved the long term issues either. But perhaps going for what Saracens have now settled on, with reduced risk, and without trying to establish a new fan base at the same time, and we'd still have a club to support next year.

When was the bond issued, and when was the original repayment date?

The date for repayment was always in 2022 wasn't it? Happy to be corrected. The interest payments alone were also £2 million a year. We were borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and would have need to make profit of £4-5 million a year to have been able to pay it back on schedule. Instead we were substantially in the red for most of the time and whatever plan we had for the business to get stronger, it didn't work.

I don't think anyone is saying Wuss shouldn't be afforded the same, but this is a Wasps board, so I guess, strangely, people are focussing on what the PRL / RFU can do to help us.

Of course, but my point is another club had already had its P share removed. To then allow another to keep it despite clearly being insolvent just wasn't an option.

Allowed us to keep the P share and then Armstrong's buy out would have succeeded.

Why should we have had that luxury but not Wuss?

Yes, the club could have done far better but that doesn't mean the anger directed towards third parties is unwarranted. You're telling me that the response would be the same if Tigers were in this position? Absolutely not, PRL and the RFU would bend over backwards to make sure they survived.

Could Wasps management have done better? Yes. Are fans wrong to be angry at third parties? No.

What could the PRL/RFU do to help us here? We owe an enormous amount of money to a lot of entities and we don't have it. It was said above, rightly, that we don't want the RFU interfering with the business affairs of the different clubs.

I appreciate that the club will have voted for a closed shop but I remember many Wasps fans (amongst many other fans of different clubs) disagreeing with removing relegation.

But the club did vote for it-and so whatever we as fans may have thought, the club put itself in this position. Supporting this when losing £10 million a year with a looming bond repayment deadline just seems like gross mismanagement.

I'd suggest that those annoyed at third parties ought to look at the executives in our own club.

I read Massey-Phillips comments around that and thought it was a nonsensical argument - it’s full of holes and was just a backside covering piece of bluster…

“There is a scenario where a club could just write off all of its debt,” he said. “But then if it retains its P share you then have a league where the vast majority of teams still have significant debt, playing against a team that has no debt but retains the same income as them from the P share. So you have another form of disruption and inequality.”

So how does he explain clubs currently playing with significant debt against the likes of clubs in the black like Exeter and Saracens? Is he saying it’s unfair for clubs in the black to have a P share and play clubs in debt full stop?
The PRL and RFU have already stated that they don’t get involved in individual club finances and consider them as businesses out of their remit, so why does it matter if they find a way to clear it and take the relegation hit? This especially as not including the P share means buyers pull out of saving us and effectively signs our death warrant.
Why didn’t it matter with the Cheats when they had an unfair financial advantage over a number of years with their method of financing breaking the cap?

Obviously you cant have clubs going in and out of administration regularly to clear their debts, but his words above sound like a load of bluster to cover the sudden U turn from a 14 team competition to 10 teams, which is a decision that has emerged out of the ether since Baxter first touched on it last week and feels driven by some clubs with an interest in sharing the spoils. The bigger return from less shares allowing some clubs to profit more  over others with significant debt!

The point stands-we voted for a closed shop. You might be right, a smaller group of clubs want a bigger share of the spoils, but were we bothered about that when we supported denying clubs the right to promotion? I don't think so. What were our offerings to the wider rugby family below the Premiership then?

Unfortunately what goes around, comes around.

To take that a bit further. There are 2, maybe 3 sweating on their own finances. If they’d have come out forcibly in favour of us not being stripped of the P share they may have safeguarded themselves. But they’ve hunkered down, praying that someone joins us and Wuss. They know full well once the 10 are in place PRL/RFU etc etc will sweat blood to protect their slimmed down elite.

Equally they have a fair argument that if clubs are able to use administration to wipe their debts and come back into the fold unscathed, it sets an unwelcome precedent. We did vote for the 'closed shop' after all.