Lately I have read stories about how, why & when Mike Ashley will sell Newcastle United. Hopefully, the following facts & musings will show why he won't. When I say hopefully, it's not because I would like him to stay at NUFC. Quite the opposite. I say hopefully as it will go some way to dispelling the fantasy hows, whys & whens that I've read so much about.
I will also comment on some of the thoughts & strategies behind the campaigns to put pressure on Ashley to leave, why I feel these protests are misdirected, and what may happen if & when he sells.
Please note: This blog is merely my opinion on the above subjects, however there are also researched facts in there that are readily available with a simple Google search.
First of all, the stories doing the rounds. Many people believe that, by buying shares in Glasgow Rangers, Mike Ashley is gearing up for a possible takeover of the Scottish (sleeping) giants. They say that he will be able to buy Rangers on the cheap and, as Scottish football is so uncompetitive and so few clubs have the supporter base that Rangers do, it will be relatively cheap & easy to get them back to the top of the Scottish Premier League and indeed into the Champions League. This, they say, is where Ashley will make even more money than he can & does at NUFC. Absolute rubbish.
Yes, he may well be able to buy Rangers & take them to the Champions League on a relative shoestring compared to how much it would cost to do the same with NUFC, but would he gain financially from it? Not a chance. Why? That's simple.
The SPL is a pauper compared to the English Premier League. Viewing figures for the SPL are about 150,000 per game - with Rangers v Celtic 'Old Firm' games bringing in about 900,000 viewers - with very little interest outside of Scotland itself. The latest TV rights are worth £63m over 4 years to be distributed across the entire league. This is down from £80m before Rangers were demoted to Division 3.
Contrast that with the Premier League. Viewing figures for this are 4.7 BILLION per season. Over the 380 televised games, this gives an average figure of 12.3 MILLION viewers per game. In the 2011-2012 season, NUFC alone made more than £54m in TV rights money.
This will increase in 2013-2014 to a minimum of £66m for finishing 10th.
So, lets say you're Mike Ashley. How many people would you rather have seeing your Sports Direct advertising every week? It's a no-brainer. Ahhh, but look how many people watch the Champions League. Surely this would make up that short-fall. Again, no. All advertising shown in UEFA (and FIFA) competitions is strictly monitored and restricted to UEFA (or FIFA) 'partners'. Just look at the kerfuffle caused by Nicklas Bendtner showing off an unauthorised logo on his underpants during the last European Championships for proof of this.....
This means that Ashley would simply not be allowed to advertise during the Champions League - save for Sports Direct sponsoring the Rangers shirts. But why would he cut off another avenue of income for something he doesn't even need to spend money on at NUFC? He wouldn't.
On to the Sports Direct advertising in question. This is free to SD. It would be worth around £8m per season if it was sold at the going rate. NUFC has admitted as such. Now take a look at that advertising again. Those electronic boards at St. James' Park don't just advertise Sports Direct in the UK to UK audiences - they now advertise for SD sites in France, Spain, Italy, Malaysia, China, you name it. And they advertise it to a global audience of 12.3 million people per week.
It is the sole reason that since Mike Ashley bought NUFC, the Sports Directs financial figures have increased as follows (the figures below cover just the last 4 years as an example):
- Turnover has increased from £1.37 billion in 2009 to £2.18 billion in 2013.
- Operating profit has increased from £67.8 million in 2009 to £213 million in 2013.
- Profit before tax has increased from £10.7 million in 2009 to £207 million in 2013.
- Profit after tax has increased from a LOSS of £15.5 million in 2009 to a profit of £151 million in 2013.
Why would any sane businessman give that amount of money up? & lets be brutally honest here - love him or hate him - you have to admit that as a businessman Mike Ashley is utterly brilliant. That is a fact you can not deny as the facts above speak for themselves.
So, that blows the Rangers theory out of the water. It also dispels the thought process of some people who think Ashley will sell NUFC as soon as the debt the club owes to him is paid back. Look at the Sports Direct financial figures above again. It has more than been paid back. With bells on.
In short, Mike Ashley is using Newcastle United Football Club as a
marketing tool for Sports Direct - nothing more, nothing less - and he
is reaping the considerable rewards that go with it. The money from
the TV rights is purely just an added bonus.
No onto some of the campaigns to try & get Mike Ashley out of NUFC. They won't work. It really is as simple as that. He is a ruthless, hard-nosed businessman who doesn't give a flying fuck what people think of him & has proved this time & time again.
Hit him in the pocket: Stop buying pies & pints? He doesn't care as the catering at SJP is run by a concession (in this case Sodexo) so he makes money regardless. If they pull out, there will be someone else willing to take over. Stop shopping in Sports Direct? For every NUFC fan that (already) does that there are hundreds of thousands of others worldwide who still do. How are you going to stop them?
Even stopping going to games won't hurt him that badly financially. Lets say (on a best case scenario) that 20,000 NUFC fans stop going to every game. That still leaves 30,000 tickets per game at say £40 per ticket. That's equals £1.2m per game times 19 home league games which equals £22.8m per season. That would certainly put a dent in the books, but one again softened by the £60m+ per year the club makes in TV revenue as well as the money earned by Sports Direct.
The other thorn in the paw of these protests is that there are too many NUFC 'supporter groups'. Liverpool's Spirit of Shankly group has over 18,000 members. All the NUFC supporter groups combined can't match that figure - and the reason why is simple: Egos. To many people are only in it for themselves to raise their own profiles.
Groups can not and will not merge with each other under one banner as the individual egos will all strive to run and control any single formed group. This already brings many disagreements which is further proved by certain groups being unwilling to attend meetings under the @NUFCFansUtd and #Time4Change flags.
Today's latest non-starter being promoted by the @Mike_Ashley_Out group is to stage a sit-in at NUFC's "Nine" bar before & after the home game with Aston Villa. The same group who is also "promoting the continued boycott of all companies associated with him". So by protesting there & hoping the media will report on it does it not occur to the MAOC that they are actually giving free advertising to a company associated with him? Does the MAOC not also think that this will further alienate some NUFC fans who either don't believe in or don't want to be involved with their protest, thus turning even more people against them?
How well received do they think the protests in the club shop were before & after the home game with Spurs the other week? Shouting, bullying and harassing people - mums and dads with kids - from choosing to do something they disagree with. It was and is an outrage. These campaigns appear to be less thought out and more desperate at every turn. Don't get me wrong - I am not knocking the efforts people go to in organising such things - just some of their methods.
The only single way that any protest could get under the skin of Mike Ashley is on a massive prolonged scale, in the ground, during a televised game. Something that would bring the fans together. It would be sure to irk him that's for sure. As to whether or not is would have any effect is debatable. We all know some of the stunts he has pulled on us in retaliation - the re-naming of St. James' Park is just one example.
My personal opinion is the the protest groups are targeting the wrong people. Look at the current NUFC squad, both pre and post Cabaye. We have a team full of talented international footballers who are being badly coached and badly managed and coached using bad formations and bad tactics.
Look at the current NUFC squad. How have so many good players been turned into such bad players if not for being badly coached and badly managed using bad formations and bad tactics?
Look at the current NUFC squad. Those players, if coached and managed competently and correctly using good formations and good tactics should be challenging the there or thereabouts at the top end of the table. Certainly not for the title. That is a step too far. But we should certainly be bothering the top 4 and as a minimum, challenging for and playing in Europe on a regular basis.
Any manager & his coaching team worth their salt and with just an ounce of pride would set up his team to achieve this in spite of Mike Ashley - not because of him. The fact we are not proves that Alan Pardew is a puppet of Ashley's, following his remit of retaining Premier League status in order to feed Mike's wallet to the tune of £60m+ TV money per year as well as the millions in profit Sports Direct earns from NUFC being in the Premier League.
It seems to me that the protests towards Ashley become more vocal dependant on what happens on the pitch. When NUFC were doing ok before Christmas there was hardly a peep from the protesters. Since Christmas however - when things on the pitch have been going badly - the volume has increased. Therefore, is it not the spineless, pathetic, untalented, foot-in-mouth Alan Pardew who should be targeted, rather than the owner?
Finally (I hear you all breathe a sigh of relief!) what could happen
if Ashley does eventually leave? Well, it's certainly going to take a
ridiculous amount of money to make it happen. The wish would be for
someone similar to those who own Manchester City - although the new UEFA
financial fair play rules would put paid to massive investment on the
playing side of things on that sort of scale. However, it could be a
case of buyer beware - and we should all be wary of the Venky's and
Vincent Tan's out there. People who are in it purely to stoke their own
egos (even more than some of our supporter groups.....) and people who
give even less of a shit what people think of them than Ashley does.
Could Mike Ashley's ownership of Newcastle United be a case of better the devil we know? Answers on a postcard please. Just as long as you didn't buy it from the club shop.....
