Tag Archives: glazer

Rumours persist on poor MUFC ticket sales

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Old Trafford

Speculation regarding poor sales of Manchester United season tickets continues with news that the club is struggling to sell its executive and corporate packages as well as the standard season tickets.

Despite the club publicly stating they are happy with the level of sales so far, claiming that “Executive season ticket renewals are at the same level as this time last year and slightly up on two years ago”, Goal.com UK reports that there have been THREE crisis meetings at Old Trafford to discuss the issue.

This follows on from our report last week that with only a few days to go before the season ticket deadline, United had only managed to sell 18,000, less than a third of last season’s total.

As we said in that article, with tickets and match day revenue still the biggest earner for the club, these figures will make worrying reading for the Glazer family as they attempt to service debts of over £700 million and could, should they prove to be true, trigger the need to sell the club.

The Red Knight consortium will be watching on with interest.

Any sale of the business, however, will likely ruin the football club’s short term future on the pitch and United fans should brace themselves for dip in form, league position and entertainment to get what they want – new ownership and a more financially secure future.

Is it a price worth paying? If these ticket sales are anything to go by, the fans obviously think it is.

Glazers ‘shocked’ by lack of MUFC season ticket sales

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Supporters Green & Gold CampaignSources have revealed that Manchester United have sold only 18,000 season tickets for the 2010/11 season compared to 56,000 last year – and the deadline for getting one is Friday.

The club, of course, have said that there is always “a late rush to buy” but it’s hard to imagine that with only four days to go they will sell a further 38,000 just to match last season’s total.

The club’s owners, the Glazer family, are said to be shocked by the lack of sales, casting further doubt on any real late rush.

Manchester United are at the centre of a battle for ownership between the Glazers and a consortium called the ‘Red Knights’ but the Glazer family has always said there is no chance of a sale. Fan power, in the form of a season ticket boycott, looks like it could swing the balance of power in the Red Knights favour, however.

Struggling under debts of around £750,000,000, many fans fear for the future of the Old Trafford club and hold the Glazer family solely responsible. The supporters have been running a striking but largely ineffective ‘Green & Gold’ campaign to show their dislike of the Glazers and express their desire for them to sell. The Glazers remain unmoved.

I have always doubted the commitment of the club’s supporters to really follow up their desires by hitting the Glazer family where it hurts – in the pocket. Not for a minute did I think that the apathetic support – which doesn’t include the members of the Manchester United Support Trust (MUST) or the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association (IMUSA) – would go so far as to give up their tickets.

Yet it seems that they have and I applaud them for it. Money is the only language the Glazer family understands. If the supporters, who still provide the biggest income stream to the club on a match day, vote with their feet and refuse to go to watch their team then the Glazers will struggle to finance the interest on those debts, forcing a sale.

Whether or not this will happen is open to debate but the Glazers grip on Manchester United is under threat as never before. Whether or not the Red Knights really have the financial muscle to make a real bid for the club is also open to debate but they will be encouraged by this news and may redouble their efforts.

It will be interesting to see if fan power can truly affect the future of a club as big as Manchester United as it has at smaller clubs in the past.

Man Utd “not for sale” and doing well?

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Old Trafford

Ironically, "Not For Sale"

Manchester United simultaneously released their latest quarterly financial figures and a “not for sale” statement as the Glazer family stood firm in the face of the “Green and Gold” campaign and the Red Knight consortium hoping to buy them out.

The “not for sale” statement was emphatic and the figures better than many would perhaps have expected. Results for January to March show a cut in debt from £543.3m to £520.9m, while net assets stand at £794.9m and the club has cash reserves of £95.9m. The club also announced that in the nine months to March, year-on-year revenues were up 13.5% from £193.3m to £219.3m.

For the supporters claiming that the debt accrued by the Glazer family in acquiring the club was unsustainable these figures make grim reading – on the surface at least. What isn’t included is another £200m+ of debt that resides with a parent company yet is still essentially Manchester United debt.

At the same time, losses for the quarter rose from £5.87m to £65.94m, thanks in the main to various financing charges and costs, and the last annual accounts in July 2009 showed the overall debt to be £716.5m.

Rising revenue across the board also looks good, but match day revenue – tickets, drinks and food for the most part – still makes up the largest income stream for the club, outstripping global commercial and TV income.

Groups like the Red Knights, the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) and the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association (IMUSA) will rightly point out that it is the match going fans that are paying through the nose to cover these debts and that the club’s claims that their global commercial activities are helping are somewhat weak.

Nevertheless, MUFC chief executive David Gill claimed that club had not yet fully maximised its revenue streams from global commercial opportunities. This is partly true. The opportunity presented by live streaming of goals to mobile devices is as yet untapped and the Glazer family believe they can negotiate for such services outside of the Premier League around the world. It could prove to be a massive revenue stream if this proves to be the case.

Gill also said:

“We can invest in the players, invest in the training ground – we have plans for that – invest in the stadium and do those things. The money is definitely there. We are not in a situation where Alex is restricted in what he wants to do with the club.”

This won’t be enough to appease the fans but the Glazers apparently remain “fully committed to their long-term ownership of the club” and will “not entertain any offers” which many have taken to mean the Red Knights’ plans are now dead in the water.

Time will tell on that one but for now the quarterly figures look better than they have in a while and it seems the Glazers are not being put off by supporters who turn up at matches sporting green and gold and singing anti-Glazer songs. And nor will they be – as long as they continue to pay for their tickets.