Steve Lansdown

[Dolman Block B]

today declined to make any promises about the future of Bristol City as he prepares to float his company on the stock exchange, in a move that could net him £240 million.

The business is valued at £600 million, both current owners have a 40% stake!!!!!!

Lansdown insists, "the floatation has nothing to do with Bristol City. I look at Bristol City as a separate entity, and it has to survive on its own!. I will help, but it has to stand on its own two feet. I don't talk about what i might do, i just get on and do it.

At the end of the day, AS PEOPLE FREQUENTLY TELL ME, i am only looking after the club"

What do you reckon on that then?

Future bright or..........?

[spectator]

OK he's not Abramovich, Glazer,Lerner Gaydamak etc., but equally he's not Bates,Ridsdale et al.

Thankfully what you see is what you get, there's no dark side to him and there's no great ego to satisfy, and he won't take unnecessary risks or chances,so no chance ofr it all coming crashing down all of a sudden.

Just gives honest wholesome support, like every decent fan, which gives the Club a better chance of success in the long term.

[Rocky]

Seen this on here a few times.

Who can speculate what the man is going to do with HIS hard earned money.

He's already doing lots for this club, can't say I would plow millions of my personal fortune into football these days!

[CodeRed]

today declined to make any promises about the future of Bristol City as he prepares to float his company on the stock exchange, in a move that could net him £240 million.

The business is valued at £600 million, both current owners have a 40% stake!!!!!!

Lansdown insists, "the floatation has nothing to do with Bristol City. I look at Bristol City as a separate entity, and it has to survive on its own!. I will help, but it has to stand on its own two feet. I don't talk about what i might do, i just get on and do it.

At the end of the day, AS PEOPLE FREQUENTLY TELL ME, i am only looking after the club"

What do you reckon on that then?

Future bright or..........?

He's not saying anything different to what he's already said - the playing budget will go from £2.5M to £4.5M which means that thay if the current players contracts have a clause giving then - say - a 20% (??) increase for playing Championship Football then that's £3M.........3 or 4 new players at (Championship) wages of at least £4K/week adds another £800K at least (per year)............so that means about £700K for transfers?.....in other words Johnson will buy a striker (Pospisil?) and add another 2 or 3 on Bosmans.....exactly as he has done before.

Landsdown will continue to invest in the Stadium by building stands etc as (1) it increases the revenue - and (2) as he has converted his loans to shares then developing the stadium that he effectively owns (along with Keith Dawe) is a bit like putting an extension on your house............not much risk as your spending to increase the value of your own asset.

I've not seen anything in Steve Lansdown's past behaviour or decision making to suggest he will suddenly go out of character and pump millions into the club in the way that Dave Whelan(Wigan) or Jack Walker(Blackburn) did............or indeed any of the foreign Prem club owners (Pompey, Chelsea, etc).........It's just not his style.

CodeRed

[Rocky]

He's not saying anything different to what he's already said - the playing budget will go from £2.5M to £4.5M which means that thay if the current players contracts have a clause giving then - say - a 20% (??) increase for playing Championship Football then that's £3M.........3 or 4 new players at (Championship) wages of at least £4K/week adds another £800K at least (per year)............so that means about £700K for transfers?.....in other words Johnson will buy a striker (Pospisil?) and add another 2 or 3 on Bosmans.....exactly as he has done before.

Landsdown will continue to invest in the Stadium by building stands etc as (1) it increases the revenue - and (2) as he has converted his loans to shares then developing the stadium that he effectively owns (along with Keith Dawe) is a bit like putting an extension on your house............not much risk as your spending to increase the value of your own asset.

I've not seen anything in Steve Lansdown's past behaviour or decision making to suggest he will suddenly go out of character and pump millions into the club in the way that Dave Whelan(Wigan) or Jack Walker(Blackburn) did............or indeed any of the foreign Prem club owners (Pompey, Chelsea, etc).........It's just not his style.

CodeRed

Are you a financial advisor?!

[Bristol Boy]

He's right to say he's a custodian of our club.......I'm not quite sure about the way he said it and it's easy for these things to get taken out of context or spun by the written media.

I don't think he's saying anything that he hasn't said recently or repeatedly since he became Chairman.

All of those things are sensible are fairly obvious.

I wouldn't expect him to say "Sod the expense, I'll spend what it takes to get us promoted again next season" or "GJ will get whatever he needs!" because no sensible businessman........and SL's worst enemy wouldn't say he wasn't a highly succesful businessman and a very clever man, would ever say that.I don' think Abramovich has said that, just done it!!

The Millenium Debacle hit the club & fans hard and hit SL hard. He has said that was a turning point in his spending plans visa vie transfer fees.The cheap option (Tinnions words not mine) was tried and failed and SL has also been very candid about our sales of younger stars Lita & Cotterill continuing until we exit this division.

After the example of Leeds every club has to be wary about buying success or rather spending the money and failing as Leeds Premiership winning side under Howard Wilkinson was Pre the profligacy of the Risdale Era from which they are still suffering.Do you think there's one Leeds fan who would accept where they are now for those couple of years when they were a big club again?

Our expectations for next season will be lower.We will not be a big fish in a little pond as we are now IF we are promoted on Saturday and I'm like a kid on Xmas Eve waiting for that day to arrive.

Our average gates, if similar to this year (and they won't be unless we really go through a bad time) will be amongst the smallest in the Division, whilst our away support I expect, will be right up there if we are even marginally succesfull.

Our expectations will also be effected by SL's release or otherwise of the purse strings as the TV Money whilst better, won't be mind boggling particularly if we have to compete with the three relegated Prem Clubs and their Parachute Payments.

Ticket Prices will rise and I expect them to, providing always that that money is invested in better players.

I'll be surprised if we don't rebuild the EE and I'll be delighted if the stand is 8/10,000, not a 5,000 seater and can be segregated in a way that ensures proper & full utilisation.

The evidence, such as it is, is highly contradictory.

If SL wants progress, he'll have to give GJ somewhere around £2-3m.If he wants to have a real go, you may need to more than double that and the wage bill although Colchester immediately disprove that argument......Then again, Southend prove it, so I guess that's where your manager comes in.........Didn't relegated Leeds pay big wages as well..........Then again, so did Birmingham & Sunderland, plus major transfer fees.......so take your pick??

Unless we spend big (£7-10m) I'll be delighted to spend the next 2/3 seasons in The Championship before expecting us to even have a go at the play offs.........The again, when you look at Colchester

[Bristol Boy]

He's not saying anything different to what he's already said - the playing budget will go from £2.5M to £4.5M which means that thay if the current players contracts have a clause giving then - say - a 20% (??) increase for playing Championship Football then that's £3M.........3 or 4 new players at (Championship) wages of at least £4K/week adds another £800K at least (per year)............so that means about £700K for transfers?.....in other words Johnson will buy a striker (Pospisil?) and add another 2 or 3 on Bosmans.....exactly as he has done before.

I think it will be two, possibly three major transfers, plus Bosmans

Landsdown will continue to invest in the Stadium by building stands etc as (1) it increases the revenue - and (2) as he has converted his loans to shares then developing the stadium that he effectively owns (along with Keith Dawe) is a bit like putting an extension on your house............not much risk as your spending to increase the value of your own asset.

The main difference is that the house is easier to sell, although Ron Noades did very nicely thank you out of a similar arrangement with Palace

[Dolman Block B]

OK he's not Abramovich, Glazer,Lerner Gaydamak etc., but equally he's not Bates,Ridsdale et al.

Thankfully what you see is what you get, there's no dark side to him and there's no great ego to satisfy, and he won't take unnecessary risks or chances,so no chance ofr it all coming crashing down all of a sudden.

Just gives honest wholesome support, like every decent fan, which gives the Club a better chance of success in the long term.

Agree with that

[Dolman Block B]

He's not saying anything different to what he's already said - the playing budget will go from £2.5M to £4.5M which means that thay if the current players contracts have a clause giving then - say - a 20% (??) increase for playing Championship Football then that's £3M.........3 or 4 new players at (Championship) wages of at least £4K/week adds another £800K at least (per year)............so that means about £700K for transfers?.....in other words Johnson will buy a striker (Pospisil?) and add another 2 or 3 on Bosmans.....exactly as he has done before.

Landsdown will continue to invest in the Stadium by building stands etc as (1) it increases the revenue - and (2) as he has converted his loans to shares then developing the stadium that he effectively owns (along with Keith Dawe) is a bit like putting an extension on your house............not much risk as your spending to increase the value of your own asset.

I've not seen anything in Steve Lansdown's past behaviour or decision making to suggest he will suddenly go out of character and pump millions into the club in the way that Dave Whelan(Wigan) or Jack Walker(Blackburn) did............or indeed any of the foreign Prem club owners (Pompey, Chelsea, etc).........It's just not his style.

CodeRed

Good reply CR, but got say, would be nice if he did mate......

[Nibor]

Some fans seem to have strange expectations to my mind.

If we're in the Championship next season and getting the same or a slightly higher average attendance as this season (not that unlikely given that we've sold out or come close quite a few games recently) then we won't actually be making a great deal more money. We'll get a bit more from sponsors, a bit more from away ticket sales, and a bit more from the odd TV game (though we did well in that respect anyway). It won't add up to a massive amount and I'd be surprised if it makes a difference of more than say £1m to the overall revenue.

Remember that right now this football club runs at a significant loss.

Talk of spending millions on transfers WILL be far off the mark. Don't expect it because it isn't going to happen. The football wage budget will go up, but in the last published accounts I believe it was already at £4.2m - second only to Forest in this division and they make double our revenue, and comfortably more than 6 or 7 clubs already in the Championship. There will be some transfer money available but it won't be in seven figures, I'd expect to see us making a couple of signings around the £300-400k mark and making use of bosmans. This will be plenty and it will be more some sides in that division spend so it should be enough to see us survive.

SL will invest in the club, but that will not be pouring money down the first team, it will be investing in the stadium and facilities in a manner which allows us to increase our revenue. This will be things like conferencing facilities and corporate boxes. I expect any EE redevelopment will be focused largely on increasing non matchday revenue rather than capacity - and that's not unreasonable because we're not going to sell out week in week out. Extra non-matchday revenue will filter through to the footballing budget in years to come.

I'm glad that this is how SL will invest his money. The absolute last thing I would want to see is him chucking £10m at the playing staff. He is, as he says, only a custodian. He won't be here forever, so the club needs to stand on it's own two feet financially as a viable business. Investing in the club in a way that increases it's revenue gives us the benefit every year that follows and makes the club stronger and safer. Chucking away money on big time charlies is called "doing a Leeds". No thanks.

We need to be a little bit more realistic in our expectations. If we go up, we are not going to be competing with the big clubs at the top of the Championship for quite a while yet and we shouldn't expect to. There are 12 clubs in that division right now with average attendances of over 20,000. That's 7,000 more tickets a game than us and we know how much tickets cost - do the maths and work out their extra spending power. And those clubs haven't even filled their stadiums, they have the capacity to get even more for big games.

We should expect survival to be our main priority for the first few seasons. If after say three seasons we've manage to establish ourselves mid table we'll have excelled, and we'll be able to think about kicking on. Let's not start having wistful dreams of Premiership glory, we're a long, long way from that.

[Lordofthebling]

I would prefer the club to be able to stand on its on two feets, especially when I look at the likes of Leeds...

[red man dan]

Some fans seem to have strange expectations to my mind.

If we're in the Championship next season and getting the same or a slightly higher average attendance as this season (not that unlikely given that we've sold out or come close quite a few games recently) then we won't actually be making a great deal more money. We'll get a bit more from sponsors, a bit more from away ticket sales, and a bit more from the odd TV game (though we did well in that respect anyway). It won't add up to a massive amount and I'd be surprised if it makes a difference of more than say £1m to the overall revenue.

I'm not saying your wrong Nibor, as i have no idea myself, but I'm sure i saw an article not that long ago that was based around the importance for either City or Forest going up, with a financial team suggesting the windfall of promotion to the championship being at a round 8 million. Did anyone else see this article or did i dream it?

[Nibor]

I'm not saying your wrong Nibor, as i have no idea myself, but I'm sure i saw an article not that long ago that was based around the importance for either City or Forest going up, with a financial team suggesting the windfall of promotion to the championship being at a round 8 million. Did anyone else see this article or did i dream it?

If I remember rightly that article used the phrase "could be worth up to".

In that sense it's correct, it could be worth up to £8m if we stay there for 5 years and add all that up.

It definitely didn't mean £8m in a season - some simple maths:

Say 2,000 extra tickets per game, that's extra home and away fans giving us an average of about 15k.

Say an average price of £20 which is probably high given the number of kids tickets.

That's £40k x 23 games = £920k extra.

And I'd say that's a high estimate, particularly given our cup runs this year.

Sponsors won't pay much more because they're not reaching many more people, maybe the main sponsors will be worth £100-200k extra.

TV money we already do well out of for a league one side, maybe we'll get another £200k out of that over a season.

That means £1.3m extra revenue at an extremely generous estimate.

Now subtract the increased wages for existing players and promotion bonuses...

[Bristol Boy]

I'm not saying your wrong Nibor, as i have no idea myself, but I'm sure i saw an article not that long ago that was based around the importance for either City or Forest going up, with a financial team suggesting the windfall of promotion to the championship being at a round 8 million. Did anyone else see this article or did i dream it?

£8m per season for two seasons (I believe) is the size of the parachute payment after releagtion from the Prem and the article you refer to was highly speculative and based on figures that could be out by 50/60% from what I remember.

If it helps, a mid table Championship Club earns £1m and a mid table Premiership Club earns £40m next season.I think that tells us a lot and why some clubs will gamble heavily in what is in essence a high risk futures market.

[Nibor]

If it helps, a mid table Championship Club earns £1m

If you mean from TV rights I thought that annual payment pretty much died with ITV digital and now it's a payment from Sky per game?

[Bristol Boy]

If you mean from TV rights I thought that annual payment pretty much died with ITV digital and now it's a payment from Sky per game?

The figures are based on TV Revenue & Prize Money.

As we have both said, getting to The Championship isn't bad news financially but it's not the Holy Grail either.

Without a windfall from the clause on LL or suchlike, I'm expecting around £1-1.5m for transfer fees to be made available for two players and 2/3 more quality players on Bosmans/Season Long Loans with somewhere between 7/11 moving out.

[Nibor]

The figures are based on TV Revenue & Prize Money.

As we have both said, getting to The Championship isn't bad news financially but it's not the Holy Grail either.

Without a windfall from the clause on LL or suchlike, I'm expecting around £1-1.5m for transfer fees to be made available for two players and 2/3 more quality players on Bosmans/Season Long Loans with somewhere between 7/11 moving out.

That sounds about right to me though I expect that £1-£1.5m will be slightly lower. I think we're going to be looking at a couple of players in the £300-£500k price bracket (though they will actually cost more than that with the signing fees and such).

[simon uk]

I cant wait to see what happens with regard to our budget, and spending this close season, our wingers and strikers need to be replaced with better quality if we are going to survive in the championship, and even if we don't go up, to compete well again in league 1 next season. To bring in a 300k forward and hope they are going to score enough goals to keep us up seems like a gamble to me. I am sure that would probably buy pospisil for example, but he is no way guaranteed to get us 20 goals next season. I personally think that Robert Earnshaw is one of the best goal scorers in the championship, but to get someone in of that calibre is going to cost 2 million, a similar figure would get us eastwood or possibly someone like chopra or sharp. A lot of GJs permanent signings have been very good, but he will have to really pull the rabbit out of the hat to get a 20 goal striker with a budget of about £300k.

Exciting times though!

Si.

[red man dan]

If I remember rightly that article used the phrase "could be worth up to".

In that sense it's correct, it could be worth up to £8m if we stay there for 5 years and add all that up.

It definitely didn't mean £8m in a season - some simple maths:

Say 2,000 extra tickets per game, that's extra home and away fans giving us an average of about 15k.

Say an average price of £20 which is probably high given the number of kids tickets.

That's £40k x 23 games = £920k extra.

And I'd say that's a high estimate, particularly given our cup runs this year.

Sponsors won't pay much more because they're not reaching many more people, maybe the main sponsors will be worth £100-200k extra.

TV money we already do well out of for a league one side, maybe we'll get another £200k out of that over a season.

That means £1.3m extra revenue at an extremely generous estimate.

Now subtract the increased wages for existing players and promotion bonuses...

£8m per season for two seasons (I believe) is the size of the parachute payment after releagtion from the Prem and the article you refer to was highly speculative and based on figures that could be out by 50/60% from what I remember.

If it helps, a mid table Championship Club earns £1m and a mid table Premiership Club earns £40m next season.I think that tells us a lot and why some clubs will gamble heavily in what is in essence a high risk futures market.

Right, cheers guys, like i said i couldnt really remember the article that well and didnt manage to locate it to go over it again, so cheers for clearing that up.

[Bristol Boy]

That sounds about right to me though I expect that £1-£1.5m will be slightly lower. I think we're going to be looking at a couple of players in the £300-£500k price bracket (though they will actually cost more than that with the signing fees and such).

I think we are now at the point where players up to £300k won't improve our team unless we strike lucky.Betsy at £200k being a prime example.I think we could do with some in the £650-750k bracket and that brings people like Jarvis & Varney into the frame.

One thing's for sure is that the players we bring in MUST be an automatic first team player if fit & on form.We don't need more squad players.

[Nibor]

I think we are now at the point where players up to £300k won't improve our team unless we strike lucky.Betsy at £200k being a prime example.I think we could do with some in the £650-750k bracket and that brings people like Jarvis & Varney into the frame.

One thing's for sure is that the players we bring in MUST be an automatic first team player if fit & on form.We don't need more squad players.

Interesting to note that Jarvis is out of contract and I think Varney is too isn't he? Could be that if we go up we are able to attract that quality of player even when they're on a bosman?

Agree with your other point but rather than say signings should be automatic first team players I'd say they should improve the first team (not just the squad). Semantics really, just don't like the idea of automatic selections - competition has worked well for our defence for example.

Edit: Varney isn't out of contract, just googled it.

[Guest ashtonyate]

I don't expect Lansdown to throw money at the Club just pay back the money he has lost the Club with his bad decisions since he became Chairman that will do.

[Laner]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be6axE1K3eY

Straight from the horses mouth when interviewed on ITV's Championship.

(Not my YouTube post, so credit to the original poster)