Red Faction - walking out on 30th minute

fmttmadmin said:
GIbson is only allowed to pay in as much as he is presently paying by FFP - it wouldn't matter if we had 10 people on the board they would not be able to put extra into the club.
You say greed but he would say to you that he pays £50k a day into the Boro. And the books are open for us to check this.

There is a massive shortfall between our ticket money and the costs of running a stadium and football club and that is without the player transfers. Gibson is plugging this day in day out, year in year out.
Commercially we are operating at record levels of over £6 m - that is some going for a Championship club in the north east of England.
He is saying show me how we can close the gap. I know some fans say they don't care in which league we play but come on we all want to be challenging at the top of this division at least. We all were excited at beating Leicester. We were disappointed not to sign a striker and yet obviously we want to pay less as fans. We want walk ups to be lower. Obviously. But how on earth do we bring the extra money in needed to compete at this level. We might hate agents and paying high wages but there is no way around it.

It is all very difficult indeed - but it isn't greed. Remember Gibson pays £50k a day into Boro.

I don't know what the answer is because football finances are crazy and getting crazier by the season.
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No Rob he doesn’t pay £50k per day in. The books are indeed there to see.
He has paid a lot, I’ve been loud in saying so, but you just lap up anything he throws your way.
He puts money in because he has to, otherwise the club would be insolvent.
He makes every key decision at the club. He is accountable.
His decisions and their consequences are down to him.
Question would be why have smaller or at best similar clubs like Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Burnley, Wolves, Fulham, Palace, Southampton, Leicester, West Brom, Norwich, Watford, Sheff U been able to work the same system?
Why have we been left behind despite his funding? And despite his Walk up prices being so obscenely high.
 
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Here's a thought ..

Under 11 = £11 quid
Years 12 - 16 = £16 quid
Years 17 - 20 = £20 quid
Offer Adult and under 16 at deal of £40
Walk up adult = 30
Put over 65 concessions in line with years 17 - 20

Stop over subsiding ST , at the expense of new customers.
Make an adult ST 25 quid per game and bin the free pint

Offer Direct debit or other payment options over a longer period , that don't have stupid interest rates for season tickets. ( Lots of other clubs do )

It's far too cheap for many , and far too expensive for even more.

Offer 200,000 people in the catchment the opportunity to attend ..
Or keep it as expensive as Center Parcs for a family to not have a season ticket
 
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Facefuzz said:
nobody has said they don’t like the chairman so your just making that up.

For most people it’s not about the £30.

It’s the hike this year and last so we’ve some of the most expensive tickets in England apart from the mega clubs.

We’re not getting great players that you talk about so that argument is lost.

And the alright jack, but a ticket don’t buy a ticket is exactly what’s wrong.
What do you think will happen when they don’t buy a ticket? Do you thinks fans who can’t afford to come this season, or who don’t want to come this season, will pay even more to start coming next season.

Football is different to other luxuries because it a way of life, a lifetime commitment, a bond with your town and fellow fans.
It’s not like picking waitrose v aldi
or ford v bmw. Once your in your in, tattoos and all.

The walk out is for the ST price. It’s also for the walk up price, the early bird v newcomer price and the communication put out.
It’s about saying as fans, we’re not happy, we want better from you.
It’s certainly not a personal vendetta against gibbo who will always be held in high regard for what he has achieved.
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Best post of this thread, right there ;)
 
No one on here has mentioned how much is made from hospitality on matchdays ? Ive been fortunate enough to be in a couple of times in the last year and every suite is rammed at hundreds of pounds a go. They where even doing breakfast at Rockliffe and bussing people in for the Sunderland game.
 
indeedido said:
No Rob he doesn’t pay £50k per day in. The books are indeed there to see.
He has paid a lot, I’ve been loud in saying so, but you just lap up anything he throws your way.
He puts money in because he has to, otherwise the club would be insolvent.
He makes every key decision at the club. He is accountable.
His decisions and their consequences are down to him.
Question would be why have smaller or at best similar clubs like Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Burnley, Wolves, Fulham, Palace, Southampton, Leicester, West Brom, Norwich, Watford, Sheff U been able to work the same system?
Why have we been left behind despite his funding? And despite his Walk up prices being so obscenely high.
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Indeedido - you can be very patronising you know.
 
InglebyUTB said:
I won’t be walking out, it’s just performative nonsense. Gibson knows people aren’t going to pay for a walk-up ticket and then leave 30 mins in. So it’ll be season card holders, who will all be back next game the vast majority will renew.

What actually is the goal of the protest? To get them to cancel the increase? I completely agree their approach was tone deaf and a PR disaster, the early deadline just showed zero consideration to supporters.

But an extra £30 over 23 games is not a big increase. Anyone who travelled to Leicester at the weekend can afford to pay it, they just don’t want to pay it. There’s a key difference there. Nobody wants to pay more, but what’s the alternative? People are comparing these increases to other utilities increasing in this country but the difference is Gibson isn’t profiteering from this like the energy, water or rail companies. There’s no huge shareholder dividends getting paid out, football clubs are a money pit.

For a protest to be effective there needs to be a clear objective, so what’s the goal of this one? The season cards are good value, if the goal was cheaper walk-ups to allow those who cannot commit to season cards to access live games I would have no objection to paying £30 more for a season card to make that happen.

Gibson does need to get back around the table with fans groups and discuss options, everything from season card increases to selling the stadium naming rights should be on the table to fix the massive disparity between season cards and walk up prices.
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Great point their needs to be an objective, I’ve got no idea from the pages of these threads what the objectives are, just seems one big pity party and chance to complain
 
fmttmadmin said:
GIbson is only allowed to pay in as much as he is presently paying by FFP - it wouldn't matter if we had 10 people on the board they would not be able to put extra into the club.
You say greed but he would say to you that he pays £50k a day into the Boro. And the books are open for us to check this.

There is a massive shortfall between our ticket money and the costs of running a stadium and football club and that is without the player transfers. Gibson is plugging this day in day out, year in year out.
Commercially we are operating at record levels of over £6 m - that is some going for a Championship club in the north east of England.
He is saying show me how we can close the gap. I know some fans say they don't care in which league we play but come on we all want to be challenging at the top of this division at least. We all were excited at beating Leicester. We were disappointed not to sign a striker and yet obviously we want to pay less as fans. We want walk ups to be lower. Obviously. But how on earth do we bring the extra money in needed to compete at this level. We might hate agents and paying high wages but there is no way around it.

It is all very difficult indeed - but it isn't greed. Remember Gibson pays £50k a day into Boro.

I don't know what the answer is because football finances are crazy and getting crazier by the season.
Click to expand...
Will raising the prices bring extra money in though Rob? Last season people let the price rise go because the football was exciting and there was a general feeling that we would be pushing for promotion. There was a big increase in sales.

This season should have been about retaining as many of those fans as possible. History tells us that attendances are linked to performances on the pitch and this season we have regressed. With the price increase I think we will see attendances drop a reasonable amount. If they drop by more than 1.5k then the revenue has decreased irrelevant of the price increase.

We won't know until the ST figures are released.
 
Humpty said:
The RF’s actions have brought Gibson back to the table, surely that was the first step?
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It won’t do any harm but he was always going to throw us a bone.

Even if he agrees to another year at £480, he’ll only do so on the premise that there’s a bigger rise next year, and better communication.
 
atypical_boro said:
It won’t do any harm but he was always going to throw us a bone.

Even if he agrees to another year at £480, he’ll only do so on the premise that there’s a bigger rise next year, and better communication.
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My concern is that Gibbo will not see the bigger picture. He will no doubt lay out the financials and associated reasoning and mitigation - fair enough.
But the elephant in the room is not the £30 increase in isolation, at least not in my eyes.
It is the staggeringly high cost of standard ST'S for both current and new holders, particularly when benchmarked with the rest of the division. It is the ludicrous walk-up prices. It is the prohibitive price for youngsters. It is the shambolic retail operation. It is the tone deaf wording of the renewal email.
It is the fact that we are selling any decent player, constantly weakening the team.

This isn't a knee-jerk from the fans - it's been coming for a while. All it needed was bad timing and a perfect storm. We got that with the mid-table position, the sales of Rogers and Crooks with the lack of a replacement striker, the idiotic short notice, mid month renewal deadline etc.

Steve Gibson has been a tremendous chairman of our football club. Yes, he has made plenty of mistakes, particularly during the second half of his tenure and he has literally paid the price for those mistakes. No one can doubt his commitment, both emotionally and financially.

I do hope somebody tells him that it is near tragic to have descended from the brilliant connection with the club/team, the exciting optimism, fabulous football etc. All this was only 1 year ago

I hope he goes to that meeting with an open mind and uses his ears, listening is a bigger skill than talking. My suspicion is that he will merely explain why he is right and we are wrong.
 
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