Thought I'd share a couple of charts with you that I've borrowed (i.e.nicked) form the excellent Kieran Maguire at priceoffootball.com.
As the title explains this chart shows how low our income from commercial deals was in our first season in the Championship (last season's accounts aren't yet available).
Commercial income is made up of things like catering and merchandise sales, but the majority is from sponsorship. Goodwill from sponsors towards us had been pretty low for the last 6 years due to our status in League One, and it didn't change much after our initial promotion. Also, for those questioning why we've now signed up an Australian sponsor and not someone local, local sponsors just don't pay the big bucks.
Leeds are top in this table possibly because they are (painfully) a more global brand and also from a one club city, so there's lesser competition for local sponsors. It also could be they have a very good commercial team and/or their owners are able to attract more international sponsors from their personal business networks. What's not clear is how much of this sponsorship is from their owners themselves - the Chansiri model - as a way of boosting income to avoid FFP breaches. Could be none, I might be doing them a disservice. Leeds' success in this area potentially does make McCabe seem a little silly with his recent comments about Leeds. They seem to be doing much better than we are in this area, despite their disadvantage of being worse at football.
(W**nesday, as we all know, haven't submitted their accounts so aren't included in the chart in case you were wondering).
As a comparison, this is the PL chart. Even Bournemouth generated more income from commercial activities than Forest, Boro or Birmingham. This is clearly the draw of the Premier League and its global coverage for sponsors. If you look at this chart, you'd expect us to be more of a draw than Huddersfield, Burnley or Watford for example. Merchandise will also sell better in the PL which affects these numbers. Catering income won't change much probably as Bramall Lane was close to being full many games anyway, so a few thousand extra pies per home game won't smash the records.
But look at the potential. We can probably forget the top 6 but there's nothing to suggest that a club like ours, if we can survive three or so years in the PL wouldn't be generating commercial income a the Stoke (the PL version), Palace, and Southampton levels. I've ignored Leicester as they indulge in the "self-sponsorship" model so their number is skewed.
Sorry if I bored you to death. Before you troll me just remember some of us are dull and nerdy enough to want to do this sort of shit as a hobby.
