for Wigan 2008-2009 according to the league express, if correct is it so low because of the stadium situtation, or is there other factors.

Don't know, don't care.

Why comment then?
I'd certaintly be interested to read the opinions of those with a bit if know on this matter. It may be interesting reading...

There are people on here who have a good insight into this kind of stuff who im sure can give a good balanced view of things.

Turnover is a load of rubbish imo. Somebody could have a £20 million turnover and make less profit than somebody with £5 million turnover. Im more interested in profit/loss as thats the most important thing imo.

If you think it's low now you should have seen it when Whelan owned the place.
IL has done a great job in turning around the club's finances.
Next years figures should include, hopefully, improved merchandise figures from the new shop, better crowd figures and improved broadcasting revenue over previous contracts.
Wigan RL also has some of the lowest admission prices in SL.

You can't compare the turnover when Whelan ran the place to now because of how Whelan ran it. He just funded it out of a big pot of money that came from any income generated by the club which got lumped with other income and if he felt like splashing out £400K on a transfer he just did.

There was effectively no turnover in the conventional sense because it wasn't run as a company but as one of Whelans hobbies if you like. I never saw a problem with that provided money was available for players and it was. The difference now is IL can't or won't bank roll the club and it is run as a proper company. Which is better is a bit of a moot point IMO. I know the RFL are not keen on clubs relying on one individual but in fact that has not changed under IL. Where is Mick Hogan's replacement for example?

Put it this way would you complain if some Arab Sheik came along and did a Man City and built us our own ground, with state of the art facilities , upgraded to Orrell and who knows what else out of his lose change? Or would you try and advance the club out of its own earnings and nothing else?

As to a £4.5m turnover for 2008-9 I thnk that is pretty good. Under the old salary cap rules that would have meant we could spend £2 1/4 million on players wages (50% of turnover) which is about what it was before the flat rate came came in so the turnover should easily fund a squad up there with the other top teams given the salary cap is lower.

Dave

What was the general consensus over the size of the fee paid for Martin Gleeson?

Besides Fielden have any other transfer fees been paid? (I guess Flanaghan as well)

Which players/coaches were released between November 2008 and November 2009?

Er, because I neither know nor care if it is low or not, or if the figure is due to the "stadium situation", whatever that is.

Seriously, who cares what we turn over? We are obviously one of the top clubs in the game, doing as well or better than most both on and off the field. Do you really need untold pages of guesswork and penis measuring on here to go with it?

How are they classed in your profit and loss? Does the money dissapear as an expense? Or does Gleeson become an asset of the company, who's value depreciates over the period of his contract?

Surely Gleeson would be classed as an asset of the company and therefore wouldn't be included on the P+L. Either way it will have no effect on turnover anyway.

As you correctly guess Wigan's accounting policy is to capitalised the transfer fee as an intangiable fixed asset and to write it off over the period of the players contract.

So what was the consensus over the Gleeson transfer fee?

No, but as someone aluded to before [iturn over is vanity, profit is your sanity[/i.
I'm pretty sure I've heard of football club treating their players as assests, so I suppose a rugby club would do the same when you've outlayed that much money on a transfer fee.

its not really a lot considering that will include what is it £1.2m from Sky, leaving wigan only turning over £3.3m in Merchandising, Ticket Sales, Hospitality, concessions etc. not a lot really over the course of a season. using round figures if Wigan are selling 15k tickets 13 times a season at an average of say £12 a time (to include discounted tickets, students, children, special offers etc) would give Wigan £2.4m which would leave them only turning over £900k from Merchandising, corporate hospitality, Sponsorship, advertising, and match day concessions which seems very very low for a club of Wigan size.

Im not bragging but Leeds turnover a minimum of double that, why when there isnt a huge difference in attendances would Leeds turnover between £9.5m and £11.5m and Wigan less than half of that?

Does that come from services afforded by the ground, though? Do any other teams rent the pitch? Do you have confrence rooms like the HJ etc?

well yeah, but from the last leeds accounts i remember the rent from the Tykes being in the hundreds of thousands rather than the millions, and the conference suites etc cant account for £6/7million pounds a year.

As i say im intrigued about how that would be broken down because around a million i sponsorship, merchandising, corporate and concessions sales over a season would seem very very small

The Leeds accounts have been skewed by sales, they have sold carparking and some corporate stuff to the cricket over the last copuple of years, there was a long long thread on total rl and someone went through the leeds accounts from companies houise and about 4.5 million was a one off payment

very unlikely any of these figures are in the accounts, and a company having such a small turnover (in relative terms) would not even have to disclose turnover.

I always thought the accounts were for Leeds Rugby rather than just the Rhinos and it was difficult to extract accurate info for either club?

that really isnt the case, Leeds have turned over £9.8m in 2007 and £10.5m in 2008, all that included was a sale of fixed assets at only £1.5m. In 2009 the date changed from a up to 31st of dec to up to the 31st of Oct which was around the same again at £10.5m but for10months rather than 12 the previous year. There was a sale of the right to repurchase the freehold to the cricket ground which was sold for about £2.5m but that wasnt included in the turnover figure for those ten months (which was £10.5m with no fixed asset sales)

It was up until 07 i think it was when Carnegie was sold(given) to LMU, since then it has become owned by Caddick not by the rhinos, those accounts only apply to the rhinos, except for the money transferred between the two. Which i think was abotu £300k for rent paid to the Rhinos and about £250k in 'management charges' paid to Carnegie from the rhinos.

wigan arnt replacing mick hogan,

Merchandise has been very low until we opened a town centre retail shop earlier this season and used the Latics shop plus stalls on match days.

In addition Shirt sales will have been woeful, due to the club being unable to have them on sale prior to the Xmas period, plus having Mecca Bingo stuck on the front will have had an effect (I've never bought one).

Sponsorship, never had a penny of it whilst wearing JJB. I've been told that we will have brand new main sponsor for next season, lets hope we have obtained what we're worth - we're on Sky almost every week and appear in about 8 out of SKY's top ten viewed SL matches this season.

Food & Drink, don't see a penny. Whelan get's it all.

We pay the Stadium Company c10% of our gate receipts.


On the flip side, if a new pitch needs re-laying / seats need replacing / floodlight repairs..etc, we don't pay the thousands (and in some cases hundreds of thousands of pounds) to fix.

Does prize money received count?

I've been told that we will have brand new main sponsor for next season

I cant wait if thats true.

Nope - Leeds CF&A Ltd has ALWAYS been only the operations of Leeds RLFC and the operation of the Headingley Rugby League stadium which that company owns. The RU stuff has always been kept in an entirely separate company.

Sales of assets and rent from the RU club have nothing to do with headline turnover as they go through the accounts as profit on disposal of assets and other operating income respectively. That £10.5m turnover for the 10 months to October 2009 is purely generated by the operations of Leeds RLFC and Headingley stadium.

It shows, if nothing else, what Wigan are missing out on by not owning their own ground and having all the corporate and non matchday revenue streams that brings in - although Leeds are doubly lucky in terms of location as I suspect the Wigan conference/function marketplace isn't quite as mature.