Yes and no. It’s worth noting that Notts had easily the second biggest budget in the NL. So for Williams and Notts to compete equally with a team whose budget is massive? Yes, quite impressive! Plus your recruitment makes the most financial sense, and you hit the jackpot with Jones and Langstaff and all. But for Notts also to beat teams with much smaller budgets? Not taking anything away from your incredible season, that’s not impressive so much as it is expected, just as it should be expected that teams perform to the level of their budget.
NL budgets at the top end matched their places in the league table: Wrexham, Notts, Chesterfield.
I love these kinds of football fans. "He's shit because he's doing exactly what he should be and is likely to win two promotions in a row but he's definitely still shit". Just beautiful.
If Lainton wasnt so injury prone they would have been promoted that 1st season but parky plays way too defensively for the amount of quality wrexham has tho.
The revenue is utterly ridiculous and doesn't even account for our US tour, new sponsors, and the increased sales of merchandise we've had this year. Next year's finances will be interesting.
Hope Reynolds brings Wrexham gear to Montréal this summer while he films a movie which i dont remember the name of, so i can buy some.
Scarf/jersey, nike shoes.
It's a loss but it boasting the other brands. The exposure for Betty Buzz, Aviation Gin, 4 Walls Whiskey go back into the owners pocket.
These numbers are not that much in the scope of sports and running a business. £5.1m is a lot for an individual to lose but for a company that is helping their other brands, it's the cost of doing business. If they are selling 10 million cases of Betty Buzz from the sponsorship, after Blake pays overhead costs they should be making profit with that. Not every owner has those connections but it's a healthier approach than just relying on matchday and merchandise sales. R&R still have to prove that the club can be scaled if they have to make a Championship push if and when they get there. They still don't have a training ground and I haven't heard anything about the Kop.
Yes I get this argument but, that money is not with Wrexham FC. Im sure the owners are making a profit with the ad and TV money which is why they are doing this.
The question is what happens when they leave? A new owner comes in and pays the debt off, or they go into admin.
As a Swindon fan I have to warn you, we did this to a lesser scan under DiCanio over 10 years ago. We are still struggling from the debt disaster after the owner left us in the lurch holding the bank overdraft.
I am with you 1000%. Allowing owners to have spend clubs into debt—and make the debt to themselves—is where so many clubs go under. Literally the only thing that makes me think Wrexham is okay here is the reputation of the owners—they can’t afford to acre over the club.
I’m more than a little horrified to see that Wrexham is paying the owners interest on that debt to the tune of £8k/week. That’s a few players’ wages.
Next year’s financials had better look very, very different.
£8k a week is fuck all compared to the sum loaned and is nothing to either of the owners. It's interest charged to keep tax at bay and then can be written off down the line as Stockport just had with £5m wiped out by their owner.
I’m not saying I don’t trust the owners—I do. It’s hugely important to note that their reputations will always be the biggest safeguard against them doing something dangerous to the club’s longstanding financial health.
What I am saying is that these kinds of financial risks are dangerous on the whole. There are things Wrexham is doing now (I.e. indebtedness to owners) that, if done by Dai Yongge, would be alarming.
It's going to be 30-40 years from now and have a moderate US/CAN fan base contingent still. There is still going to be revenue streams closed by then like the documentary but it should be enough to have an academy running. I agree that there are long term questions that no one has the answers for.
Many streams of revenue are not includedin these numbers: their American tour, sponsorships with United, Stok Cold Brew...
Also, they don't mind running a short term loss to better the club. High wages to get promoted, build a temporary stand until the new end can be built, etc.
They aren't just throwing money down the drain. There is a plan and financial backing to make it happen.
Ever heard of a long term business strategy? This is an investment that has a planned future for profitability. There will be losses with essentially every endeavour like this.
Bring on the bitterness. You can do it in the NL
And if we didn’t spend it we probably wouldn’t have went up last year due to Notts being incredible and our inability to win a play off..
I tend to think this is another argument for 3 up, 3 down. The bottleneck of the NL into the EFL (plus no FFP) is what “encourages” the overspending of teams. While Wrexham’s budget is by far the most egregious, it’s obvious to see that with Notts and Chesterfield being the next big spenders, this overspending crisis is baked into the system at the L2/NL transition just like it’s baked into the system at the PL/Championship transition thanks to parachute payments.
(Also interesting to note that other countries do parachute payments differently, basing the size of the payment on how many years you were in the top league. It’s to prevent the overspending for one year to get a huge payment.)
Couldn’t be more right, 3 up 3 down should be in every league! Makes for a more fluid pyramid.
National league is a choke point with some quality teams which could probably hack it lower L2
The rate at which clubs go bust or nearly go bust when relegated is the thing that makes me think thats a bad idea. 2 clubs have gone bust after being relegated from the league in the last few years Southend scunthorpe Rochdale and oldham got close also if it was 3 up 3 down for every division the NL would have 6 relegation spots and youd be playing Banbury away
I do wonder about this—financial guidance as clubs expand and contract with promotion and relegation. It’s a challenge, of course, and it’s particularly acknowledged in the establishment of parachute payments in the Championship. Why couldn’t parachute payments be built into relegation at the Ch/L1, L1/L2, and L2/NL levels? Obviously they’d be smaller.
But if we’re stepping back and looking at the forest instead of the trees, we have to ask what points in the system encourage owners to gamble. Everything I’ve seen in clubs trying to escape the NL is overspending and debt.
I would prefer 3 down and 2 relegation playoff spots cause the whole league is 24 teams so only 3 would seem not enough, just look at the tightness in l2 this season, both fgr and sutton are only a few points behind safety.
The owners have already said they want to get to L1 under their own steam and then would start seeking outside investment. They aren't clueless about what needs to be done to take us even further.
Yeah, all the critiques of Rob and Ryan are just cynics that aren't really playing that much attention to Wrexham.
Most of these things Rob and Ryan have specifically talked about in public. They understand what it takes, the risks and everything involved. They've been open about it.
We’ll see. Don’t think anyone in the top 2 tiers is bitter of what’s going on at Wrexham. Hopefully you don’t embarrass yourselves (again) and get automatics because I think L1 will be better with you in it.
Carlisle is pretty bad this season (kinda like rotherham in CH), burton albion is poorly managed and reading has financial troubles..
Both stockport and wrexham, mansfield or mk dons will standa good chance of consolidating in L1 in but dont expect wrexham to be top of the table next year in L1.
Didn't comment on the bitterness because I genuinely don't care.
What do you even mean by 'embarrass' ourselves though? Competing for the automatics a season into being back in L2 is unreal and every Wrexham fan would have taken a playoff finish for the season. If we get to L1 this season then it'd be fantastic but, if not, we'll just dust ourselves down and go again next season exactly as Stockport have this time around.
Given players are ultimately human and it takes them time to acclimate to a different situation then, yes, our run this season is still unreal.
Many of our players may have experience at this level, and even higher, but it doesn't mean they aren't prone to falter as individuals as they adapt to an entirely new group of players and systems. Andy Cannon, for example, was almost widely considered a poor signing until his run of form over the past four months or so - a full 12 months after signing with us.
Good players struggle and fail. Parkinson deserves a lot of credit for unifying a group of highly talented players, keeping drama to an absolute minimum, and still keeping us in a title race when we'd started so poorly. We've adapted and grown over the season and, regardless of budget, doing so in your first season in any league is extremely difficult.
Of course the highest spenders can still fail to achieve a position commensurate with their spending (and do, just look at Chelsea for example who are rightly ridiculed for it which I assume to be the kind of thing meant by 'embarrassing yourselves') but when they do succeed it's not even remotely surprising, never mind unreal.
Automatic promotion is the least anyone reasonable could have and did expect from Wrexham at the start of the season. This sort of 'just happy to be here' faux-humility is exactly what Manchester City fans do as well and just comes across as disingenous really. You don't want to be like that lot so just be honest about the routine promotion contention.
Rob McIlhenney, Ryan Reynolds, and minority owner The Walt Disney Corporation are unlikely to have any legitimate spending problems at the Championship level.
Disney already owns other sports franchises. That is a real possibility here.
The thing that is being missed a lot is that all those losses are on the club, not the owners. And the owners are charging interest on the debt and haven't said a thing about how they intend to deal with it.
Just as a comparison Stockport County's owner did something similar, albeit we spent less, and he converted the debt into equity so the club is essentially debt free.
As a general sports fan, is there a reason for the worry about losses? I think it's awesome that people are passionate enough to lose money on a sports team. I wish teams in the NHL would pony up money like this.
I’m going to guess that you’re a North American? Because when owners lose money on teams, they have a track record of making terrible decisions that hurt the clubs. They might sell the grounds to try to recoup costs—or sell players or training grounds. Teams go out of business after bad owners, regular people lose their jobs, and communities are left without clubs. See Bury, Macclesfield, Southend, Reading, and more. Look at what is happening right now with Morecambe and Swindon in this league.
I think Wrexham are safe in the long run—the owners won’t do anything to hurt the community. But financial losses like these in the wrong hands lead to the destruction of clubs.
Not a shock. Just proves how good a job Luke Williams did.
Yes and no. It’s worth noting that Notts had easily the second biggest budget in the NL. So for Williams and Notts to compete equally with a team whose budget is massive? Yes, quite impressive! Plus your recruitment makes the most financial sense, and you hit the jackpot with Jones and Langstaff and all. But for Notts also to beat teams with much smaller budgets? Not taking anything away from your incredible season, that’s not impressive so much as it is expected, just as it should be expected that teams perform to the level of their budget. NL budgets at the top end matched their places in the league table: Wrexham, Notts, Chesterfield.
And how shit Parky is just being carried by superior players/resources.
111 points and competing for another promotion right after is fucking immense. What are you on?
With the resources he has he should be.
I love these kinds of football fans. "He's shit because he's doing exactly what he should be and is likely to win two promotions in a row but he's definitely still shit". Just beautiful.
He does less with more if you actually watch them play.
[удалено]
If Lainton wasnt so injury prone they would have been promoted that 1st season but parky plays way too defensively for the amount of quality wrexham has tho.
With resources on par with a Championship club.
If no salary cap, that’s how you get promoted. Seems logical if you can afford it and promotion is what you want.
Love an underdog story me
Maybe they should make a documentary about plucky little Wrexham battling against the odds to climb the Pyramid…
The revenue is utterly ridiculous and doesn't even account for our US tour, new sponsors, and the increased sales of merchandise we've had this year. Next year's finances will be interesting.
Hope Reynolds brings Wrexham gear to Montréal this summer while he films a movie which i dont remember the name of, so i can buy some. Scarf/jersey, nike shoes.
And people wonder why I don’t particularly like them…
Why don’t the other owners simply spend 6 million dollars at a loss? Are they stupid?
Notts owe £16m, apparently. Was £14m in 2022. So, many clubs do operate at a loss.
Most of our debt is to our owners, and goes back to the Munto Finance fiasco. Sven, Sol Campbell etc. It's not fresh debt
Exactly. Current owners are working to make the club completely sustainable. Might still be a way off but that's the aim.
Spending money they earn, and not even a fraction of their complete income, yes that’s so wrong. Obviously not jalousy at all.
With a loss of millions?
Documentary revenue is not reflected in club financials. They are actually making money while appearing to lose money.
It's a loss but it boasting the other brands. The exposure for Betty Buzz, Aviation Gin, 4 Walls Whiskey go back into the owners pocket. These numbers are not that much in the scope of sports and running a business. £5.1m is a lot for an individual to lose but for a company that is helping their other brands, it's the cost of doing business. If they are selling 10 million cases of Betty Buzz from the sponsorship, after Blake pays overhead costs they should be making profit with that. Not every owner has those connections but it's a healthier approach than just relying on matchday and merchandise sales. R&R still have to prove that the club can be scaled if they have to make a Championship push if and when they get there. They still don't have a training ground and I haven't heard anything about the Kop.
Yes I get this argument but, that money is not with Wrexham FC. Im sure the owners are making a profit with the ad and TV money which is why they are doing this. The question is what happens when they leave? A new owner comes in and pays the debt off, or they go into admin. As a Swindon fan I have to warn you, we did this to a lesser scan under DiCanio over 10 years ago. We are still struggling from the debt disaster after the owner left us in the lurch holding the bank overdraft.
I am with you 1000%. Allowing owners to have spend clubs into debt—and make the debt to themselves—is where so many clubs go under. Literally the only thing that makes me think Wrexham is okay here is the reputation of the owners—they can’t afford to acre over the club. I’m more than a little horrified to see that Wrexham is paying the owners interest on that debt to the tune of £8k/week. That’s a few players’ wages. Next year’s financials had better look very, very different.
£8k a week is fuck all compared to the sum loaned and is nothing to either of the owners. It's interest charged to keep tax at bay and then can be written off down the line as Stockport just had with £5m wiped out by their owner.
I’m not saying I don’t trust the owners—I do. It’s hugely important to note that their reputations will always be the biggest safeguard against them doing something dangerous to the club’s longstanding financial health. What I am saying is that these kinds of financial risks are dangerous on the whole. There are things Wrexham is doing now (I.e. indebtedness to owners) that, if done by Dai Yongge, would be alarming.
It's going to be 30-40 years from now and have a moderate US/CAN fan base contingent still. There is still going to be revenue streams closed by then like the documentary but it should be enough to have an academy running. I agree that there are long term questions that no one has the answers for.
Seriously? The best run clubs in the country are running at a "loss". Doesn't make sense to give the tax man all your money now does it.
Many streams of revenue are not includedin these numbers: their American tour, sponsorships with United, Stok Cold Brew... Also, they don't mind running a short term loss to better the club. High wages to get promoted, build a temporary stand until the new end can be built, etc. They aren't just throwing money down the drain. There is a plan and financial backing to make it happen.
It's an investment. Next season they're in profit. I don't see why that's odd.
I highly doubt they lost more than the 20 million they earned. And that’s not even counting the full commercial income.
Ever heard of a long term business strategy? This is an investment that has a planned future for profitability. There will be losses with essentially every endeavour like this.
It probably isn’t actually a loss for them depending on how much they get from fx and the associated marketing bump as actors in general
You must hate watching football overall since this sport is nothing but the biggest spenders winning the most
Puts a massive * next to anything they achieve for me. Not that they will (or should) care.
Why? Nothing has been done outside the rules.
Not suggesting rules have been broken, but success has been bought not earned imo
Not a Man City fan either then I guess 🙂
Bring on the bitterness. You can do it in the NL And if we didn’t spend it we probably wouldn’t have went up last year due to Notts being incredible and our inability to win a play off..
I tend to think this is another argument for 3 up, 3 down. The bottleneck of the NL into the EFL (plus no FFP) is what “encourages” the overspending of teams. While Wrexham’s budget is by far the most egregious, it’s obvious to see that with Notts and Chesterfield being the next big spenders, this overspending crisis is baked into the system at the L2/NL transition just like it’s baked into the system at the PL/Championship transition thanks to parachute payments. (Also interesting to note that other countries do parachute payments differently, basing the size of the payment on how many years you were in the top league. It’s to prevent the overspending for one year to get a huge payment.)
Couldn’t be more right, 3 up 3 down should be in every league! Makes for a more fluid pyramid. National league is a choke point with some quality teams which could probably hack it lower L2
The rate at which clubs go bust or nearly go bust when relegated is the thing that makes me think thats a bad idea. 2 clubs have gone bust after being relegated from the league in the last few years Southend scunthorpe Rochdale and oldham got close also if it was 3 up 3 down for every division the NL would have 6 relegation spots and youd be playing Banbury away
I do wonder about this—financial guidance as clubs expand and contract with promotion and relegation. It’s a challenge, of course, and it’s particularly acknowledged in the establishment of parachute payments in the Championship. Why couldn’t parachute payments be built into relegation at the Ch/L1, L1/L2, and L2/NL levels? Obviously they’d be smaller. But if we’re stepping back and looking at the forest instead of the trees, we have to ask what points in the system encourage owners to gamble. Everything I’ve seen in clubs trying to escape the NL is overspending and debt.
I would prefer 3 down and 2 relegation playoff spots cause the whole league is 24 teams so only 3 would seem not enough, just look at the tightness in l2 this season, both fgr and sutton are only a few points behind safety.
Bring on the bitterness because you’ve got a few quid to spend in L2 lol. Your owners will be peasants if you manage to get up to the championship..
Oh no doubt, I think if we are fortunate to get into league one, we would struggle to keep with the top half spends no matter championship!
The owners have already said they want to get to L1 under their own steam and then would start seeking outside investment. They aren't clueless about what needs to be done to take us even further.
Didnt they say that in the championship they would take on people buying an minority stake in wrexham but maybe i read it wrong.
Yeah, all the critiques of Rob and Ryan are just cynics that aren't really playing that much attention to Wrexham. Most of these things Rob and Ryan have specifically talked about in public. They understand what it takes, the risks and everything involved. They've been open about it.
We’ll see. Don’t think anyone in the top 2 tiers is bitter of what’s going on at Wrexham. Hopefully you don’t embarrass yourselves (again) and get automatics because I think L1 will be better with you in it.
Carlisle is pretty bad this season (kinda like rotherham in CH), burton albion is poorly managed and reading has financial troubles.. Both stockport and wrexham, mansfield or mk dons will standa good chance of consolidating in L1 in but dont expect wrexham to be top of the table next year in L1.
I meant more having another well supported club who’ll sell out games in L1 will be better for the league.
Didn't comment on the bitterness because I genuinely don't care. What do you even mean by 'embarrass' ourselves though? Competing for the automatics a season into being back in L2 is unreal and every Wrexham fan would have taken a playoff finish for the season. If we get to L1 this season then it'd be fantastic but, if not, we'll just dust ourselves down and go again next season exactly as Stockport have this time around.
Is the natural consequence of outspending the rest of the league 'unreal'?
Given players are ultimately human and it takes them time to acclimate to a different situation then, yes, our run this season is still unreal. Many of our players may have experience at this level, and even higher, but it doesn't mean they aren't prone to falter as individuals as they adapt to an entirely new group of players and systems. Andy Cannon, for example, was almost widely considered a poor signing until his run of form over the past four months or so - a full 12 months after signing with us. Good players struggle and fail. Parkinson deserves a lot of credit for unifying a group of highly talented players, keeping drama to an absolute minimum, and still keeping us in a title race when we'd started so poorly. We've adapted and grown over the season and, regardless of budget, doing so in your first season in any league is extremely difficult.
Of course the highest spenders can still fail to achieve a position commensurate with their spending (and do, just look at Chelsea for example who are rightly ridiculed for it which I assume to be the kind of thing meant by 'embarrassing yourselves') but when they do succeed it's not even remotely surprising, never mind unreal. Automatic promotion is the least anyone reasonable could have and did expect from Wrexham at the start of the season. This sort of 'just happy to be here' faux-humility is exactly what Manchester City fans do as well and just comes across as disingenous really. You don't want to be like that lot so just be honest about the routine promotion contention.
Rob McIlhenney, Ryan Reynolds, and minority owner The Walt Disney Corporation are unlikely to have any legitimate spending problems at the Championship level. Disney already owns other sports franchises. That is a real possibility here.
The thing that is being missed a lot is that all those losses are on the club, not the owners. And the owners are charging interest on the debt and haven't said a thing about how they intend to deal with it. Just as a comparison Stockport County's owner did something similar, albeit we spent less, and he converted the debt into equity so the club is essentially debt free.
As a general sports fan, is there a reason for the worry about losses? I think it's awesome that people are passionate enough to lose money on a sports team. I wish teams in the NHL would pony up money like this.
I’m going to guess that you’re a North American? Because when owners lose money on teams, they have a track record of making terrible decisions that hurt the clubs. They might sell the grounds to try to recoup costs—or sell players or training grounds. Teams go out of business after bad owners, regular people lose their jobs, and communities are left without clubs. See Bury, Macclesfield, Southend, Reading, and more. Look at what is happening right now with Morecambe and Swindon in this league. I think Wrexham are safe in the long run—the owners won’t do anything to hurt the community. But financial losses like these in the wrong hands lead to the destruction of clubs.
It’s also basically impossible for big four North American sports teams to lose money in a season