2021-2022 Annual report - City post club record profits and revenues

[Brewster's millions]

Swiss Ramble’s analysis on Twitter worth a read, as always:

This is a great summary, particularly the comparison offered to our main rivals.

The one area for improvement obviously remains match day income which lags that of our rivals even when adjusting for attendances. Clearly most of this reflects a pricing issue - and we don’t want that to change for the typical fan - but the break in the accounts caused by the pandemic offers an interesting insight into the efficiency (or lack of?) of the match day operation at City.

As widely reported match day income rose by £54mn from essentially zero in the previous accounts as crowds returned, but the reports show that the direct cost of these sales was around £8.5mn. That’s a cost ratio of around 16% of revenue. I’m not really sure what I expected for this figure, and obviously many, many businesses would be happy with this type of figure. But on first glance it does seem a bit high when you consider the typical cost incurred in getting the typical fan into and then out of the stadium during match day, serving him an overpriced pint of watered down lager etc.

Admittedly there may have been a couple of factors distorting this number last season. One is the extra costs incurred in employing additional staff/stewards on match day to deal with the COVID protocols. The other is the impact of the seats removed to accommodate the larger pitch side advertising, which may have reduced match day revenue by one or two million pounds, boosting commercial revenues by the same. But again, these are unlikely to have moved the dial that much, and when you consider the run we had in the Champions League, the fixed costs involved in the match day operation will have been spread out over a decent number of games.

Again, I don’t know how our cost figures compare to others and we could be relatively competitive. As a club we may simply be happy to spend extra so that fans with access issues etc have a better experience on match day, and that would be commendable. I’m also not an accountant so my read on the figures could be wrong. But on face value this does make me question whether the margin on some of the corporate offerings is especially good. It does however make a good argument for the North Stand expansion, if we can get another six or seven thousand into the ground without a big associated cost on match day.

 

[SilverFox2]

Swiss Ramble’s analysis on Twitter worth a read, as always:

What a great read the whole conversation was.
So much for the original criticism that football is a special case and other business sector methods will not apply.

 

[Rammy Blue]

This is a great summary, particularly the comparison offered to our main rivals.

The one area for improvement obviously remains match day income which lags that of our rivals even when adjusting for attendances. Clearly most of this reflects a pricing issue - and we don’t want that to change for the typical fan - but the break in the accounts caused by the pandemic offers an interesting insight into the efficiency (or lack of?) of the match day operation at City.

As widely reported match day income rose by £54mn from essentially zero in the previous accounts as crowds returned, but the reports show that the direct cost of these sales was around £8.5mn. That’s a cost ratio of around 16% of revenue. I’m not really sure what I expected for this figure, and obviously many, many businesses would be happy with this type of figure. But on first glance it does seem a bit high when you consider the typical cost incurred in getting the typical fan into and then out of the stadium during match day, serving him an overpriced pint of watered down lager etc.

Admittedly there may have been a couple of factors distorting this number last season. One is the extra costs incurred in employing additional staff/stewards on match day to deal with the COVID protocols. The other is the impact of the seats removed to accommodate the larger pitch side advertising, which may have reduced match day revenue by one or two million pounds, boosting commercial revenues by the same. But again, these are unlikely to have moved the dial that much, and when you consider the run we had in the Champions League, the fixed costs involved in the match day operation will have been spread out over a decent number of games.

Again, I don’t know how our cost figures compare to others and we could be relatively competitive. As a club we may simply be happy to spend extra so that fans with access issues etc have a better experience on match day, and that would be commendable. I’m also not an accountant so my read on the figures could be wrong. But on face value this does make me question whether the margin on some of the corporate offerings is especially good. It does however make a good argument for the North Stand expansion, if we can get another six or seven thousand into the ground without a big associated cost on match day.

Commercial revenue at rags is due to higher attendance but also their corporate hospitality is massive compared to ours, we’ve got a long way to go before we get the levels of wankers that spunk stupid money at that cesspit. Obviously I’d prefer we never do, however Soriano et al are desperate for it.

 

[adr2.8i]

Yeah he usually doesn’t go into guess work! He has all the figures in our accounts so nothing is being hid! Even someone like swissramble the narrative in the media will mould people eventually!

Bottom line though he does a great job and is always fair!

our commercial income is always the biggest source of ammo for people to fire at us, id love too see a full breakdown of who sponsors us (outside of the main ones like etihad/puma/nexen/ etc ) and for how much.

How on earth can little shitty have more commercial income than the traditional giants united and liverpool who have been institutions of the english game since before christ! ;-)

 

[Devil's Advocate]

He does though make a comment about our commercial revenue along lines of people will cast doubt on it’s legitimacy.

Understandable as well.
Stefan (@projectriver on here) made a comment in his instant reaction to our accounts on the excellent The City Spaces last week.

This is not to challenge the legitimacy of the accounts/auditors but we simply don't know the source of the big increase in commercial income in the last couple of years. 19/20 we had Puma but where has the £60+mil increase for 20/21 and 21/22 come from?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

our commercial income is always the biggest source of ammo for people to fire at us, id love too see a full breakdown of who sponsors us (outside of the main ones like etihad/puma/nexen/ etc ) and for how much.

How on earth can little shitty have more commercial income than the traditional giants united and liverpool who have been institutions of the english game since before christ! ;-)

Very much this.

 

[richards30]

Very much this.

who do you support then?

 

[Elbow beards]

who do you support then?

Well the fact he's got devil in his name might give it away.

 

[KS55]

He does though make a comment about our commercial revenue along lines of people will cast doubt on it’s legitimacy.

Not their legitimacy, their “provenance” which alludes to a belief in too many AbuDhabi based sponsors.

 

[KS55]

Understandable as well.
Stefan (@projectriver on here) made a comment in his instant reaction to our accounts on the excellent The City Spaces last week.

This is not to challenge the legitimacy of the accounts/auditors but we simply don't know the source of the big increase in commercial income in the last couple of years. 19/20 we had Puma but where has the £60+mil increase for 20/21 and 21/22 come from?

Mansour Underthecounter Bank PLC.