• Financial Results

    Newcastle United 2017/18: Apply Some Pressure

    Introduction Mike Ashley, Newcastle United’s unloved owner, has finally submitted the accounts for the year ended 30 June 2018 for public scrutiny as The Toon became the final Premier League one to produce results for 2017/18. In the club’s first season back in the Premier League after winning the Championship Newcastle reversed the big losses and managed to reduce wages from 2016/17, the latter of which is a first for a promoted club. Kind words are in short supply in Tyneside for Ashley, who bought the club in May 2007 and has overseen two relegations since then. Easy to criticise, and hard to love, but is Ashley as bad as…

  • Other Financial Issues

    Newcastle: Opportunity Knocked

    Introduction Regular reference is made about the ‘Big Six’ clubs in the Premier League and the disproportionate amount of wealth, transfer spend and media exposure that they generate. These clubs (Manchester United and City, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea) seem to have created a glass ceiling which is almost impenetrable to break (with the notable exception of Leicester in 2015/16 as they jostle for Champions League (CL) positions, having taken 60 out of 62 places in the CL since 2004/5. One of my chums on Twitter, called @TheGingerPirlo_ , asked about Newcastle United, a club who had been successful in the early 2000’s, and an assessment of Mike Ashley’s reign…

  • Financial Results

    Newcastle 2017: Lovely Jubbly

    Introduction Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s colourful owner, has finally submitted the club’s accounts for the year ended 30 June 2017 for public scrutiny. In first announcing a selected set of information from the accounts on the club’s website Ashley has laid himself open to accusations of trying to massage the message from the club’s season in the Championship. Kind words are in short supply in Tyneside for Ashley, who bought the club in May 2007 and has overseen two relegations during that period. Easy to criticise, and hard to love, but is Ashley as bad as some make out, given that he has lent the club over £140 million interest free,…

  • Other Financial Issues

    Valuing Newcastle United Part II

    In the last post we looked at the methods professionals use to value a business. We deliberately didn’t calculate using one method,  known as the discounted cash flow method, because (a) it relies on clubs generating positive cash flows, which they traditionally have struggled at, and (b) designing the model involves a lot of nerding out on a spreadsheet. Some people have rightly pointed out though that with the latest TV deals, clubs are now far more cash rich than they used to be, and so perhaps such a model is worth attempting. Furthermore, being nerds here at the PriceOfFootball, the temptation to produce something that gives a value was…

  • Other Financial Issues

    Newcastle: What’s The Colour of Money?

    Newcastle: What’s the colour of money? Newcastle United are officially up for sale. http://www.espn.co.uk/football/english-premier-league/23/blog/post/3236029/mike-ashley-puts-newcastle-up-for-sale-but-can-club-be-great-again. That’s not significantly different from the position over the last few months, where they were unofficially up for sale. There are many interested parties, but the most important one is Mike Ashley, as the price that he’s prepared to accept that will determine whether recent noises from the club are to be taken seriously. Stories abound of prices being asked of about £350-400 million. Which begs the question, how do you value a football club? We’ve looked at a variety of methods, to try to determine a range of prices that might be acceptable to both…