New Everton Stadium Discussion

Neither we nor 777 are making a deal of this nature from a position of strength. We'll also be selling the minority interest to hard nosed investors rather than a tamed oligarch. So the value assigned really isn't going to make pretty viewing (relative to the debts incurred) given the known revenue generating constraints implicit in the design, location and principal tenant.

It would certainly help ease the immediate cashflow worries but it would be naive to assume our likely owners wont then just extract the cash raised to cover the debts they'll of taken on to acquire us.

We really don't seem to have any good options, but, even with that qualifier, this still seems one of the less desirable.

They'll only sell if it makes commercial sense to do so. If say taking 200 million off our debt can attract a bank who will charge sensible interest rates and the repayment and dividends we pay out to the minority shareholder are way less than what we would payout otherwise, then it makes sense. We would then get more money to put into the team year on year.

Like the Glazers did they can lay the debt of buying us on the club itself (as technically it seems they are getting us for the cost of the stadium) and we pay it off. No skin off their noses if they can arrange those loans, then selling a stake in the stadium is a bonus if it can be done to our advantage. Not a must program to fight off the sharks.

We have to remember whilst the team is a mess the stadium also provides the bulk of the worth of Everton. Would you hand over nearly half to another party on the cheap when that immediately chops the clubs' value at the same time? They'll only sell if it approaches sensible market value to compensate for that.
 

When we were last relegated attendances dropped by around 12% season one and by the same in the second season down (a combined fall from 42k average to 32k average) but bounced back in our promotion season to be higher than the year we got relegated at 44k average.

My late Dad was in his teens and going to the games with his Dad and he always said that things could have got ugly in terms of attendance/apathy if we had not turned things around in that third year and got promoted.

This is a useful summary of our attendance history:


There's a great book called "through the turnstiles" which shows every club's averages up to the Premier league era. Everton were probably the best or 2nd best supported club in the league right up to to the 60s. To show how things change, when we came up in 1954, our averages in the 2nd Div were higher than Man Utd's, who were just about to enter the Busby babes era. Our averages were practically always in the top 2 or 3 till the 70s. Only Man Utd had a higher average for the whole 1960s and that was only a few hundred more than ours. The balance tipped towards LFC after 1970. Unfortunately, we've been well left behind by a few clubs since then. In the current era, Everton introduced £100 season tkts for kids about 10yrs ago. Not long after that, we had a waiting list. Of course the limited capacity at GP, and the high number of obstructed views meant that the increase in uptake of season tkts self-perpetuated that increased demand. Similar has happened elsewhere. It will be interesting to see what increased availability/capacity and increased ticket prices does to that waiting list. On top of everything, Football attendances generally are booming at the moment. Who knows how long that lasts and if the PSR and VAR and super league shenanigans will start to take their toll.
 


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