Beginning after the 2016-2017 season and for three subsequent years, we will potentially be receiving seasonal television rights payments somewhere between 135-140 million pounds (presuming we can finish 5th or 6th consistently in that timespan). Given that as recently as 2012-2013 we only raked in 55 million pounds in television income, that represents an extraordinary rise in revenue that is being felt all across the league.
Given that our wage bill has only modestly risen in the intervening years from 96 million to 104 million (and that's very likely to stay around that mark given how many players we're likely to shed this summer), I would really like to know what the club plans to do with this potential surplus cash? I've seen some people speculate that it could help fund the stadium, which is something that I've never seen raised in any Q&A with the club. It's not an insignificant amount of money we are talking about here. I mean, there is a real chance we'll be on par with Juventus in revenue generation before the stadium is built after the new television deal kicks in.
So, I think, there will have to be a strategic decision made at some point in the next year or so whether the club is going to ramp up spending on the squad from current levels once the next tv deals kicks in, or whether to keep the exact same spending restrictions in place and divert that television income towards the stadium in an effort to have less debt come 2020 or thereabouts, where you then would hope they'd be able to immediately start spending heavily to compete with the top 5 financial powerhouses in the league.
Given that our wage bill has only modestly risen in the intervening years from 96 million to 104 million (and that's very likely to stay around that mark given how many players we're likely to shed this summer), I would really like to know what the club plans to do with this potential surplus cash? I've seen some people speculate that it could help fund the stadium, which is something that I've never seen raised in any Q&A with the club. It's not an insignificant amount of money we are talking about here. I mean, there is a real chance we'll be on par with Juventus in revenue generation before the stadium is built after the new television deal kicks in.
So, I think, there will have to be a strategic decision made at some point in the next year or so whether the club is going to ramp up spending on the squad from current levels once the next tv deals kicks in, or whether to keep the exact same spending restrictions in place and divert that television income towards the stadium in an effort to have less debt come 2020 or thereabouts, where you then would hope they'd be able to immediately start spending heavily to compete with the top 5 financial powerhouses in the league.
