Should we pay our players more ?

CockOnBall said:

I voted yes.

Looking at our last annual accounts is meaningless given:

1) It doesn't include the money made from CL
2) It doesn't include the revenue from the reported Nike deal
3) From next season onwards, our capacity will be at least 61K for the foreseeable future (Wembley as much as 90K)

I am not sure how much we're paying rent for Wembley but I'd hazard a guess we'll make more matchday revenue there than we are currently receiving at WHL. I think at the time of the deal being announced, Levy said the money would be the same (debunking the accusation that the Wembley move was financially motivated) but that was when the capacity was capped at 50K. It has since been increased to 90K and the ticket prices are effectively the same as this year.

I totally agree with people who say we should spend within our means but the above indicates that are means have increased. I am sure Levy already knows this. You can bet the players' agents will also be looking at that.

We still have a stadium to pay so rather than pay out fees and wages on numerous new signings to replace players we couldn't keep, I'd rather pay more to the existing lot.

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t79boy said:

In all businesses there is margin ... do you honestly think we can't afford to pay more ?

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Levy has already said Tottenham will be “sensible” in their spending as they manage the transition from one stadium to another. Yet even if the initial process is tough, the Tottenham hierarchy are confident the move will pay off in the long term.

One reason is the increased revenue Tottenham will generate from home games. According to the Deloitte Football Money League for the 2015-16 season, Spurs were the only one of the top six clubs not to break £50million on matchdays.

Manchester United led the way with £102.8m, followed by Arsenal with £99.9m, Chelsea with £69.7m, Liverpool with £56.8m and Manchester City with £52.5m. Spurs took £40.8m. The disparity may be even greater this season, as Tottenham needed to reduce the capacity of White Hart Lane to about 32,000 in order to allow construction work on their new ground to proceed

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longtimespur said:

Oh and by the way I'm a pensioner on under £9000 per annum as somebody posted above most players are on an average of 10 times that amount

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TaoistMonkey said:

Player wages should be capped and then "generous" performance related bonuses should be given.

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tiger666 said:

Well, they are.

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TH1239 said:

Do you actually know what our annual revenues have been and are likely to be for this fiscal year? Do you know what our wage to turnover ratio is?

First of all, according to financial reports released for 2016, Spurs annual revenue was 209 million pounds. Liverpool came in at 302 million pounds, while Watford's total revenue was roughly 94.5 million pounds (so, no we weren't closer to Watford than Liverpool revenue wise last season). This season, we earned Champions League football, while Liverpool fell out of Europe, which was responsible for nearly 38 million Euros of their revenue last season (http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/competitions/General/02/41/82/56/2418256_DOWNLOAD.pdf). That means the gap between us and Liverpool for this current financial period is likely to be around the 50 million pound mark (30 million pounds less for them in European revenue, with 20-25 million pounds more for us for CL revenue versus our 2016 Europa revenue and subtracting a bit of revenue for diminished WHL capacity), while our total revenue advantage over Watford, who has no European football to speak of, either, is likely to have increased to closer to 130 million pounds.

Second of all, we now likely have the lowest wage-to-turnover ratio in the entire league. We've operated well above 50% on this metric for years, but last season, we were at 48% (see this chart: https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/861501645871624192). With our massive revenue increase this season towards 290 million pounds, even if we handed out 15 million pounds of new contracts with renewals to our current squad (that'd be a 30K increase a week, on average, for 10 players), we'd still only have a wage bill around 115 million pounds (our wage bill for fiscal year 2016 was 100.4 million pounds per our financial report). That would potentially put our wage to turnover ratio at or below 40%, which is FAR below the norm for us as a club in recent years and far below many European and British clubs. That means we could potentially add 30 million pounds to our wage bill to bring it closer to 145 million pounds based on projected revenue and still be at or around 50% wage-to-turnover ratio (a 30 million pound wage increase would amount to roughly an additional 57K a week, on average, for 13 players in our squad).

So, the financial flexibility is there with massive revenue growth to significantly increase our wage bill in the coming years to keep players. I would posit if anyone takes a step back and looks at long-term growth trends of the league, it's obvious that the Premier League is in the midst of a massive boom cycle with no end in sight where television revenues will continue to grow unabated. The only global comparisons are the NFL, MLB and NBA, who have seen no backsliding in their revenues over the last two decades and the EPL is likely to be on par with the latter two in the coming decade. No team that remains in this league is going to "do a Leeds."

In the end, even if you consider stadium debt, it would make far more sense to up our wage bill to keep our already existing squad of top players together (if money becomes an issue for our top players), then to let players leave due to strict wage caps, only to believe that once the stadium has been paid off many years down the road, you can go out and replace said departing players by raising wages to buy replacements. It'd make more sense to pay more now for great players who we know can perform and love the club than to wait a decade to massively up our wage bill for players who may or may not cut it at Spurs. Plus, you have to factor in the serious opportunity costs of potential commercial revenue losses if our squad deteriorates heading into a new stadium.

Bottom line: increase the wage bill to keep our top players happy with incremental wage increases yearly for top performers, even if that means a bit of austerity in the transfer market. Capitalize on our new stadium and top squad to massively boost commercial revenue and brand equity heading in the next decade. I believe Levy will do all of this because he will look at the league's economic landscape and realize this is a low risk high reward proposition for the club, and the owners have so much equity built up with the rising value of the club, that they can be a bit more bold in the future with revenues (you wouldn't have seen Levy sanction a move for Sissoko 5 seasons ago).

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JUSTINSIGNAL said:

Yes I do know what our revenue was for the 15/16 season:

So, as I said, we are closer to Watford than we are Liverpool.

It is pointless including Champions League revenue. Contracts are signed in most cases for 4+ years. It is Risdale-nomics to base your wage bill on any Champions League income as the next season we could easily finish mid table for various reasons. You also need to factor in that most contracts are heavily incentivised, so qualification for champions league and a high league finish etc would most probably swallow any additional revenue.

I just don't understand this undertone that the club are somehow not paying players to the limit of what they can afford. It is clear this season with Lloris and Kane pushing are upper wage limit to 100K per week that there has been an effort to reward our best performers as much as is possible.

The fact is we are building a new stadium that does need to be paid off. The club can't just saddle itself with more debt i the vague hope that it will keep us high in the table as that house of cards could easily come falling down. Then we would be left with a high wage bill, a stadium to pay off, no European football and the real possibility of being forced to sell our best players.

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TH1239 said:

That graphic is of commercial revenue, which makes up about 1/4th of our total revenue. So, again, no, we are not closer to Watford than we are to Liverpool revenue wise.

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TheHood said:

It is is suicide for Tier 2 clubs to try and structure their finances to that of Tier 1 club. And it is utterly pointless when our star players would still leave if the likes of Madrid, Barca etc came in for them. They can offer higher salaries and many things we cannot so what is the point? The key is making use of these players whilst they are here rather than trying to retain them in the medium to long term which is never going to happen.

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TaoistMonkey said:

Player wages should be capped and then "generous" performance related bonuses should be given.

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Hoops said:

We have champions league, 90,000 capacity stadium next year, then a 62,000 stadium the year after.

Weve gone up in the world. We are no longer tier 2 if you hadnt noticed.

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Kirito said:

We have just spent 30 million on one of the top talents at the last Euros.

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bubble07 said:

Keep wages the same but give each player a loyalty bonus for staying at the end of each transfer window

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tiger666 said:

http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/ind...y-exclusive-this-is-our-time-to-shine.128536/

Patience.

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