Net Spend guff...

[sloth]

People keep writing they want us to have a net spend on players each year as if that should be the goal... what a load of bollocks.

You can't have a net spend on players each year without going out of business, not in the way people mean it anyway. Net spend in the narrow sense that it's bandied on here means you're spending more on players then you're getting by selling them, so where's this money to come from? In the real world player expenditure should include wages and at the moment we spend all the money we make on players, meanwhile we've borrowed a little to build some infrastructure.

In fact spending more on players than you get for them is a sign of failure, it's the lower league clubs that all suffer from a net spend on players, and that's because they keep spending on players who when sold turn out to be worth less than what they cost. Explain to me a business that thrived by spending more on stock than it got from selling it. The whole notion is inane. The only successful clubs with a net spend on players are those for whom money is no object because they're being bankrolled, and UEFA's trying to clamp down on that. Of the other big clubs none of them have a net spend, but they do have bigger incomes.

Part of the problem is that people look at transfer fees and not wages when estimating player expenditure, and then they only consider income from player sales. Which is absurd of course. But even by that idiotic measure spending more on players than you get back is stupid, as it means you're presumably also paying higher wages, but now this has to be sustained by other revenue. Ah, but we could qualify for CL if only we risked a bit... he who dares wins Rodders!!! Except that spend more on the hope that we qualify, or after we did qualify, and then don't qualify the spending more doesn't go away, we're spending more on those players for every year of their contract, and so then we have to get rid if we can, which means a fire-sale, which means a positive net spend (whoopy-do!), and now where's that money we want to spend to get us in the CL? It's going on the interest we have to pay to furnish the debt we got into when we didn't qualify for CL every year! Genius.

 

[Everlasting Seconds]

Can I get you a coffee?

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Someone's tired...

 

[Geyzer Soze]

Areas you can get money from aside from player trading

Ticketing
Membership Fees
Sponsorships
Prize money
Endorsements (maybe under sponsorships)
Merchandise
TV & Image rights
Hospitality services
Balti Pies

Off the top of my head. I'm sure there are dozens more

 

[mightyspur]

Who are these people that keep writing they want us to have a net spend on players?

 

[sloth]

Areas you can get money from aside from player trading

Ticketing
Sponsorships
Prize money
Endorsements (maybe under sponsorships)
Merchandise
TV & Image rights
Hospitality services

Off the top of my head. I'm sure there are dozens more

Money which over the last ten years has virtually all been spent on players (Wages + transfer fees), and what hasn't has gone on infrastructure investment.

A net spend on players would mean we'd spent more on players than we earned surely? Or do you mean something else?

 

[mpickard2087]

Who are these people that keep writing they want us to have a net spend on players?

A majority of the site, so it seems. It kinda slips out when they start having a tantrum about Levy.

 

[sloth]

Who are these people that keep writing they want us to have a net spend on players?

There's hundreds of them, it's raised repeatedly, in thread after thread, by economic illiterates, as a goal that should be aimed for.

 

[sloth]

Areas you can get money from aside from player trading

Ticketing
Sponsorships
Prize money
Endorsements (maybe under sponsorships)
Merchandise
TV & Image rights
Hospitality services

Off the top of my head. I'm sure there are dozens more

Sorry, just realised that I was less than clear in the OP and so have amended it. Here's the 2nd para edit:

"You can't have a net spend on players each year without going out of business, not in the way people mean it anyway. Net spend in the narrow sense that it's bandied on here means you're spending more on players then you're getting by selling them, so where's this money to come from? In the real world player expenditure should include wages and at the moment we spend all the money we make on players, meanwhile we've borrowed a little to build some infrastructure."

Hope that's a clearer.

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

You're right of course but the people that should try and understand your points will ignore them. Like they do every other point that disproves their idiots logic.

 

[pablo73]

I think a lot of people get frustrated that we've got a billionaire owner who rarely, if ever, dips his hand in his pocket - unlike many other clubs who do have a net spend for this reason (and don't go out of business). Obviously the fact is that we're run by an investment company so that's never going to happen, but again that's a reason many people get frustrated with ENIC and want new owners.

 

[ItsBoris]

People keep writing they want us to have a net spend on players each year as if that should be the goal... what a load of bollocks.

You can't have a net spend on players each year without going out of business, not in the way people mean it anyway. Net spend in the narrow sense that it's bandied on here means you're spending more on players then you're getting by selling them, so where's this money to come from? In the real world player expenditure should include wages and at the moment we spend all the money we make on players, meanwhile we've borrowed a little to build some infrastructure.

In fact spending more on players than you get for them is a sign of failure, it's the lower league clubs that all suffer from a net spend on players, and that's because they keep spending on players who when sold turn out to be worth less than what they cost. Explain to me a business that thrived by spending more on stock than it got from selling it.

Stopped reading here, load of rubbish. But anyway let's go through these points one at a time.

1.) "Where does this money come from?". How about the hundreds of millions in revenue that we make from sources beside player trading. TV money, advertising, how about the fucking money that people pay to go to games expecting that their expenses get reinvested into the team that they are supporting?

2.) We aren't a player wholesale distributor, so your point makes no sense. Players aren't what we are selling or how we are making money as a business. It's about performances. In case you haven't noticed, the teams that play the best football historically are the biggest and make by far the most money. Look at how Sir Alex Ferguson built up Man United in his time there. Financial success follows sporting success, you can't do it the other way around. Anyway, players are investments, not inventory.

Buying players is more like having an office in a prime location. It costs you a lot of money but the point that the financial benefit is greater than the cost, assuming you don't fuck up in your assessment of the location.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Swearing in thread titles isn't allowed so i've reworded it accordingly.

 

[yido_number1]

I actually take pride in the fact that we make money from player sales and when we sign players that are cheaper that work out I think we've done a good job. People just use net spend as an excuse to ignore the fact that we just invested over £100m of real money in playing talent.

Even Chelsea are trying to buy low and sell high now with the exception of maybe 1 or 2 big signings a window. Fifa Fair play doesn't allow for big spends any more.

 

[sloth]

I think a lot of people get frustrated that we've got a billionaire owner who rarely, if ever, dips his hand in his pocket - unlike many other clubs who do have a net spend for this reason (and don't go out of business). Obviously the fact is that we're run by an investment company so that's never going to happen, but again that's a reason many people get frustrated with ENIC and want new owners.

Thing is I've never donated any money to the club, and I'm a lifelong fan, what about you, have you ever given ex gratia?

 

[pablo73]

Thing is I've never donated any money to the club, and I'm a lifelong fan, what about you, have you ever given ex gratia?

No I haven't but that's not really a fair comparison is it? Comparing supporters to owners is hardly comparing apples with apples is it? If you compare owners with owners, there are a lot who do (or at least have) put a lot of money into their clubs, and the clubs are better off for it. We have one of the lowest net spends in the division yet have the 6th or 7th highest revenue, so can you not understand the frustration even a tiny bit?

By the way, it's difficult to argue with anything you say as the fact is we are run by an investment company, so that's just the way it is. My point is that a lot of people feel that's not necessarily the best option for the club.

 

[myhartlane]

Totally agree with this. I remember the inane talk after we sold Bale about spending record breaking amounts of money on players.

There still seem to be a great many people on this site who resent Levy for his responsible attitude to spending.

 

[steve]

Regarding wages I wonder how many players have contracts that see them increase or not depending on champions league footy? Most of them I would presume.

I can see why it's hard to get rid of players sometimes, most won't earn what they get at Spurs. It's frustrating but Levy's right to try and squeeze as much as possible from sales, then we can spunk the proceeds on world class talent like Vlad or Pauli*.....

* buying players has never been a science of course just ask Rodgers...

 

[NEVILLEB]

The top two teams in the Premier League had a FORTUNE ploughed into them out of their owners pockets.

They don't look to be going out of business anytime soon.

 

[RuskyM]

I defended net gain to a point, and that point was selling Luka Modric & Rafael van der Vaart and replacing them with Mousa Dembele & Clint Dempsey. That was the point where I realised Levy's not as smart a businessman as I thought.

You can't spend big consistently without money coming in, obviously - however, you can't sell big and regress or even stand still in such a competitive market. Which is all we've done for the past few years. People don't talk of net spend as in they want to just see money spunked everywhere, they're saying it because selling world class players and replacing them with less than world class players only leads to a poorer team. Which, in turn, leads to us making less money. It actually would have been more prosperous for Levy to dig in and sign Musacchio/Moutinho/Schneiderlin/Cahill/Llorente when given the chance, because falling a few places is a bigger hit than the 30% more we pay on the alternative.

Hopefully a youth team paying dividends means we can stop throwing money at stopgaps like Stambouli and Chiriches and instead can pursue good players that will actually make a difference.