Most liked posts in thread: i Article: Why ‘Sleeping Giants’ Bradford City Aren’t Your Typical EFL Basket Case

Reality is setting in for many Andy? Clearly we don’t like the non-interventionist, non investment to speculate and progress, but at least for the moment the club is on a stable footing. I read a lot and just have a look around most of the EFL and their financial woes and I mean WOES in capital letters , we are vastly better off than most , that I can gaurantee .

Merry Xmas one and all.. and hopefully lots of points over the festive season!

Safe journey for those making the trip tonight!

 

Reading Debt
“One important number is the net liabilities of £62.9m, down from £71.9m. This means the club owes more than it owns. Over the years the club has now accumulated losses of £191.5m which is over £140m more than when the Dais bought the club in 2017.”

West Brom
West Brom 'looking to recall £5m loan' from owner Guochuan Lai's company amid growing financial problems, with the club reportedly needing to 'sell players in order to stay operational'29 Sept 2023


Bradford City
Minor loans to owner

Now we know why their sale price is below ours……They are effectively selling debt?

 

Might be a tough sell to you.

But any logical person can see that with a good level of investment and commitment and a clear strategy the club is a sleeping giant. Large fanbase. Alright it's cheap tickets, but that will be offset by commercial gains from being able to sell to sponsors that their company gets seen by 17k people every other week.

Go up the leagues and it gets more. There will be a deal somewhere for the ground, probably.

If I was looking at clubs to buy and I had plenty of cash, taking a large league 2 club in a one club City back to the glory days would be the one i'd choose. Especially with the fans already in place and a large stadium, owned or not.

 

Be careful what you wish for and the grass is not always greener.
I don't dislike Mr Rupp, i do not know the guy, but i do wish he had more interest in us than just something he bought as an investment.
Unfortunately we are stuck with him and his policy's, until someone meets his valuation.
There are worse owners and better out there and as far as we know, he is not bleeding the club dry.
When he and the shister bought in, we all thought happy days are on the way. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

 

Be careful what you wish for. We're currently in the honeymoon period of US investors buying EFL clubs. I do wonder how much due diligence is done against the ambitions or business goals of these investors.
The only way to really cash in on your investment is to make it to the PL. That's where (as we all know) all the $$ are.
The trouble is that to get there you need to spend big or have a long term strategy akin to Brighton and Brentford. If it doesn't come off then some of the recently acquired clubs will be in deep do-dar
A few years ago, clubs were being hoovered up by Chinese businessmen acting on behalf of the Chinese government. Once the President realised that more money was flowing out than in from these clubs he told the owners to get out. WBA and Reading are a couple still left in Chinese ownership and are in real financial trouble.

 

Hats off to Mark for his article but there is zero in there that none of us didn’t already know.
I fail to see the point of it other than an article for followers of other EFL teams as opposed to followers of BCAFC.

Don’t take it as a “stick” to hit somebody with imho.

 

£10 million to buy a name is a lot of money.

I remember hearing Zuffa bought the UFC for $2 million back in the day, and they kinda accepted they were only really buying it for the letters 'UFC' which they believed had huge potential from a name recognition/brand aspect.

Dana White has spoken quite a few times about how they really weren't buying a whole lot else, and even then that brand wasn't established and would need a huge amount of work put into it.

Obviously that big gamble has paid off in spades (they sold for $4 billion).

But that was an effort to establish the number one MMA brand in the world.

£10 million for a fourth tier club with no bricks and mortar, no nothing?

Yeah... that's a tough sell.

And did anyone hear we train at a school?

 

$2m still sounds a lot for Undercliffe Fried Chicken

 

I remember Dana White being on the Hawksbee and Jacobs show on talksport in the very early days of the UFC basically trying to sell the dream of eventually becoming the organisation it is today. Genius move from White, always a good listen whenever he's on.

 

Agree. Nothing new to see and I would n't be surprised if he got the content for the piece from trawling City Talk, and then reflecting the middle ground of sentiment on here!

 

Not sure it's a truly objective article as Mark Douglas is a Bradford City fan based in Newcastle. He used to write for Boy From Brazil.

 

Try pasting the URL into this: https://www.printfriendly.com/

 

Like I say, someone who wants to pay ten million for an idea would be welcomed with open arms. But they'd be a gambler, not driven by good business.

Better to buy something tangible that can be sold even if you fail.

 

Meanwhile, back in the real world I've supported city for over 40 years and in that time this club has only had two genuinely interested purchasers of the club, that being BFG and the two Germans.
If that ain't a hard sell I don't what is.

 

I have always been realistic about our football club Kevin, heading fast towards 50 years of watching and we are, what we were, with a couple of purple patches thrown in.
Because of our so called struggles, these purple patches were all the more sweeter.
Of course i would love us to be higher up the pyramid, with more cup runs thrown in, but so would all fans of lower league teams.
Valley parade and the club, is so much more than the football to me.

 

Guys, I agree with all the sentiments and have witnessed the same from 1974 but we don't have to accept mediocrity just because we are Bradford? We should push on. Why should Wycombe -Fleetwood - Carlisle etc etc be any better than us?

 

1911

 

Behind a paywall, so can’t read it.

 

I just refreshed the page and it then allowed me to read the full article

 

They wouldn't even chuck in the fryers!