Camdenite wrote:
You've pretty much nailed the fundamental shift in philosophy there. It's been obvious to everyone (inside & outside) that the club relies upon the other business around s:mk to continue as a going concern. That won't come as a surprise to anyone, but what's changed is that the pressure on the football club to cut costs and and increase revenues. It really shouldnt still be such a drain on the groups profitability after 15 years in its new home. Pete said in that interview over ST price/changes to CR etc earlier this year that every aspect of the FC's business would be looked at, hence we have seen the measures we have over the course of this summer, and that inevitably included redundancies and a review of staffing levels.
I do actually agree with that approach. This club needs to stand on its own two feet, and whether that's by player sales or by charging for parking at cup games, I get it, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that the club has slashed costs in essential staffing areas too. We've been pretty much run on a skeleton staff since the covid redundancies of 2020 and things just don't seem be getting back to normal. Yes, maybe we were overstaffed in certain areas, but it seems to me that a lot of key people around the club have ended up taking extra responsibility and are now stretched to breaking point. There's no-one there to program the big screens. no-one there to check the database on season ticket dispatch, no-one to write a statement about why the cup game parking will no longer be free, no-one there to process the away tickets that arrived by courier two days ago, and even no-one there with enough time to be funny on the clubs social media accounts. It's just a cumulative effect of how few people are now employed by the FC.
All that makes sense from a strictly business POV. But this is all coming at a time when many (probably most) supporters are rightly looking more closely than ever at their discretionary spending.
Making massive cutbacks and cost-saving changes, many of which directly affect fans, could end up doing more harm than good if large numbers of people feel that they're paying a lot more and getting a lot less.
I've already noticed it when big PL games are on at the pub. People turn up one minute before kick-off, have two pints, and clear off the moment the final whistle goes. They're cutting back to the cheapest trip out they can get away with.
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