Division one things to forward to……..

[Snowflake Royal]

Historically there is a massive drop in revenue for clubs in League one, the Athletic did a good piece on Wednesday a few years ago:

https://theathletic.com/2434618/2021/03 ... nesday-8m/

That is a club which has generally attracted far bigger crowds than Reading. Without the solidarity payment or the TV revenue we'd be reliant on matchday income, I can only see our current financial plight getting worse, that's with an owner who has already caused two clubs to cease to exist.

I really hope I'm wrong, but the future doesn't look great if we're relegated.

From what I can work out, the TV revenue for each division (assuming no parachute payments) are:

1. Championship - £7m+ (£2.5m from the EFL + £4.5m from the Premier League + up to £100k for home TV matches + £10k for away TV matches)
2. League One - £1.322m (£677k + £645k)
3. League Two - £902k (£472k + £430k)

There's an additional ~£275k in parachute payments following relegation from the Championship for a single season.

It seems the vast majority of that £8m drop (around £6m) comes simply from the smaller broadcasting payments. Looking at a lot of clubs, their attendances don't fall a huge amount following relegation (some see increases) should the club not completely fall through the floor; Ticket prices would be lower however - an average of a £5 drop in match day revenue per ticket sold for a club like Sheffield Wednesday (around 23,000 attendances in the Championship) would be worth around £2.6m over twenty-three league matches.

With our costs rapidly reducing in the Championship, and likely to reduce even further next season (regardless of what division we're in), due to EFL sancations, we may not be in as bad a financial position following relegation than a lot of other clubs who've become established in the Championship (or we would've been a few seasons back).

We've been told we have one of/ the lowest wage bills in the Championship. Assuming that's true, which it surely is, if Wigan and Rotherham can yo-yo on that sort of budget and above with L1 income, there's no reason for it to be catastrophic for us. Especially as we have better attendance than either.

[NathStPaul]

I am edging more towards wanting us to go down tbh. I absolutely accept it will be a financial disaster.

There are a few reasons as to why:

The social media meltdown would be funny

Some of the fairweather fans will do one

New opposition and away grounds

Restructuring of the playing staff and management

Crooked owner looking to sell the club.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

I'm looking forward to all the annoying twitter schoolkids (including those who have hijacked the tilehurst end, which used to be a good read) and 1871 idiots who spend 90 mins baiting the away fans buggering off and supporting a London side

[YorkshireRoyal99]

It's a fact.
1. Burnley parachute payments
2. Sheff Utd promoted from L1 in 15/16 & parachute payments
3. Luton, promoted from L1 in 18/19
4. Middlesbrough - neither
5. Millwall - promoted from L1 in 16/17
6. Blackburn - promoted from L1 in 17/18
7. Norwich - parachute payments

And you don't have to look far back to see examples of back to back promotion.

Just checked and our mean division position for the last 10 years is 14.7, only Huddersfield and Birmingham are worse of the other Championship clubs and Huddersfield have been promoted in that time. Everyone else is better.

Life as a Reading fan has been utterly miserable for a decade.

All of those were a number of years ago now and I'm sure the clubs there currently would argue the fact they didn't go back down after promotion was the springboard to their current successes and just being able to establish themselves at this level has allowed them to build gradually.

Agree it has been miserable, although I think the last 5 years has definitely, definitely been worse than the first 5 years in that time. These last couple of years have been the lowest points overall.

I don’t know what you're arguing about, I never said anything about them being promoted from L1 within the last season or so. I said recent years, in the context of having looked at the last ten years as recent performance.

It was made out as if being promoted from League One has any sort of baring on winning promotion from the Championship, which it doesn't.

[Once were Biscuitmen]

I think people forget the questionable entertainment value of two sides playing hoof ball each week and being able to count the away fans.

Yes, you would hope that we would be better able to financially compete at that level once the supervision finally ends but it's a slog of a division to get out of.

Last time we were were there SJM was still subsidizing the playing side and we were still only kept in the division by Darren Caskeys free kicks one year.

Scraping survival in the Championship is still a much better hope than an amazing turnaround from the third tier.

[Snowflake Royal]

I think people forget the questionable entertainment value of two sides playing hoof ball each week and being able to count the away fans.

Yes, you would hope that we would be better able to financially compete at that level once the supervision finally ends but it's a slog of a division to get out of.

Last time we were were there SJM was still subsidizing the playing side and we were still only kept in the division by Darren Caskeys free kicks one year.

Scraping survival in the Championship is still a much better hope than an amazing turnaround from the third tier.

We never finished below mid-table in L1 after moving to the Madejski. Hardly only kept in the division by Caskey's freekicks.

[elrey]

Historically there is a massive drop in revenue for clubs in League one, the Athletic did a good piece on Wednesday a few years ago:

https://theathletic.com/2434618/2021/03 ... nesday-8m/

That is a club which has generally attracted far bigger crowds than Reading. Without the solidarity payment or the TV revenue we'd be reliant on matchday income, I can only see our current financial plight getting worse, that's with an owner who has already caused two clubs to cease to exist.

I really hope I'm wrong, but the future doesn't look great if we're relegated.

Then again Coventry and Luton went down, came back up... problem is we have a Chinese owner.

No the problem in the main has been the utterly ludicrous choices of manager the club has been making since BM left again. If they’d invested some of the money in that area instead of wasting it on utterly cr@p signings like Aluko and Puscas on idiot contracts the club would be far healthier and may even have jammed its way into the PL by now.

Essentially if the club hadn't been run so badly, we wouldn't be in such a bad state.

The choice of managers hasn't been inspiring, Mr Mad went out and seemed to be able to figure out who would be good at managing, he got it wrong at times, but McGhee and Pardew and Coppell showed he had that ability. A Chinese guy, from a country which doesn't really like football, most kids don't play football at all, who probably knows nothing about football but thought he could make some money out of it, who's had two bankrupt teams already, and doesn't have a clue who can make good decisions, he might not even care about good decisions, like a simpleton playing Football Manager, just spend big and it'll come kind of attitude. Only, they seem to have upgraded Football Manager these days.

[elrey]

Historically there is a massive drop in revenue for clubs in League one, the Athletic did a good piece on Wednesday a few years ago:

https://theathletic.com/2434618/2021/03 ... nesday-8m/

That is a club which has generally attracted far bigger crowds than Reading. Without the solidarity payment or the TV revenue we'd be reliant on matchday income, I can only see our current financial plight getting worse, that's with an owner who has already caused two clubs to cease to exist.

I really hope I'm wrong, but the future doesn't look great if we're relegated.

Then again Coventry and Luton went down, came back up... problem is we have a Chinese owner.

Burnley, not been in L1 recently
Sheff Utd - 6 seasons L1 ~ last 10 years (all top half), back competing for the PL
Luton - gone from the conference to the edge of the PL in ~10 years
Middlesbrough - not been in L1 recently
Millwall - 2 seasons in L1
Blackburn - 1 season in L1
Norwich - not been in L1 last 10 years, but just prior to that 1 season
Preston - 4 seasons in L1
Coventry - 8 seasons in L1 or 2
West Brom - not recently in L1
Sunderland - 4 seasons in L1
Watford - not in L1 recently
Bristol City - 2 seasons in L1
Stoke - not recently in L1
Swansea - not recently in L1
Birmingham - not recently in L1
Hull - 1 season at L1
Rotherham - promoted from L1 in one season 3 times once from 1 in each of L2 and L1
Cardiff - not recently in L1
Huddersfield - not recently in L1, but promoted just before the last 10 years after 8 seasons
QPR - not recently in L1
Reading - not recently in L1
Blackpool - 5 seasons in L1 +1 in L2
Wigan - two 1 season and one 2 season stints in L1

We should not be scared of going down. Half of the division has been in L1 within the last ~10 years. Teams that applies to make up two thirds of the teams in the top 6, more than half of those in the top half.

In fact, based on this season your only hope of competing for promotion from.the Championship is if you have parachute payments or have been promoted from L1 in recent years. Meanwhile, if you're a longstanding Championship team you're basically consigned to the bottom half and often a relegation fight.

I'm not really worried about competing for Premier League status, more like trying to have some optimism and not be relegation fodder every season. Last 10 years we've had what, two good seasons?

Look at the three relegated last season, they're all 7th or above. Season before all the relegated clubs finished in the play off places or higher. It's got to be better finishing in the top 6 in League One than finishing 20th in the Championship every season.

[elrey]

Then again Coventry and Luton went down, came back up... problem is we have a Chinese owner.

In fact, based on this season your only hope of competing for promotion from.the Championship is if you have parachute payments or have been promoted from L1 in recent years. Meanwhile, if you're a longstanding Championship team you're basically consigned to the bottom half and often a relegation fight.

Well, not really no. Aside from the top two, the rest of the clubs in the play offs have been in the league for a number of years now and steadily built with the exception being Luton. Norwich have parachute payments, Preston a long-standing member etc.

They've all gradually built since being at this level, in fact I recall Millwall and Luton struggled to survive and they've built their platform off that, as have Coventry who are now pushing in the higher climbs of the division.

Teams need a season or two to establish themselves as a Championship side usually before moving upwards, not yoyo-ing between leagues. But it's all based on good recruitment and a footballing philosophy, if you've got that, you're going to succeed.

Preston got relegated and came back up and around mid table, it can be done, whether it can be done with the current owner is another matter.

Yes, recruitment and philosophy, the two things we don't seem to have or do well at...

[elrey]

In fact, based on this season your only hope of competing for promotion from.the Championship is if you have parachute payments or have been promoted from L1 in recent years. Meanwhile, if you're a longstanding Championship team you're basically consigned to the bottom half and often a relegation fight.

Well, not really no. Aside from the top two, the rest of the clubs in the play offs have been in the league for a number of years now and steadily built with the exception being Luton. Norwich have parachute payments, Preston a long-standing member etc.

They've all gradually built since being at this level, in fact I recall Millwall and Luton struggled to survive and they've built their platform off that, as have Coventry who are now pushing in the higher climbs of the division.

Teams need a season or two to establish themselves as a Championship side usually before moving upwards, not yoyo-ing between leagues. But it's all based on good recruitment and a footballing philosophy, if you've got that, you're going to succeed.

It's a fact.
1. Burnley parachute payments
2. Sheff Utd promoted from L1 in 15/16 & parachute payments
3. Luton, promoted from L1 in 18/19
4. Middlesbrough - neither
5. Millwall - promoted from L1 in 16/17
6. Blackburn - promoted from L1 in 17/18
7. Norwich - parachute payments

And you don't have to look far back to see examples of back to back promotion.

Just checked and our mean division position for the last 10 years is 14.7, only Huddersfield and Birmingham are worse of the other Championship clubs and Huddersfield have been promoted in that time. Everyone else is better.

Life as a Reading fan has been utterly miserable for a decade.

Well, we don't have parachute payments whether we get relegated or not. To get those payments we need to do better than 20th every season with one top table finish every 5 years. Going down could make us come back stronger, ie, mid table for a while, something to build on. Are we going to build on anything trying to compete with parachute payments right now? No.

[tmesis]

Scraping survival in the Championship is still a much better hope than an amazing turnaround from the third tier.

An amazing turnaround which would have to be achieved while sticking to a buisness plan that won't exactly help with recruitment, especially with many contracted players on championship wages, and possibly still having Puscas on the books.


You also need to address the obvious contradiction of people saying going down will be fine, even beneficial, with those same people calling for Ince to be sacked because he'll take us down.

[Snowflake Royal]

Scraping survival in the Championship is still a much better hope than an amazing turnaround from the third tier.

An amazing turnaround which would have to be achieved while sticking to a buisness plan that won't exactly help with recruitment, especially with many contracted players on championship wages, and possibly still having Puscas on the books.


You also need to address the obvious contradiction of people saying going down will be fine, even beneficial, with those same people calling for Ince to be sacked because he'll take us down.

There's no contradiction. People want Ince gone because he's doing a bad job and has us playing abysmal no hope football. If you want any hope of turning it around, there needs to be a fresh perspective. And if we do go down, he's shown absolutely nothing to suggest he's the man to turn it around in that event.

We don't have many contracted players on Championship wages. Our remaining contracted first team players are:
Bouzanis - signed under the current Business Plan and came from L2 as a reserve, will be on peanuts
Yiadom - came from relegated Barnsley, not likely to be on that much
Holmes - new contract recently, not likely to be on that much, sellable
McIntyre - new contract recently, not likely to be on that much, maybe sellable
Sarr - signed under the current Business Plan, not going to be on much
Ejaria - one of our last fairly high earners, not wanted and probably find someone to pick him up if we're relegated
Ince - signed recently, not likely to be on that much probably one of the higher earners though. Sellable.
Carroll - signed during the Business Plan, won't be on much
Puscas - one of the last higher earners, has a sale deal in place, we've managed to loan him out two seasons running already

That's a max of 3, maybe 4 players on much over £8k a week.

League One turnarounds are common. Financially, we'll be able to compete with most L1 sides. Our wage budget this season is reportedly lower than Wigan or Rotherham. Being mid-table or top half in League One is more enjoyable than being bottom 8 in the Championship every season.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Financially we can compete in the Championship as well, the only reason we haven't in the last couple of seasons is due to restrictions due to the business plan. I don't really think finishing 8th in League One is better than 20th in the Championship to be honest.

It is dire watching us at times, but it would be even worse watching lower quality of football in League One. Not to mention half of the fans would be moaning if we were not in at least the play offs next season should we go down.

[Snowflake Royal]

Financially we can compete in the Championship as well, the only reason we haven't in the last couple of seasons is due to restrictions due to the business plan. I don't really think finishing 8th in League One is better than 20th in the Championship to be honest.

It is dire watching us at times, but it would be even worse watching lower quality of football in League One. Not to mention half of the fans would be moaning if we were not in at least the play offs next season should we go down.

Except we can't because our budget will still be capped, because our overspending to just avoid relegation was insanely high in previous seasons. We also need far more signings to be competitive on the field in the Championship, each of which is more costly that the equivalent in L1.

There can be no real expectation of anything but another relegation fight next season in the Championship.

You are of course entitled to your view about what is better. But judging by your username I'm guessing maybe you were too young to see us last time we were in L1, so I'm not convinced you have the frame of reference to be fully informed on that.

But for me, 60 - 75 point seasons are far more fun than 35 - 55 point seasons.

So far we have failed miserably to turn things around in the Championship and things have got progressively worse. I see few reasons to expect that to change in the next few seasons in the Championship. League One is a different and easier challenge with more things in our favour. The quality of football is no worse than we serve up and often better.

I am absolutely sick to death with the shit we've put up with ten years. Change required.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Financially we can compete in the Championship as well, the only reason we haven't in the last couple of seasons is due to restrictions due to the business plan. I don't really think finishing 8th in League One is better than 20th in the Championship to be honest.

It is dire watching us at times, but it would be even worse watching lower quality of football in League One. Not to mention half of the fans would be moaning if we were not in at least the play offs next season should we go down.

Except we can't because our budget will still be capped, because our overspending to just avoid relegation was insanely high in previous seasons. We also need far more signings to be competitive on the field in the Championship, each of which is more costly that the equivalent in L1.

There can be no real expectation of anything but another relegation fight next season in the Championship.

You are of course entitled to your view about what is better. But judging by your username I'm guessing maybe you were too young to see us last time we were in L1, so I'm not convinced you have the frame of reference to be fully informed on that.

But for me, 60 - 75 point seasons are far more fun than 35 - 55 point seasons.

So far we have failed miserably to turn things around in the Championship and things have got progressively worse. I see few reasons to expect that to change in the next few seasons in the Championship. League One is a different and easier challenge with more things in our favour. The quality of football is no worse than we serve up and often better.

I am absolutely sick to death with the shit we've put up with ten years. Change required.

But it's more costly and more affordable, the key is sticking within what we can spend and what we can't. Every club in the Championship will be "capped" to 90% of their turnover on wages, agent and transfer fees. Not to mention we didn't overspend to try and avoid relegation, we overspent to try and get promoted it just happens that we were at the bottom more than the top.

I know that League One isn't a great level. Agree I've never seen us there before, but I have seen L1 football before and it's not great, I'd much prefer to be in a higher position.

I don't think we'd have to go down in order for that to happen, I'd be happier to re-establish ourselves in a higher division, something that isn't impossible.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

I think people forget the questionable entertainment value of two sides playing hoof ball each week and being able to count the away fans.

Yes, you would hope that we would be better able to financially compete at that level once the supervision finally ends but it's a slog of a division to get out of.

Last time we were were there SJM was still subsidizing the playing side and we were still only kept in the division by Darren Caskeys free kicks one year.

Scraping survival in the Championship is still a much better hope than an amazing turnaround from the third tier.

We never finished below mid-table in L1 after moving to the Madejski. Hardly only kept in the division by Caskey's freekicks.

Yes, but we were bottom 4 going in to Feb second season (just after Pardew took over from Burns) and didn't get safe until near the end. I'd probably argue signing Martin Butler was just as important as Caskey though.

[Snowflake Royal]

I think people forget the questionable entertainment value of two sides playing hoof ball each week and being able to count the away fans.

Yes, you would hope that we would be better able to financially compete at that level once the supervision finally ends but it's a slog of a division to get out of.

Last time we were were there SJM was still subsidizing the playing side and we were still only kept in the division by Darren Caskeys free kicks one year.

Scraping survival in the Championship is still a much better hope than an amazing turnaround from the third tier.

We never finished below mid-table in L1 after moving to the Madejski. Hardly only kept in the division by Caskey's freekicks.

Yes, but we were bottom 4 going in to Feb second season (just after Pardew took over from Burns) and didn't get safe until near the end. I'd probably argue signing Martin Butler was just as important as Caskey though.

Ahhh, the days when we made good signings, sacked poor managers in a timely fashion and appointed good replacements.

[Snowflake Royal]

Actually, on that point, our internal appointments are pretty great. We should do that more.

McGhee was internal wasn’t he? His appointment was before my time.

Jim and Mick - internal, decent

Pardew - internal, great

McDermott - internal, great

Bowen - internal, decent

[MR.CYNICAL]

Apologies if already mentioned.
No more games on red button.

[The Royal Forester]

Actually, on that point, our internal appointments are pretty great. We should do that more.

McGhee was internal wasn’t he? His appointment was before my time.

Jim and Mick - internal, decent

Pardew - internal, great

McDermott - internal, great

Bowen - internal, decent

I am quite certain McGhee wasn't an internal appointment.
Pardew I think he was with us before his appointment, but didn't he leave and was recalled to become manager?
If McGhee was before your time, you will not know about the years in the lower divisions and have only seen the better years, until the last few seasons,, I do and would rather not go back there, thank you.