Write a business plan to make Reading FC a premier league club.

[Mr Irascible]

Executive Summary:
Reading Football Club has a long and proud history, but has faced challenges in recent years to compete at the highest level. This business plan outlines a comprehensive strategy to bring Reading FC back to the Premier League and establish it as a competitive and sustainable top-flight club.

Marketing and Sales:

Develop a clear brand identity that reflects the heritage and passion of the club and its fans.
Increase fan engagement through a variety of channels, including social media, match-day experiences, and community outreach.
Expand the club's sponsorship and commercial partnerships, leveraging the club's position as one of the largest and most recognizable football clubs in the country.
Player Recruitment and Development:

Build a strong, competitive squad through targeted player recruitment and development.
Invest in scouting and data analysis to identify and sign the best young talent from around the world.
Implement a comprehensive player development program to support the progress of young players and ensure that they are prepared to compete at the highest level.
Stadium and Infrastructure:

Upgrade the club's stadium and training facilities to meet the standards of a Premier League club.
Develop new revenue streams through stadium sponsorships and events, including concerts and other non-football events.
Invest in the club's infrastructure, including ticketing and merchandise systems, to ensure that it is able to meet the demands of a growing fanbase.
Financial Planning:

Implement a financially sustainable business model, balancing investments in the team, stadium, and infrastructure with revenue-generating activities.
Secure long-term, low-interest financing to support the club's growth and development.
Work closely with the club's financial advisors to manage risk and ensure that the club is in a strong financial position.
Conclusion:
By following this comprehensive strategy, Reading FC can build a team capable of competing in the Premier League, and establish itself as a leading force in English football. With a focus on fan engagement, player development, and financial sustainability, the club will be well positioned to achieve its goal of becoming a Premier League club and maintaining that status for years to come.

Thank you ChatGPT

[Green]

[Elm Park Kid]

Buying your way to success only works if you can get out of the league before FFP catches up with you. We tried that and failed pretty badly and the EFL now are watching us like a hawk. There are always going to be parachute payment clubs and others with larger income that will prevent us from competing financially in a 'legitimate' fashion.

Another path is to develop the best possible youth team and hope they come through. This take time and luck though, and the Championship is a brutally competitive league that doesn't really give you the option to spend a few seasons developing youngsters.

Another is to establish a quality scouting set up and try to step-by-step build a team that can compete. Again though, the league doesn't give you much time and you're always at risk of your stars getting poached.

The final is just cobble together the best team you can each season (like we've done) and hope that you strike lucky and hope things gels quickly. But that's all it is really - a combination of some good scouting, decent manager and an awful lot of luck.

Our main hope is that the current discussions with the PL create a new system where clubs are put on a more level playing field (no jokes about SLC pitch please).

[RG30]

1) Appoint a progressive coach/manager who can get the coach the players to maximize ability, Long term this definitely isn't Paul Ince.

2) Make use of our contacts within the game and use them to maximum value. Someone like Kia Joorabchian isn't going anywhere anytime soon despite what the club tell fans so use him for his contacts at Chelsea or other clubs and again someone like John Macbeath who is closely linked with Man City. Make sure that when these clubs have young players who need to go out on loan we're in the queue for them.

3) Overhaul the academy. Regain Cat 1 status and then sack off the likes of Gilkes and get someone with a proven track record at that level. The drop off pre and post Dolan has been alarming. The academy costs a couple of million a year and has to be our route to any success, whether it's selling players to fund better players or supplementing the 1st team.

4) Have a clearly defined style of play and stick to it.

[tidus_mi2]

1) Appoint a progressive coach/manager who can get the coach the players to maximize ability, Long term this definitely isn't Paul Ince.

2) Make use of our contacts within the game and use them to maximum value. Someone like Kia Joorabchian isn't going anywhere anytime soon despite what the club tell fans so use him for his contacts at Chelsea or other clubs and again someone like John Macbeath who is closely linked with Man City. Make sure that when these clubs have young players who need to go out on loan we're in the queue for them.

3) Overhaul the academy. Regain Cat 1 status and then sack off the likes of Gilkes and get someone with a proven track record at that level. The drop off pre and post Dolan has been alarming. The academy costs a couple of million a year and has to be our route to any success, whether it's selling players to fund better players or supplementing the 1st team.

4) Have a clearly defined style of play and stick to it.

I think your point 1 + 3 sort of go hand in hand, part of the problem of the reduction in youth players making the transition to the first team is that you need the management to put faith in them and give them a shot. Whether that is due to our circumstances and those calling the shots decided young players with little experience were too big of a risk I don't know but if we want the academy to be part of our club identity we need to make sure there is a clear pathway to the first team.

Is Ince the answer in the long-term? I'd also lean toward no but he has probably done enough to be given a chance at building a long term vision for the club, it would be a big call in the Summer to look elsewhere, as for Gilkes, I have no idea what the youth setup is like at the moment, I would hope that in the process of rebuilding our setup to cat 1 standard, if Gilkes is found lacking he will be let go but I've seen no evidence that any potential failings are currently on him.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Another path is to develop the best possible youth team and hope they come through. This take time and luck though, and the Championship is a brutally competitive league that doesn't really give you the option to spend a few seasons developing youngsters.

I repeat myself a lot with this but the club has to be built around the academy. You could field a competitive starting XI these days with the players we have brought through which is probably something that not many other clubs can say.

From an accounting point of view, it makes absolute sense as well. Investing in the academy does not held any bearing towards FFP regulations, so developing that area to bring through the best possible prospects, regain out Category One academy status etc should be an absolute priority. Any players that move on for good values, such as Olise (even though I believe we could/should have got more), will go towards profit on our accounts as well.

I think the academy is where we will get the most success from. We are in a great area really, slap bang in the middle (essentially) of the capital city, which has tonnes of clubs, another major UK city in Bristol as well as the south coast where there are a lot of clubs based, not to mention the area we are in now. It's a hotbed for young footballers, any that don't make the grade at top clubs we could make excellent use of.

[Sutekh]

Another path is to develop the best possible youth team and hope they come through. This take time and luck though, and the Championship is a brutally competitive league that doesn't really give you the option to spend a few seasons developing youngsters.

I repeat myself a lot with this but the club has to be built around the academy. You could field a competitive starting XI these days with the players we have brought through which is probably something that not many other clubs can say.

From an accounting point of view, it makes absolute sense as well. Investing in the academy does not held any bearing towards FFP regulations, so developing that area to bring through the best possible prospects, regain out Category One academy status etc should be an absolute priority. Any players that move on for good values, such as Olise (even though I believe we could/should have got more), will go towards profit on our accounts as well.

I think the academy is where we will get the most success from. We are in a great area really, slap bang in the middle (essentially) of the capital city, which has tonnes of clubs, another major UK city in Bristol as well as the south coast where there are a lot of clubs based, not to mention the area we are in now. It's a hotbed for young footballers, any that don't make the grade at top clubs we could make excellent use of.

Agree the academy is the lifeblood to some degree and Reading should be looking to get as many promising youngsters to join from wherever they can even if that means paying a transfer fee. Meanwhile though clubs (and fans) tend to want players who can play now, not players who may or may not fulfil some vague promise in 2 or 3 years. Would be nice to see the academy sides starting to win things though and maybe even getting a prolific striker through rather than the countless decent goalkeepers that Reading seem really good at producing.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Another path is to develop the best possible youth team and hope they come through. This take time and luck though, and the Championship is a brutally competitive league that doesn't really give you the option to spend a few seasons developing youngsters.

I repeat myself a lot with this but the club has to be built around the academy. You could field a competitive starting XI these days with the players we have brought through which is probably something that not many other clubs can say.

From an accounting point of view, it makes absolute sense as well. Investing in the academy does not held any bearing towards FFP regulations, so developing that area to bring through the best possible prospects, regain out Category One academy status etc should be an absolute priority. Any players that move on for good values, such as Olise (even though I believe we could/should have got more), will go towards profit on our accounts as well.

I think the academy is where we will get the most success from. We are in a great area really, slap bang in the middle (essentially) of the capital city, which has tonnes of clubs, another major UK city in Bristol as well as the south coast where there are a lot of clubs based, not to mention the area we are in now. It's a hotbed for young footballers, any that don't make the grade at top clubs we could make excellent use of.

Agree the academy is the lifeblood to some degree and Reading should be looking to get as many promising youngsters to join from wherever they can even if that means paying a transfer fee. Meanwhile though clubs (and fans) tend to want players who can play now, not players who may or may not fulfil some vague promise in 2 or 3 years. Would be nice to see the academy sides starting to win things though and maybe even getting a prolific striker through rather than the countless decent goalkeepers that Reading seem really good at producing.

CB's as well, we seem to have had so many good defenders come through over the last decade or so. Obviously we don't just want a set of academy players, but we can drip feed a load through.

Now is a decent example, if managed correctly, the pathway is correct and the players develop as we expect them to do, absolutely no reason why some of our most highly thought of youngsters (CBC, Dorsett, Abbey, Abrefa, Craig, Senga, Azeez, Scott, Kelvin E just to name a few) can't make the grade. I don't expect all of them to of course as it never works in an ideal world, but even if we get a 33% success rate with our academy players coming through as regular first team players, we will be doing well.

[Dirk Gently]

There are three key revenue streams for any football club - gate, broadcast and commercial, and the most successful premier league clubs have developed all three. That what a lot of new stadium developments are all about - increasing commercial revenue, which includes commercial sponsorships and partnership, etc.

We're terribly deficient in the third one and always have been, so this is (or certainly *was*) seen as the key to making us sustainable in the PL. That's mainly what the proposed in 2006/07 was all about, but sadly we got cold feet(*) and it never happened. We'd be a very different club now if we had.

(*) Couldn't think to the required scale or find the money to fund it.

[Nameless]

There are three key revenue streams for any football club - gate, broadcast and commercial, and the most successful premier league clubs have developed all three. That what a lot of new stadium developments are all about - increasing commercial revenue, which includes commercial sponsorships and partnership, etc.

We're terribly deficient in the third one and always have been, so this is (or certainly *was*) seen as the key to making us sustainable in the PL. That's mainly what the proposed in 2006/07 was all about, but sadly we got cold feet(*) and it never happened. We'd be a very different club now if we had.

(*) Couldn't think to the required scale or find the money to fund it.

Wokingham Council desperately trying to scupper it with fairly spurious planning objections didn’t help, and would probably have delayed it long enough to make it pointless.

[Elm Park Kid]

There are three key revenue streams for any football club - gate, broadcast and commercial, and the most successful premier league clubs have developed all three. That what a lot of new stadium developments are all about - increasing commercial revenue, which includes commercial sponsorships and partnership, etc.

We're terribly deficient in the third one and always have been, so this is (or certainly *was*) seen as the key to making us sustainable in the PL. That's mainly what the proposed in 2006/07 was all about, but sadly we got cold feet(*) and it never happened. We'd be a very different club now if we had.

(*) Couldn't think to the required scale or find the money to fund it.

Commercial revenues are always going to be tricky when you are close to London and don't have strong brand. Like, it doesn't matter how Forest, Derby, Wednesday, Sunderland etc are doing, those are 'big names' that large companies want to be associated with. But Reading has to be winning, or have exciting players, for anyone serious to want to get involved with us.

[Dirk Gently]

There are three key revenue streams for any football club - gate, broadcast and commercial, and the most successful premier league clubs have developed all three. That what a lot of new stadium developments are all about - increasing commercial revenue, which includes commercial sponsorships and partnership, etc.

We're terribly deficient in the third one and always have been, so this is (or certainly *was*) seen as the key to making us sustainable in the PL. That's mainly what the proposed in 2006/07 was all about, but sadly we got cold feet(*) and it never happened. We'd be a very different club now if we had.

(*) Couldn't think to the required scale or find the money to fund it.

Commercial revenues are always going to be tricky when you are close to London and don't have strong brand. Like, it doesn't matter how Forest, Derby, Wednesday, Sunderland etc are doing, those are 'big names' that large companies want to be associated with. But Reading has to be winning, or have exciting players, for anyone serious to want to get involved with us.

Yes and no. Clearly there's no advantage in being associated with a dead duck club, but as I was told this was all about leveraging the location of the club in the heart of one of the UK's successful business areas. So they were looking to have facilities that could be used by the likes of prestige bands such as Microsoft, Oracle, BMW, Porsche, Vodafone, PepsiCo, Cisco etc. They design included the sort of facilities that these companies could use all through the week - not just on match days, and would be customised for them so they'd not be just like the existing conference centre but a whole quantum leap better and more lucrative than that. So not just executive boxes but demo facilities/innovation facilities that would cement a link between these high-profile corporates and the club.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

There are three key revenue streams for any football club - gate, broadcast and commercial, and the most successful premier league clubs have developed all three. That what a lot of new stadium developments are all about - increasing commercial revenue, which includes commercial sponsorships and partnership, etc.

We're terribly deficient in the third one and always have been, so this is (or certainly *was*) seen as the key to making us sustainable in the PL. That's mainly what the proposed in 2006/07 was all about, but sadly we got cold feet(*) and it never happened. We'd be a very different club now if we had.

(*) Couldn't think to the required scale or find the money to fund it.

That's true about the commercial side of the club. I don't think anybody at this point knows the specifics, but one thing I've noticed quite a lot of over the last year or so is various levels of deals/partnerships at the club, for example Select Car Leasing having naming rights of the stadium and the recent link with Toshiba.

It does seem like the club are trying to work on commercial revenue for the club which is obviously the one thing we really need to improve on.

[BraisingsteakRoyal]

5) Sign a massive Russian cart-horse on 60k a week.

[Elm Park Kid]

There are three key revenue streams for any football club - gate, broadcast and commercial, and the most successful premier league clubs have developed all three. That what a lot of new stadium developments are all about - increasing commercial revenue, which includes commercial sponsorships and partnership, etc.

We're terribly deficient in the third one and always have been, so this is (or certainly *was*) seen as the key to making us sustainable in the PL. That's mainly what the proposed in 2006/07 was all about, but sadly we got cold feet(*) and it never happened. We'd be a very different club now if we had.

(*) Couldn't think to the required scale or find the money to fund it.

Commercial revenues are always going to be tricky when you are close to London and don't have strong brand. Like, it doesn't matter how Forest, Derby, Wednesday, Sunderland etc are doing, those are 'big names' that large companies want to be associated with. But Reading has to be winning, or have exciting players, for anyone serious to want to get involved with us.

Yes and no. Clearly there's no advantage in being associated with a dead duck club, but as I was told this was all about leveraging the location of the club in the heart of one of the UK's successful business areas. So they were looking to have facilities that could be used by the likes of prestige bands such as Microsoft, Oracle, BMW, Porsche, Vodafone, PepsiCo, Cisco etc. They design included the sort of facilities that these companies could use all through the week - not just on match days, and would be customised for them so they'd not be just like the existing conference centre but a whole quantum leap better and more lucrative than that. So not just executive boxes but demo facilities/innovation facilities that would cement a link between these high-profile corporates and the club.

I'm not really clued up on that sort of stuff - It would definitely make sense if we could find a way to monetise the stadium throughout the year. But then, I also wonder about the logic of a football club like Reading trying to compete in that space. I mean, what is it about RFC specifically that would give us a competitive edge? Sure, there's having the stadium already, and some staff who have transferable skills, but other than that you're talking about attempting to compete against the large, established players 45 minutes away in London.

Clubs with bigger names can utilise that brand in a business venture like this. If you're Leeds United you can probably pull away clients from going with other venues in Leeds due to the general excitement involved. But, to be frank, we're a club that generate little excitement.

[Dirk Gently]

Commercial revenues are always going to be tricky when you are close to London and don't have strong brand. Like, it doesn't matter how Forest, Derby, Wednesday, Sunderland etc are doing, those are 'big names' that large companies want to be associated with. But Reading has to be winning, or have exciting players, for anyone serious to want to get involved with us.

Yes and no. Clearly there's no advantage in being associated with a dead duck club, but as I was told this was all about leveraging the location of the club in the heart of one of the UK's successful business areas. So they were looking to have facilities that could be used by the likes of prestige bands such as Microsoft, Oracle, BMW, Porsche, Vodafone, PepsiCo, Cisco etc. They design included the sort of facilities that these companies could use all through the week - not just on match days, and would be customised for them so they'd not be just like the existing conference centre but a whole quantum leap better and more lucrative than that. So not just executive boxes but demo facilities/innovation facilities that would cement a link between these high-profile corporates and the club.

I'm not really clued up on that sort of stuff - It would definitely make sense if we could find a way to monetise the stadium throughout the year. But then, I also wonder about the logic of a football club like Reading trying to compete in that space. I mean, what is it about RFC specifically that would give us a competitive edge? Sure, there's having the stadium already, and some staff who have transferable skills, but other than that you're talking about attempting to compete against the large, established players 45 minutes away in London.

Clubs with bigger names can utilise that brand in a business venture like this. If you're Leeds United you can probably pull away clients from going with other venues in Leeds due to the general excitement involved. But, to be frank, we're a club that generate little excitement.

It's not necessarily the club itself that is the attraction. It's the position in the PL and the clubs that visit that are the attraction. Companies will pay massive amounts to leech off the kudos of the PL - and if there's a more privileged or priority way to do that they'll pay even more. This is the sort of strategy that won't get you t the PL, but it'll help you have the financial base to survive there once you've got there.

[BraisingsteakRoyal]

We need to think outside the box to commercialise the club.

- Be the first English club to sign a player from a developing country with squillions of residents (Indonesia?) = Sell a bunch of shirts and grow our reputation in the region - cue media stories of Indonesians travelling to every home game.
- Agree to a warts n all documentary that is broadcast free on YouTube (Amazon Prime, Netflix and Disney+ have all been done to death).
- Brand partnerships with incredibly irritating celebs - to ensure full viral marketing coverage.

Basically, just become (even more) naff and tacky.

[Forbury Lion]

It's important to have a plan, however it need to be adaptable and take into account the fact that other teams will also have a plan with varying levels of success implementing them.

An off the field business plan needs to be in place to maximise profits, attract big sponsors, that sort of thing with an on the field business plan to improve the team, improve results and have a pipleline of talented players coming through for the future. The manager will play a part in the short term success but they don't expect to be here in 5 years time so you can't rely on them to build a team for the next manager at their own expense