| Selling the club via The Athletic 11:51 - Mar 6 with 5148 views | fitzochris |
Owner’s sales pitch to The Athletic
One much-loved, largely-debt-free club for sale, with 3,000-plus careful owners. That is pretty much the pitch from Rochdale director Guy Courtney, who got in touch with The Athletic this week after reading an article about the number of American investors looking for their very own Welcome To Wrexham-type adventure.
Courtney only got involved in the League Two club when they became the focus of a very hostile takeover attempt by a shadowy group of investors who went by the name of Morton House. The fallout from that unfortunate episode left Rochdale with a suspended six-point penalty from the EFL for breaching ownership rules. Now fully owned by their supporters, Rochdale have struggled on the pitch and are staring relegation to the National League full in the face with 11 games to go.
“We’re all fans of Rochdale, so it’s about finding the right strategic partner to help take us forward,” says Courtney. “We’re well-run, off the pitch, and we own our own ground. We don’t have our own training ground but we have found some land. But running a club is not easy and we need capital to modernise almost everything.
“So, if you know anyone looking for a stake in a 116-year-old club, that is not far from an airport, send them my way.” |  |
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| Selling the club via The Athletic on 14:50 - Mar 6 with 4829 views | 49thseason |
Maybe they should put an Ad in the Wall Street Journal ....Or the US / international editions for the FT?
Historically Rochdale has strong links to the US. A letter from John Bright was found in the pocket of Abraham Lincoln after he had been assassinated and a picture of Bright was one of the few pictures to decorate Lincolns Oval Office. MP Bill Cash writes here about the "special Relationship" between Bright and Lincoln, and how Bright kept the British Government out of the Civil War on the side of the confederates.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/03/abraham-lincoln-and-john-bright-sp
Use 12ft.io to circumvent the paywall...
You could argue its time the Americans repaid some of the debt of gratitude they owe the town by helping out its football club!
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/plaque-commemorating-the-rochdale-millwo |  | | |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 16:01 - Mar 6 with 4699 views | TalkingSutty |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 14:50 - Mar 6 by 49thseason |
Maybe they should put an Ad in the Wall Street Journal ....Or the US / international editions for the FT?
Historically Rochdale has strong links to the US. A letter from John Bright was found in the pocket of Abraham Lincoln after he had been assassinated and a picture of Bright was one of the few pictures to decorate Lincolns Oval Office. MP Bill Cash writes here about the "special Relationship" between Bright and Lincoln, and how Bright kept the British Government out of the Civil War on the side of the confederates.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/03/abraham-lincoln-and-john-bright-sp
Use 12ft.io to circumvent the paywall...
You could argue its time the Americans repaid some of the debt of gratitude they owe the town by helping out its football club!
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/plaque-commemorating-the-rochdale-millwo |
Get the David Clough You Tube video narrated by Richard Wild and Murray Knight circulating in the right places over in the USA and I'm sure it would attract plenty of attention. The Americans would love that, especially if they knew his club was now in grave danger again. Maybe we have somebody amongst us who might have media contacts over the pond. There is a great story to tell about this club. |  | | |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 16:06 - Mar 7 with 4064 views | watford_dale |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 16:01 - Mar 6 by TalkingSutty |
Get the David Clough You Tube video narrated by Richard Wild and Murray Knight circulating in the right places over in the USA and I'm sure it would attract plenty of attention. The Americans would love that, especially if they knew his club was now in grave danger again. Maybe we have somebody amongst us who might have media contacts over the pond. There is a great story to tell about this club. |
The plus point is the exchange rate at the moment and the continued exposure and appetite for premier league games by the USA that drives the interest in football/soccer.
It depends in the type of US owner that if, by miracle of miracles, turns up it would have to be an exile or someone with a lot of cash with a familial connection to Rochdale. The usual private equity approach at Liverpool etc will not apply to us.
Second - ideally need to stay in the League to maintain appeal.
Third - the club is in grave danger but this time they have to cop for a large portion of that allowing Stockdale to chuck out long and expensive contracts.
Fourth - the Board would need to find a long term strategy to sell the club on, the current one is not fit for purpose.
Fifth - the concentration of league clubs surrounding us and the proximity of the Manchester clubs will come into play. Wrexham is fine when your nearest competition is Colwyn Bay.
Sixth - can we still identify talent to sell on, not having a training ground limits this, or are they going to other clubs.
Seventh - the local economy, any new owner would look at the crowds that they could and attract when assessing this as a business case. The fact the borough suffers as the fact its not a mega wages town works against us.
Future owners have to see the value in the investment and factors #2, 4 and 5 are key, especially when they have to set money aside for infrastructure improvements (training ground etc.) and new players. |  | | |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 16:29 - Mar 7 with 4021 views | TalkingSutty |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 16:06 - Mar 7 by watford_dale |
The plus point is the exchange rate at the moment and the continued exposure and appetite for premier league games by the USA that drives the interest in football/soccer.
It depends in the type of US owner that if, by miracle of miracles, turns up it would have to be an exile or someone with a lot of cash with a familial connection to Rochdale. The usual private equity approach at Liverpool etc will not apply to us.
Second - ideally need to stay in the League to maintain appeal.
Third - the club is in grave danger but this time they have to cop for a large portion of that allowing Stockdale to chuck out long and expensive contracts.
Fourth - the Board would need to find a long term strategy to sell the club on, the current one is not fit for purpose.
Fifth - the concentration of league clubs surrounding us and the proximity of the Manchester clubs will come into play. Wrexham is fine when your nearest competition is Colwyn Bay.
Sixth - can we still identify talent to sell on, not having a training ground limits this, or are they going to other clubs.
Seventh - the local economy, any new owner would look at the crowds that they could and attract when assessing this as a business case. The fact the borough suffers as the fact its not a mega wages town works against us.
Future owners have to see the value in the investment and factors #2, 4 and 5 are key, especially when they have to set money aside for infrastructure improvements (training ground etc.) and new players. |
We do have a training ground now that is very much fit for purpose.We used to use the same facility when Hill was manager. We rent it but we've always done that and turned over millions of pounds down the years on player sales.We've had one of the most successful youth academies in the country without owning our own training ground. There are a lot of clubs that don't own their own training complex. In a ideal world we wouldn't have to rent but even ownership brings massive costs when it comes to purchasing, maintaining the pitches, purchasing equipment, staffing the complex and utility bills etc. You can offset that with renting a artificial pitch to the public but there would still be big costs associated with running it. If it's costing us £500k/ year to rent training pitches now, you wouldn't automatically save that money by funding and running your own complex, there would be a lot of expense associated with it. | | | |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 15:17 - Mar 9 with 3312 views | 49thseason |
The snippet in The Athletic seems to be the only attempt to advertise that we are looking for an investor, or has anyone seen anything else advertising the fact?
I would have thought that putting an ad in the FT and International FT "Business for sale " section... £212 for worldwide coverage (per day) for a few days might have been interesting?
Equally you could pre-write an article and send it to Journalists and places like Associated Press and see if anyone prints it. there are lots of journalist lists available for little money that you could buy and send the details to . I saw a list of 200 US sports writers for sale for £40 a while ago. Associated press writes articles for 100s of US newspapers....
Maybe the board has been in contact / is in contact with an interested party, the due diligence might take a while I guess or maybe they are waiting to see where we are at the end of the season? But Guy Courtney still seems to be pitching so who knows? | | | |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 11:37 - Mar 10 with 2852 views | rkershaw |
| Selling the club via The Athletic on 15:17 - Mar 9 by 49thseason |
The snippet in The Athletic seems to be the only attempt to advertise that we are looking for an investor, or has anyone seen anything else advertising the fact?
I would have thought that putting an ad in the FT and International FT "Business for sale " section... £212 for worldwide coverage (per day) for a few days might have been interesting?
Equally you could pre-write an article and send it to Journalists and places like Associated Press and see if anyone prints it. there are lots of journalist lists available for little money that you could buy and send the details to . I saw a list of 200 US sports writers for sale for £40 a while ago. Associated press writes articles for 100s of US newspapers....
Maybe the board has been in contact / is in contact with an interested party, the due diligence might take a while I guess or maybe they are waiting to see where we are at the end of the season? But Guy Courtney still seems to be pitching so who knows? |
I've checked Oldham Athletic's latest programme notes.....nowt in there!! ;) | | | |
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