Independent Leyton Orient Forum

Why do people assume I want my money back?

The one deal y'all know about makes my net worth way over $xxxM. If you don't know about it you can go and find out. And I've done several of those deals.

I know it remains hard to be sceptical but have you ever popped in the 7-11 to buy your colleagues an ice cream after lunch on a Friday? You didn't want anything back did you? Or you stayed up until 4 in the morning to pick your child up from a night out? Or you chased someone down the road to hand them back their keys? Or you paid for someone's milk in the queue in front when the tappy machine wasn't working?

Why can't people just be happy that I'm happy that for a collective of between 3,000-25,000 people I've brought more happiness to their and my life than anything I have ever done in my life. Ever.

It could have been a club in Lisbon, Los Angeles or Las Vegas. But a club in London called Leyton Orient presented an opportunity to join a bottomed out team that had massive upside, not much more downside and a potential place to be in the greatest leagues in the World in one of the greatest cities in the World.

Do we need a bigger stadium? Not yet. Let's not worry about that now. Let's worry about it when we need to worry about it. If we ever need to worry about it.

Thanks Tent, that’s all the reassurance I needed

dOh Nut wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2019 7:09 pm Circa 3500 based on the Travis video. That was before Bonne and Koroma. Lucky to get 4000 now. I doubt any new signings will get more people excited.

The early bird prices were an offer that could be refused by a number of existing season ticket holders, so getting a thousand or so to stump up now will be tricky.
Might need a summer sale when the existing ticket holders don’t renew by next Friday to hit the target. Not sure it would be worth it for me to get one as I miss 5 out of first 6 home games.

When you have serious money like our owners have, you can buy any car you want, live in any house you want, sail a nice big boat, holiday wherever you want, wear the best clothes and on and on it goes.

Sometimes I’d hazard a guess they want something a bit more, something different, something that gives them a buzz. We all know that Orient winning for us fans is a massive buzz, can you imagine what that buzz is like when you own the club?

You are here on this planet once, maybe not here for a long time, but here for a good time. All that money sitting in a bank doing what? You can’t take it with you so you might as well enjoy it whilst you can.

I’m behind our owners and I personally don’t question their motives, we will get back to the championship in time as they are winners and will keep driving us forwards to achieve their dreams and ultimately our dreams. Back them, support them cos we’ve got good owners.

Why have we had to refinance, whatever that may mean, if we’re ‘serious money’?

Everyone no matter what age or wealth should review and possibly refinance regularly. There's nothing in it.

They may have found better bankers / investors / pension providers. Maybe now we're back in the League better opportunities have presented themselves.

I thought tax breaks are a rather compelling reason, didn't they say that already?

For us plebs, the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) offers a similar opportunity - it's an incredible mechanism whereby you can get tax relief on your investment, capital gains tax relief on your profits, or loss relief on your losses, as long as you hold for 3 years.

Unfortunately the many of the businesses eligible are highly speculative and overpriced, meaning the chance of loss is still high, I am aware that pretty well much describes us as an investment. But I guess if you could operate on both sides of the table it would be lucrative as it can be structured in a way where you are still owed the money.

Given the presence of loans on the accounts you'd have to think that is type of scenario playing out here to corroborate previous comments.

A refinance is quite a vague term. The club owes £3.5m in other creditors due in one year, Eagle Investments has loaned the club £3.1m interest-free. These are 2018 figures, given the loss this year you'd think this loan facility would be enlarged and renewed.

https://www.leytonorient.com/siteassets ... let-l2.pdf

Ironic that two players centre and right on the cover and also one of them on page 4 will no longer be at Orient. And the wee nipper on page 3 will have been priced out :-)

Even if we get nowhere near the 4500, the club has made a tidy profit compared to last year on ST sales.

I think last year we got around 3000? Say the average ticket cost £200 last year, thats £600,000.

They have gone up around 20% this year and assuming we get around 4000, which seems likely. thats £960,000.

Apple Wumble wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 10:46 am Even if we get nowhere near the 4500, the club has made a tidy profit compared to last year on ST sales.

I think last year we got around 3000? Say the average ticket cost £200 last year, thats £600,000.

They have gone up around 20% this year and assuming we get around 4000, which seems likely. thats £960,000.

Except most would have renewed on earlybird prices.

maybe, maybe not. I didn't.

Apple Wumble wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 10:46 am Even if we get nowhere near the 4500, the club has made a tidy profit compared to last year on ST sales.

I think last year we got around 3000? Say the average ticket cost £200 last year, thats £600,000.

They have gone up around 20% this year and assuming we get around 4000, which seems likely. thats £960,000.

I think you need to revisit your definition of profit. What you actually mean is that income from season tickets is likely to have increased but then so will costs.

Interested to see what the refinancing involves.

Apple Wumble wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 10:46 am Even if we get nowhere near the 4500, the club has made a tidy profit compared to last year on ST sales.

Last year was over 4000 in the end. However that may have included a lot of £9 season tickets for under 11s and £49 season tickets for under 18.
Average of £200 per supporter sounds reasonable enough, though I suspect it would be a bit less. With 20% increase but factoring in early birds, now an average of say £220/supporter, but may not sell quite as many due to increases for under 18s.

Should make around £1-£1.5 million from ticket sales over the season

RientO wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:07 pm

CreamofSumYungGai wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2019 1:51 pm For me the main reason for having STs were cost saving, plus not having the aggravation of ordering/purchasing/collecting tickets on match days, plus the priority over non season ticket holders.

The cost saving has all but disappeared, the club have shown that the priority over non ST holders doesn't really come into it with the Solihull fiasco so the only reason for me to renew is so that I don't have to order/collect tickets. I'm not sure that's a strong enough reason to warrant paying £400 up front. Especially as I can't see us selling out at home at all this season after events of the last week.

They post the tickets for £1. I made the mistake of collecting an extra ticket for Eastleigh game where the queue cost me 45 minutes of drinking time (arguably saving me more money )

I can only attend one of the first 6 home games, so I will just get a day ticket for the opening game, buy the football for a fiver tickets, pay on the day when I can make it and see how things stand in early January and look at getting half season tickets like last season.

I don’t expect any sell outs except the £5 games. Looking at last 3 home games, I wouldn’t expect Morecambe or Salford (holiday Monday) to have many away fans. Exeter may bring up to 500 for final game, but Orient could still sell top section of East Stand with those numbers.

Surely main reason to buy a ST is to guarantee your chosen seat and to support your club.

I don’t buy a ST to try and save money and it’s my fault if i don’t always use my seat. I usually manage to give it to someone who can use it. Costs stay the same to the club regardless of how many turn up. So support the club by buying a ST and try and give it away when you can’t attend.

Not really interested in guaranteeing the same seat. And to be honest, it will be nice to pop into other stands throughout the season.

Non season-ticket holders also pay a higher on the day price, so it can be argued that they are better supporters of the club, in the original financial sense.

Apple Wumble wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 10:46 am Even if we get nowhere near the 4500, the club has made a tidy profit compared to last year on ST sales.

I think last year we got around 3000? Say the average ticket cost £200 last year, thats £600,000.

They have gone up around 20% this year and assuming we get around 4000, which seems likely. thats £960,000.

Last year we sold 4,000 did we not?

Other than kids season ticket prices, I thought the %age increases were pretty reasonable and nowhere near the 20% you've stated?

But I agree with your conclusion - the drop off in numbers this year will be because of kids not renewing, which causes minimal financial loss. Especially when prices for the kids that have renewed are many times higher. Plus the club has lots of empty seats to sell still. This is what the club wanted.

Winchesterfan wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:35 pm Surely main reason to buy a ST is to guarantee your chosen seat and to support your club.

I bought a couple of half season tickets for first time ever last season because I often find I have other things happening at the weekend and barely make any games. I am happy enough moving around the east stand and only twice sat in my allocated seat as someone was always sat in it when I arrived within 5 minutes of kick off. Even with the half season tickets there were a few unused tickets which I couldn't give away at short notice.

Anyway isn't it the club that are concerned with the unused empty seats that they cannot sell? Arguably I am helping the club make money by not reserving a couple of good seats they can sell for £20+ each.

And the money I "save" often goes towards buying a shirt or three from the club store. I have even been known to treat myself to a corporate seat.

CreamofSumYungGai wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:50 pm Other than kids season ticket prices, I thought the %age increases were pretty reasonable and nowhere near the 20% you've stated?

East Stand last season £299, this season £360. Just over 20%.

RientO wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:34 pm

CreamofSumYungGai wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:50 pm Other than kids season ticket prices, I thought the %age increases were pretty reasonable and nowhere near the 20% you've stated?

East Stand last season £299, this season £360. Just over 20%.

Blimey, didn't realise.

CreamofSumYungGai wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:36 pm

RientO wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:34 pm

CreamofSumYungGai wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:50 pm Other than kids season ticket prices, I thought the %age increases were pretty reasonable and nowhere near the 20% you've stated?

East Stand last season £299, this season £360. Just over 20%.

Blimey, didn't realise.

Had Orient not got promoted or someone got the early bird prices, the increase would only be 5%. (£315)

RientO wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:41 pm

CreamofSumYungGai wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:36 pm

RientO wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:34 pm

East Stand last season £299, this season £360. Just over 20%.

Blimey, didn't realise.

Had Orient not got promoted or someone got the early bird prices, the increase would only be 5%. (£315)

A reasonable increase, as I bet new players coming in will have an average wage higher than the average in the NL and certainly greater than 5%.

Yet some still moan.

You’re saying that if we had stayed down, and you bought the ticket 4 months in advance, a mere 5% increase would have been acceptable?

If your asking me, I would say yes.

CreamofSumYungGai wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 7:10 pm You’re saying that if we had stayed down, and you bought the ticket 4 months in advance, a mere 5% increase would have been acceptable?

The early bird was a smart piece of marketing. Those that showed faith got a discount, would probably have renewed anyway and only had a 5% increase rather than 20%.

Only thing now is how Orient get another 1000 or so to make the target.

Apple Wumble wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 10:46 am Even if we get nowhere near the 4500, the club has made a tidy profit compared to last year on ST sales.

I think last year we got around 3000? Say the average ticket cost £200 last year, thats £600,000.

They have gone up around 20% this year and assuming we get around 4000, which seems likely. thats £960,000.

Expect the same queues at half-time for the ‘food’ though.