[ Rumour ] Possible New Watford Fc Investment?

I’ve not heard anything except a for a post from Skylarose, who I always find reliable, do it must be true.

 

The first hint of this deal being in the offing was the use of the Harry Potter fun buses to take our whole allocation to the scum at the end of last season.

Hopefully they put Tom and Jerry in charge.

 

As the Leavesden site is one of their largest investments outside of US, and they recently announced a 50% expansion of the site it may make some form of sense…entertain their guests at Harry Potter and then threaten to take them to a game

 

At the risk of being pedantic , that was Hanna-Barbera.

Elmer Fudd, though…

 

owned by WB now though. Similar to how the Saudis have hoovered up everything and set about installing their people at Newcastle really.

 

Oh right, didn’t realise that. As you were then.

 

Reuters report;
"Rotherham have today joined the powerhouses of English football after they were acquired by ABC Inc for £27,534 and promised a January transfer kitty of £250m on a mission to bring The Millers their first ever Premier League title. There will also be additional investment in their reserve team, The Millers Lite.
ABC were originally interested in acquiring Watford FC but their interest cooled after being quoted a purchase price of £375m. "

 

There is absolutely no way we are after 375m for the club - that's the price for a solid PL club, Newcastle cost 300m (with very little/no debt). Everton are costing 600m (including a LOT of debt). Birmingham sold in the summer for £22m, imagine our absolutely max price will be around the 70m mark.

 

Yes t'were a joke .

 

By the time we were taken on board as a group of three it's possible they soon realised that it was one too many. Given they are Udine people and the money in the EPL is far greater than La Liga it had to be Granada that went. If they wanted to sell us or Udinese, it'll be us.

 

I shouldn't skim read posts.

 

This was originally reported a year ago by Leventhal. I hope the rumours include Vinnie Jones this time.

 

Especially with the Prem money out of the picture.

 

He owns, or certainly used to own, a house 1/2 mile down the road from us near Champneys. I'll see if there's a "For sale" sign up when I next drive/cycle past. Would be the surest sign yet.

 

I dunno, Gino's kids have grown up in England now and Watford has a much higher ceiling for earnings than Udinese.

 

I wonder if @Relegation Certs is Gino's son

 

I don't think we have a higher ceiling for earnings, we will always lose money in the prem and probably the champ too just to maintaian status, but the resale capital asset value of a small prem club would exceed the value of a serie A club due to the prestige of "Richest league in the world" etc etc.

 

Perhaps an Elton fronted consortium.

A man can dream.

 

We did have a higher ceiling, now not so much, it’s going to be very difficult to get back up and stay back up if we do.

Whereas whilst the prize money in Serie A is a lot lower than the PL, it’s considerably higher than the championship and a hell of a lot easier to stay there then the PL is. Far less risk involved with Udinese and less potential for regular boom and bust cycles like in our football pyramid with a championship club chasing PL money. You have to spend the money to stay there, and if you’re relegated you have to decimate your squad to stay afloat. They also have a nice new ground, so I really don’t think it’s that’s simple.

10 years ago maybe, but I think he’d feel very different now with his recent experiences under his belt. The PL money is great, but it is now seemingly beyond his ability to obtain it.

 

Whilst I agree with you, I can almost assure you Gino will not feel like it his beyond his ability at all. And with 6 years PL football across 11 years in charge, for what has been historically a lower half Championship club, I wouldn't think it was beyond my ability in his case either!

 

I don’t disagree that he might still think that, but the 6 years in the PL across 11 years is a bit like a pilot whose plane has been spiralling towards the ground for the last part of his journey, pointing towards the first 6 hours of normal flight being a success! The current reality is we’ve been a championship club for 3 of the last 4 seasons and more than likely will be for at least 5. Those 6 years also came at the cost of saddling the club with eye watering amounts of debt, something they now seem to be desperately trying to remedy, so assuming they do get the club more or less debt free (or with significantly lower debt, at least) then you’d assume he won’t be getting us back in the same situation again in a hurry, so the method of sustaining those 6 years will have disappeared, alongside all the high quality loans that we initially got from Udinese that gave us the platform for the 6 years in the first place.

 

I hope any DOF they bring in knows about the fantastic beasts and where to find them. Hopefully they will bring a man of steel in for a striker.

Big players like this wouldnt want to just a part of the club surely? Warner Bros owning us would be a massive deal.

Just had a look and Warner Bros own TNT sports which was BT sports but Warner Bros invested in BT group them and changed the name, looks like they are interested in soccerball to some extent.

Why is this thread in this section???

 

He said a short while back that he planned to get more involved with the club after his final farewell tour was done.

Exactly what that means is anyone's guess, but he's certainly connected enough to get a bunch of rich entertainment types together to buy the club. There has been a fair amount of interest in English football in the US since the Wrexham takeover; it's certainly not impossible that Elton might put together a group of celebrity friends to take over, even if he doesn't want to be involved in the day to day running of it.

 

Our wholesome family club image would be a big selling point to an entertainment group like Warner Bros also.

 

I would be astonished if there were investors interested in taking over Watford. Investors love making money and always seek to minimise risk. We are not a real money making prospect. Population, proximity to mega clubs, name recognition are just some of the reasons that we are not an attractive option for corporations or hedge funds. When the Pozzos bought the club, soccer (apologies chaps!) was in a much different place. You are now competing with numerous corporate or state giants, some of which are not interested in making a return on their initial investment and have access to endless funds. I think the best we can hope for, following on from the mysterious visitors to the corporate boxes last week, is “wizarding world” being emblazoned on our club gear next season. At least it is better than a betting company.

 

For the most part, no football club is ever a good investment, but they continue to sell. I don't disagree that we're not likely to ever provide a return on investment, but neither will the vast majority of other clubs sold in the past so that doesn't appear to be a barrier.

 

Yes. When Pozzo bought us we were basically a very cheap shop window for their burgeoning squad.

 

FFP and the necessary economies of scale generally mean potential investors look at the biggest grounds/attendances/fan bases and work down from there, until they reach the next biggest cab off the rank to buy. I think we’re in that middle ground of being much smaller than a lot of other clubs that would be far easier to scale up but not cost much more, and really cheap small clubs like Wrexham (were).

 

The way to make money from Watford is to maximise media potential like they have at Wrexham, build an out of town stadium and flog off the Vic for development.

Of course turning a proffit on the club isn't neccesarilly the draw and wouldn't necessarilly be tax efficient anyway. Buyers are likely to have enough cash that cinstant proffit isn't importantl. Cache, income, exposure, entertaining opportunities etc. are all valuable bonuses of club ownership.

If Wrexham get into the championship then Maybe Hugh Jackman could buy us just to **** with Ryan Reynolds.

 

Not sure Wrexham or Birmingham City could offer much either yet they have Ryan Reynolds and Tom Brady investing in them. Disliked this post as it contains the word Soccer