The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours

[The Ghost of B A R P]

Financial situation is a bit of a mixed picture: on one hand, two consecutive years turning a profit at the beginning of supporter ownership is excellent; on the other, we know we can’t rely on pulling one of the sisters in the cup every year. So the club are going to have to work very hard just to maintain the modest momentum we currently have.

He also mentions the probable need for ‘significant investment’ in the ground at some point: wherever that comes from - if it comes at all - it’ll need to be spent not just on meeting safety requirements, but in ways that generate new income.

Kinda feel there’s a tipping point, which, if we can get past it, will open up the possibility of real forward motion, as opposed to running hard just to stay where we are.

Next three games are absolutely massive, in both short and long term; finishing fourth pushes us towards that tipping point, whereas slipping back to seventh or eighth means we’ve stalled, in financial as much as football terms.

[Ferguson]

8 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Financial situation is a bit of a mixed picture: on one hand, two consecutive years turning a profit at the beginning of supporter ownership is excellent; on the other, we know we can’t rely on pulling one of the sisters in the cup every year.

This is true, but taking away the Rangers game this season and finishing higher than 6th or 7th in the league would still have us in the black based on the numbers broken down in the video. We were always going to need a bit of luck while getting settled into fan ownership and 2 away ties to the ugly sisters has been a bit of a God-send. Now we've had the time to create a sustainable model and we seem to be getting closer to it. There's always a worry that we have a car-crash season where we don't make it out the league cup group, get knocked out the Scottish in the 3rd round and finish lower than expected in the league, but I'm content with the work done since MCT took over that we're in a very good position considering how things could've gone.

[Colkitto]

A  £200K profit for this season would be fantastic given how long we have been in fan ownership.  The Club is in good hands too with people like Michael Harkins who do all this on a voluntary basis.

Good news is some of this profit will go into next season's playing budget. 

Not an immediate concern, but something that will need to be addressed is the stadium itself in the near future. Diverting money to the stadium will mean other areas will suffer, possibly the squad budget. It will be some juggling act but it's something we'll need to face at some point   

[Chippyminton]

20 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

We can’t rely on pulling one of the sisters in the cup every year. So the club are going to have to work very hard just to maintain the modest momentum we currently have.

Fair point - but success on the grass is worth ££££. I don't have the numbers and I've therefore not added it up - but;

6.5k crowd for Motherwell game

TV fee for the above

8k crowd for Hearts game

TV fee for the above

SPFL Quarter-final exit prize

I'm pretty sure that all of the above collectively adds up to more than a single game against either of the arse cheeks. Maybe our resident @Dunning1874 spreadsheet man would care to enlighten us?

 

[North West]

Good luck Morton.

[TheGoon]

He’s very brunt about the crowds, but I can’t say I blame him. Not expecting Hearts crowds every week, but we just cannot seem to get these people in for league games - even after the Motherwell game when we were still on the run. 

 

[Jamie_M]

2 hours ago, Chippyminton said:

Fair point - but success on the grass is worth ££££. I don't have the numbers and I've therefore not added it up - but;

6.5k crowd for Motherwell game

TV fee for the above

8k crowd for Hearts game

TV fee for the above

SPFL Quarter-final exit prize

I'm pretty sure that all of the above collectively adds up to more than a single game against either of the arse cheeks. Maybe our resident @Dunning1874 spreadsheet man would care to enlighten us?

 

They have said the Old Firm cup draws amounted to £200k - £250k each in gate receipts share so the stuff above probably not too for off.

 

Looking purely at cup prize and TV money:

We earned £43.5k from the Scottish Cup last season (£19.5k prize money for 4th round exit with £24k TV money).

We earned £150k from the Scottish Cup this year (£102k for 6th round exit with 2x £24k TV money). 

We earned £29k from Viaplay Cup last season (group stage exit, 2nd place).

We earned £82k from Viaplay Cup this season (£55k 2nd round exit, £27k TV money).

So on those things alone we're up £160k on last season.

Edited March 20 by Jamie_M

[Ray Patterson]

What's quite interesting is the Prize Money difference between 3rd and 5th is about £200k this season. That plus the added gate of Playoffs (I know it's split) makes a massive difference to the coffers of a club of Morton's stature.

[Jamie_M]

4 minutes ago, Ray Patterson said:

What's quite interesting is the Prize Money difference between 3rd and 5th is about £200k this season. That plus the added gate of Playoffs (I know it's split) makes a massive difference to the coffers of a club of Morton's stature.

Yeah it's gone up - it's around £100k per place this year as opposed to £90k last year.

We historically budget for 8th and have again this season so any prize money above that is also seen as bonus but it can make a huge difference.

Last year, we finished 5th - missing out on 4th and the playoffs on goal difference and just a point off 2nd.

So Partick got an extra £90k (and split of playoff gates) for pipping us to 4th and for finishing 1 point ahead of us in 2nd place Ayr got an extra £269k prize money (and the split of playoff gates) for their troubles. 

[Jamie_M]

45 minutes ago, TheGoon said:

He’s very brunt about the crowds, but I can’t say I blame him. Not expecting Hearts crowds every week, but we just cannot seem to get these people in for league games - even after the Motherwell game when we were still on the run. 

 

While I empathise with the difficulty in that - what are we exactly doing to 'get these people in for league games'?

People not currently in the habit of attending - whether it's financial reasons, work, family commitments or whatever - don't suddenly see these barriers magically disappear just because Morton are on a run (they can however organise a free pass for a one off attractive cup game as evidenced).

Getting people to change habits or forge new habits is going to take a lot more than just a few tweets saying 'back the boys' or a few sporadic ticket offers. 

I'm not sure where the best places are to focus the attention but I certainly think it's a stretch to say 'we just can't seem to do it' without much evidence that we have done an awful lot of the doing.

A starting point would be binning thinking of anyone as 'lapsed fans' or 'stay away fans' giving the impression that there are hundreds sitting around just waiting for a gentle nudge to go back to Cappielow.

No such thing if they've stopped going a long time ago. SKY TV would have deleted their records after about 2 years. They are non-customers, need to be won as a new customer, and it can take serious effort to grow your active customer base.

[TheGoon]

7 hours ago, Jamie_M said:

While I empathise with the difficulty in that - what are we exactly doing to 'get these people in for league games'?

People not currently in the habit of attending - whether it's financial reasons, work, family commitments or whatever - don't suddenly see these barriers magically disappear just because Morton are on a run (they can however organise a free pass for a one off attractive cup game as evidenced).

Getting people to change habits or forge new habits is going to take a lot more than just a few tweets saying 'back the boys' or a few sporadic ticket offers. 

I'm not sure where the best places are to focus the attention but I certainly think it's a stretch to say 'we just can't seem to do it' without much evidence that we have done an awful lot of the doing.

A starting point would be binning thinking of anyone as 'lapsed fans' or 'stay away fans' giving the impression that there are hundreds sitting around just waiting for a gentle nudge to go back to Cappielow.

No such thing if they've stopped going a long time ago. SKY TV would have deleted their records after about 2 years. They are non-customers, need to be won as a new customer, and it can take serious effort to grow your active customer base.

I’m not expecting anything to occur overnight - we historically haven’t had great crowds anyway, I’m just surprised at the level of drop off from cup to league.

[vikingTON]

It's a bit rich for the club to be complaining about people not swanning up to games on a regular basis right now, when they were leaving a large portion of a sub-2000 home crowd outside the ground for 20 minutes because of dud turnstiles a mere handful of weeks ago. Which was the culmination of a fortnightly issue that the club steadfastly refused to address for years. 

For their next trick they should start addressing the inconsistent stewarding which has also detracted from the walk-up experience and in particular getting a new generation involved with their weirdo obsession with adult supervision. 

The pricing of games in packages tried out after the Motherwell cup game doesn't seem to have been a huge success, but that's still a better option instead of dropping walk-up prices for individual games. I wonder whether the marketing of that offer was visible to enough people too. 

[Ferguson]

The attendances are always going to be an uphill battle but I agree that the club could be doing more. As above the issues that have been about all season are still about, instead of lowering prices to offer a lower quality experience (turnstiles, stewards etc.) I'd like to see the problems fixed and I'm sure then no one will have many complaints paying the extra few pounds per game. The 550 (very ambitious amount) regular attendees they want to add are going to be the people that wake up on a Saturday, take a look at the weather forecast and decide if they want to stand and watch Championship football for 90 minutes under the watchful eye of a totalitarian steward regime, not people who are willing to plan 4/5 games in advance for the sake of saving a few pounds.

Another gripe I have is that we're 3 months into our 150th anniversary, with a full range of cracking merchandise on sale, and I can't remember the last time it was mentioned. It doesn't even have to be an elaborate advertising campaign, the club posted one picture of Dougie wearing a Greenock Morton hat and within a couple weeks the cowshed was full of them.

I hate to moan as the club have come a long, long way in the last couple years but it seems to have stalled recently and I'd hate to see some of the good work undone. The weekly interviews and general communication from the club has been great but a lot more could be done to get the fans spending their money.

[Jamie_M]

3 hours ago, TheGoon said:

I’m not expecting anything to occur overnight - we historically haven’t had great crowds anyway, I’m just surprised at the level of drop off from cup to league.

See, even framing it like that is coming at it from the wrong angle like it's expected they will break down all their regular barriers and keep coming with no effort.

It wasn't a drop off from cup to league. It was an increase from league to cup. 

The obviously did a great job, themselves aided by the natural buzz, to generate excitement for the cup game and basically got a double home crowd for each game.

They had them. Would have been an opportune time to reach out to them to understand their motivators, what got them along and what could be done to get them coming back.

Easily delivered as a post-purchase survey for those that bought on Fanbase at least.

[TheGoon]

59 minutes ago, Jamie_M said:

See, even framing it like that is coming at it from the wrong angle like it's expected they will break down all their regular barriers and keep coming with no effort.

It wasn't a drop off from cup to league. It was an increase from league to cup. 

The obviously did a great job, themselves aided by the natural buzz, to generate excitement for the cup game and basically got a double home crowd for each game.

They had them. Would have been an opportune time to reach out to them to understand their motivators, what got them along and what could be done to get them coming back.

Easily delivered as a post-purchase survey for those that bought on Fanbase at least.

Would agree on a survey of sorts.. Just stick someone in the Oak Mall and ask the non-fossils why they don’t bother appearing imo 

[MORleyTON]

A positive part I took was the recognition of the lack of progress on the commercial side of things. The land next to the cowshed amongst that. that lack of resource being a major factor but, that this is an area they want to remain in pursuit of. 

With the increase of the money from the investors and hopefully the improved League standing and prize money from that, could help to progress that further...for longer term sustainability.

It would be interesting to see what those ideas are that the mentioned.

[Jamie_M]

Not wanting to give big spending Raith any credit to be honest - but they have doubled their average gate this year. Excitement of the takeover and good results helped but it's some jump. Could be a good starting point to see if there are any learnings from them, if there are any specific levers they pulled to accelerate the growth.

[Ferguson]

40 minutes ago, Jamie_M said:

Not wanting to give big spending Raith any credit to be honest - but they have doubled their average gate this year. Excitement of the takeover and good results helped but it's some jump. Could be a good starting point to see if there are any learnings from them, if there are any specific levers they pulled to accelerate the growth.

I think it could probably just be put down to spending so much time at the top of the table while also having 2 home derbies as well, for the drab match on the Tuesday night against us they made tickets cheap all round so that made up the numbers.

Interesting to read that this is currently our highest average league attendance since 2016/17 when we had Dundee United, Hibs and St. Mirren in the league and made the playoffs and league cup semi final. All that with no 4 figure away support coming to Cappielow this season is a strange one. Partick, Ayr and Dundee United have all brought smaller supports than usual, personally don't mind watching the heavens open on them on a cold Tuesday night but in terms of improving attendances it's maybe worth addressing the away fan experience sooner rather than later. 

[Jamie_M]

33 minutes ago, Ferguson said:

I think it could probably just be put down to spending so much time at the top of the table while also having 2 home derbies as well, for the drab match on the Tuesday night against us they made tickets cheap all round so that made up the numbers.

Your first part - yeah, performance probably a strong part of it.

They have also done a lot more marketing and interaction this year (love it or hate it) as well as offers like the one you mentioned so there could still be some learnings.

[Ferguson]

5 hours ago, Ferguson said:

Another gripe I have is that we're 3 months into our 150th anniversary, with a full range of cracking merchandise on sale, and I can't remember the last time it was mentioned. It doesn't even have to be an elaborate advertising campaign, the club posted one picture of Dougie wearing a Greenock Morton hat and within a couple weeks the cowshed was full of them.

 

Someone's been reading P&B 

Quarter zips a cracker.