Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 8:15 am  

Email from the club this morning

'Tough day at the new office
Widnes too strong for the Broncos as the club makes Plough Lane bow.



“I’d like to thank everyone who came down to support us. We could feel the atmosphere from the crowd pitch side so our fans deserve a huge amount of credit.”

London Broncos coach Jermaine Coleman applauded the 2182 supporters who turned out on Sunday to mark the beginning of the club’s new era at the Cherry Red Records Stadium.

The attendance was the Broncos’ highest at Betfred Championship level in eight years as Coleman’s fresh-faced squad hosted Widnes Vikings in the league’s opening round.
Despite the outstanding local support, it was Vikings who left the capital with two Championship points after wing Ryan Ince registered four tries in the visitors’ 12-34 win.

Jude Ferreira, Dean Parata and Lameck Juma were on the scoresheet for Broncos as Coleman took the positives from Sunday’s fixture after the full-time whistle was blown.

He said: “I’d like to thank everyone who came down to support us. We could feel the atmosphere from the crowd pitch side so our fans deserve a huge amount of credit.

“Long-term, we’d like to receive the same support game after game so the club can fulfil its ambition to expose more people in London and across the south-east to Rugby League.

“There were some positives to take from the game. I was pleased with the effort and work rate of individuals, and we handed debuts to several young players at this level which marks a new starting point in their careers.

“When the going got tough we never threw the towel in either, which tells you a lot about the character of this squad.”


The Broncos are back in Betfred Championship action on Sunday afternoon when travelling north to face Halifax Panthers.

Coleman identified some key areas he’d like to see the squad improve on ahead of this weekend’s fixture.

He added: “There was some naivety and inexperience in the squad, but that’s something we can work on in training. Our decision making in terms of trying to play certain shapes when we didn’t have players in the right position and control will be worked on too.

“It’s not an excuse but we were missing some senior, experienced, players too through injury and we hope to have them back in the squad too.

“Halifax will be another stiff test this weekend and I know the team are determined to improve on certain aspects of play.”

London Broncos are next in action at home on Sunday, February 13, when Whitehaven RLFC visit the Cherry Red Records Stadium.'

Well Jermaine to keep those crowds at about the 2,000 mark you and your team are going to have to do a hell of a lot better aren't you?
Apart from the diehards no one is going to come back week in week out to watch us getting spanked by bang average teams like Widnes, are they? Especially not when the club made zero effort to make it an event on Sunday!

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 8:18 am  

orangeman wrote: To clarify, before anyone says "good effort/well done", this exercise in the polishing of a turd just cost the club £70,492.71 for 2 half page ads in the papers and the rent of the ground and delivered approximately £30,000 in gate and matchday revenue From reading various musings across sites and social media, I think it's fair to claim the following in attendance from Sunday Widnes: Looked to be a good 300/325 in the away end and another hundred or so in the corner, so 450 @ 22 a pop is £9,900 Community: Much was made of the 600 tickets that had been handed out to the community in the build up to this game. 600 @ zilch is £00.00 Dons Fans. Looking at their "chatter" a good 500 bothered with the 1 quid deal. 500 is £500 1,550 attendees either from Widnes or Wimbledon, leaves 733 Broncos "fans" for the season opener @£22 is £16,126. Now then.....The Marketing (sic) Tube Stations, Metro, Evening Standard, SW Trains are all nice and fluffy, but they also cost an arm and a leg. The METRO advert alone https://d212k0qo5yzg53.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/20200622111700/Metro_ratecard_2020-06.pdf was £20k........ The evening standard cost over £35,000 https://www.eveningstandardcommercial.com/uploads/files/ESI_Ratecard_and-file_spec_EveningStandard310120.pdf That's £55k on 2 adverts to generate £27,000 on the gate Now....there's also the money that the Broncos will make of the sale of beer. Let us assume that of the 2,183 in attendance, they all consumed 3 pints of local ale and the club put 50p a pint into their coffers. 2,183 x 3 x 50p = £3,274.50 So, we're up to £30k on the gate............ah, but we forgot the RENT! 13 Home games/£200,000.00 = £15,384.61 As I say. Spending, £70,000 to generate less than 50% return isn't clever, it's laziness of the highest order! Social Media activity during the games was 100% twitter with maybe a dozen people interactive. Social Media since the game has been zero......The club have lapsed into their marketing coma again.....Hughes will have signed off what I can only estimate was a £100,000 launch budget and the clowns have blown it. Einstein and his definition of insanity seem to be the only thing you can rely on Hughes to do. The club need a 750 average paying the full £22.00 a game to pay just the rent at Plough Lane. 600 free tickets and 500 dons won't be back in 2 weeks time and neither will whitehaven bring more than 100.......so you're down 1,450 on yesterday already. If the club get a sub 1,000 gate in 13 days time, it'll surely be time to show lobster and monkey the door....won't it? Minor point but not all AFC Wimbledon supporters had the £1 offer. For many it was £5. No idea of the split, but if 50/50 on your 500 could add another £1,000. Beer is the biggest mark-up (profit) item. AFC Wimbledon get a commission on each Broncos purchase which suggest Broncos will get a nice earner. I have absolutely no idea how much although your figure overall seems on the high side unless the per pint profit is really generous. My question though is this 200K. It is used a lot when discussing the Broncos finance. I know it's the correct figure (i.e. not made up), but I'm not convinced it's being used in the correct context. May I ask you Broncos fans how you were made aware of the figure and whether it was explained to you as a fixed cost or had dependencies linked to it.

orangeman wrote: To clarify, before anyone says "good effort/well done", this exercise in the polishing of a turd just cost the club £70,492.71 for 2 half page ads in the papers and the rent of the ground and delivered approximately £30,000 in gate and matchday revenue From reading various musings across sites and social media, I think it's fair to claim the following in attendance from Sunday Widnes: Looked to be a good 300/325 in the away end and another hundred or so in the corner, so 450 @ 22 a pop is £9,900 Community: Much was made of the 600 tickets that had been handed out to the community in the build up to this game. 600 @ zilch is £00.00 Dons Fans. Looking at their "chatter" a good 500 bothered with the 1 quid deal. 500 is £500 1,550 attendees either from Widnes or Wimbledon, leaves 733 Broncos "fans" for the season opener @£22 is £16,126. Now then.....The Marketing (sic) Tube Stations, Metro, Evening Standard, SW Trains are all nice and fluffy, but they also cost an arm and a leg. The METRO advert alone https://d212k0qo5yzg53.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/20200622111700/Metro_ratecard_2020-06.pdf was £20k........ The evening standard cost over £35,000 https://www.eveningstandardcommercial.com/uploads/files/ESI_Ratecard_and-file_spec_EveningStandard310120.pdf That's £55k on 2 adverts to generate £27,000 on the gate Now....there's also the money that the Broncos will make of the sale of beer. Let us assume that of the 2,183 in attendance, they all consumed 3 pints of local ale and the club put 50p a pint into their coffers. 2,183 x 3 x 50p = £3,274.50 So, we're up to £30k on the gate............ah, but we forgot the RENT! 13 Home games/£200,000.00 = £15,384.61 As I say. Spending, £70,000 to generate less than 50% return isn't clever, it's laziness of the highest order! Social Media activity during the games was 100% twitter with maybe a dozen people interactive. Social Media since the game has been zero......The club have lapsed into their marketing coma again.....Hughes will have signed off what I can only estimate was a £100,000 launch budget and the clowns have blown it. Einstein and his definition of insanity seem to be the only thing you can rely on Hughes to do. The club need a 750 average paying the full £22.00 a game to pay just the rent at Plough Lane. 600 free tickets and 500 dons won't be back in 2 weeks time and neither will whitehaven bring more than 100.......so you're down 1,450 on yesterday already. If the club get a sub 1,000 gate in 13 days time, it'll surely be time to show lobster and monkey the door....won't it? Minor point but not all AFC Wimbledon supporters had the £1 offer. For many it was £5. No idea of the split, but if 50/50 on your 500 could add another £1,000. Beer is the biggest mark-up (profit) item. AFC Wimbledon get a commission on each Broncos purchase which suggest Broncos will get a nice earner. I have absolutely no idea how much although your figure overall seems on the high side unless the per pint profit is really generous. My question though is this 200K. It is used a lot when discussing the Broncos finance. I know it's the correct figure (i.e. not made up), but I'm not convinced it's being used in the correct context. May I ask you Broncos fans how you were made aware of the figure and whether it was explained to you as a fixed cost or had dependencies linked to it.

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 8:21 am  

Halfdan of t'wide embrace wrote:

I think everyone accepts most of the leg work was done by Dons and many people on this board have questioned the way Broncos chose to spend their advertising money.

The Haven gate will be of massive significance to the club. A poor gate won't mean it's time to write off the move to Wimbledon - the right people with the right money and strategy could still turn it around. The warning signs would be very obvious though.

I do hink Broncos deserve some credit here. The Social Media person has changed. That had to happen and as he gets his feet under the desk hopefully he'll have the confidence to change the passwords to prevent others dishing out pretty bans. I agree the post game silence is worrying.

They were happy to facilitate the work Dons did on their behalf. It wasn't the all too familiar no we know best, that won't work response.

The finally realise the club and sport need marketing in London. Yes the methods need reviewing but the penny has dropped.

The fact we are praising them for the above shows just how awful things had become. It is progress though and should be recognised.

Is good enough yet? Not even close.

Social media is all well and good but there was really no Broncos presence at the ground on the day! Nothing to make it feel like an event or occasion!
As I posted on the TRL form no presence outside or inside the stadium, no programmes, no mascots, no volunteers ( or non playing squad members) giving out flags or stuff for the kids etc.... no attempt at enhancing the match day experience. People seem to like attending events - with a little money and a little effort London could have made Sunday's game into much more of an event.
Lose at Fax this weekend and London will do very well to draw a four figure crowd against Haven.

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 8:30 am  

RfE wrote:

Lose at Fax this weekend and London will do very well to draw a four figure crowd against Haven.

Fax by 20

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:03 am  

orangeman wrote:

Fax by 20

At least.
Unless Coleman picks a different set of forwards to start the game, has Curran and a couple of others available for selection, and he does something about the defence on our left side.

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:15 am  

An elaspsed season ticket holder who did not go to the game as working i just searched London Broncos yesterday on twitter yesterday just to see what it was like on social media.
One person on twitter who was a developer at Google in London said he enjoyed his first game even though he had no idea of the rules.Like others have said surely even an eight page handout with squad profiles and rules would have been ideal for the first game.It could even have included a discount voucher for the next game.At the next game do it again including a discount voucher and continue for the season.

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:18 am  

'Not convinced the Broncos made best use of the Fans Zone behind the South Stand.'

I wasn't aware there was one. Don't reckon I'm alone in that.
Again the Broncos could have had someone, mascots maybe, pointing supporters in that direction on arrival.

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 11:10 am  

Smithers99 wrote:

Minor point but not all AFC Wimbledon supporters had the £1 offer. For many it was £5. No idea of the split, but if 50/50 on your 500 could add another £1,000.

Beer is the biggest mark-up (profit) item. AFC Wimbledon get a commission on each Broncos purchase which suggest Broncos will get a nice earner. I have absolutely no idea how much although your figure overall seems on the high side unless the per pint profit is really generous.

My question though is this 200K. It is used a lot when discussing the Broncos finance. I know it's the correct figure (i.e. not made up), but I'm not convinced it's being used in the correct context. May I ask you Broncos fans how you were made aware of the figure and whether it was explained to you as a fixed cost or had dependencies linked to it.

I'd have to do some digging, but I think its 200K in Champ, and if they get promoted they have to pay more. Also they have to pay for Richmond as well for the reserves, so whichever way you cut it, its significantly more expensive than Ealing was.

I live in a 2 bed house, on my street near me we also have 3 and 4 bed houses. Me and my wife would love to upsize, but if I told her that to move we would have to sell all the furniture, get rid of the technology (netflix, sky, disney+ etc), and all we would be able to afford in the new house was 2 chairs, one bed and one freeview TV, I'm pretty sure we would choose to stay where we are, than move but have no quality of life.

Wimbledon is suitable for Super League, but its too expensive for a struggling part time team. Thats the basic fact, and the only way he is going to get 5K fans is to be in Super League. Thats not going to happen part time, and gates will decline over the season unless they get results on the Pitch.

I said I would take a view in May at the Thunder game, so will observe the next few weeks closely.

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 11:19 am  

orangeman wrote:

Fax by 20

Fax would need to have a bad game to only win by 20

Re: New era at Wimbledon : Tue Feb 01, 2022 11:54 am  

crashmon wrote:

I'd have to do some digging, but I think its 200K in Champ, and if they get promoted they have to pay more. Also they have to pay for Richmond as well for the reserves, so whichever way you cut it, its significantly more expensive than Ealing was.

I live in a 2 bed house, on my street near me we also have 3 and 4 bed houses. Me and my wife would love to upsize, but if I told her that to move we would have to sell all the furniture, get rid of the technology (netflix, sky, disney+ etc), and all we would be able to afford in the new house was 2 chairs, one bed and one freeview TV, I'm pretty sure we would choose to stay where we are, than move but have no quality of life.

Wimbledon is suitable for Super League, but its too expensive for a struggling part time team. Thats the basic fact, and the only way he is going to get 5K fans is to be in Super League. Thats not going to happen part time, and gates will decline over the season unless they get results on the Pitch.

I said I would take a view in May at the Thunder game, so will observe the next few weeks closely.

Thank-you for your comments. netflix, sky, disney+ etc ... you only have yourself to blame ... hang on that's a subset of what we subscribe to !

Reading between the lines I don't think it's a straight 200K, that's an estimate that can go not only down, but also up. My suspicion is that the Bronco's are probably paying 30 to 50 percent of the ticket sales (and possibly the lower end) and the 200K relates to a base 2,000 attendance. If correct then pulling in say 1,000 is not quite the financial disaster portrayed. It's still an issue because of the additional costs still incurred, some of which your refer to. But I suspect the rental itself to drop to around 100K on a 1,000 average.

No idea of the cost to play at Ealing, but I assume it was also a "rental", but substantially less. Of course much of that cost may still remain for training, youth matches etc. I guess the biggest cost saving is moving to part time (the knock-on implications of that being a MASSIVE risk). Whilst I suspect AFC Wimbledon are anticipating a 2,000 average attendance, I wonder if the Broncos expect less and a driver behind the part time decision.

I still agree that financially it's a stretch, but I don't think the per match costs are quite as bad as being suggested. Put it this way, if they were then it is a guaranteed loss per match and even from what I've learnt about the Broncos, I don't think they'd get that so badly wrong. Equally AFC Wimbledon aren't going to enter into an agreement that is almost certain to collapse.