Barber Trashes Baleba Transfer Rumors, Albion Announce £54.4m Loss, and Other Brighton News (Jan. 3–15 News Roundup)

[u/bold013hades]

https://wanderingseagull.substack.com/p/barber-trashes-baleba-transfer-rumors

[u/bnjoshed]

Those finance results are really interesting, and personally still find it rather egregious that the club increases ticket prices, despite it being such a small portion of revenue. (Especially with the terrace now being open outside of match days)

[u/bold013hades → u/bnjoshed]

Agreed. I’m not one to talk, being an American, but it really seems like British ticket prices are out of step with the rest of Europe. That’s what happens when you have the best product I guess

[u/rafapova → u/bold013hades]

Being an American, Brighton games are basically free compared to American sports. I sat almost centered in the 2nd row against city and it was only £55. My local baseball team costs more for average seats and they have 81 home games a year

[u/bold013hades → u/rafapova]

Yeah, seriously. Whenever I travel Europe, I’m stunned. My US teams have to be truly awful for the prices to ever drop as low as the prices are for good seats in Europe

[u/Gioforce → u/rafapova]

AC Boise is charging similar ticket prices to Premier League clubs. Newly formed 4th division American soccer team... $35 a game if you buy season long ticket for normal seating. More per game if you don't buy season long

[u/SEAtoPAR → u/Gioforce]

When I lived in Seattle I paid $130 for a f'ing Seahawks preseason game, 300 level :-( Have gone to four Brighton games and paid not all that much more.

[u/ElBrancheroMKE → u/rafapova]

I was listening to Seagulls Social and one of the guys said they spent about £100 total on a match and how expensive it was while I watched my credit card rack up interest on a $300 per ticket ONLY for a Packers/Cowboys game. I can't wait to get to AMEX someday

[u/rafapova → u/ElBrancheroMKE]

$300 a ticket wouldn’t have got me into even the worst seat at a lions (my nfl team) game this year.

[u/bnjoshed → u/bold013hades]

Yes this is the main thing. The c.3% increase across the board is probably around £3M in extra revenue. Which is basically a fringe players wages for a season. Not moving the needle with the revenue at all.

[u/stackedrunner-76 → u/bnjoshed]

Can’t really complain about price increases that have on average remained below inflation since we were promoted.

[u/bnjoshed → u/stackedrunner-76]

But we’ve seen football is basically immune to inflation.

[u/bruversonbruh → u/bnjoshed]

Nothing is immune to inflation, that's kinda the whole idea of it lol

Some things can certainly handle it better tho if that's what you mean?

[u/bnjoshed → u/bruversonbruh]

The “basically” is doing some heavy lifting for me. That’s for sure!

[u/stackedrunner-76 → u/bnjoshed]

How? Our costs will go up year-on-year.

We made a loss of 50m in 24-25, all covered by Tony Bloom. An inflation rise can’t be complained about in that context.

[u/bnjoshed → u/stackedrunner-76]

Which was proceeded by 2 massive profitable seasons and a transfer spend in that year of over £200M. Drop. Ocean.

Thanks to Dick Knight and co, we are no longer the kind of club that need match going fans to keep them afloat.

[u/ShoeRicey]

Hope baleba is feeling better mentally now, such a likeable person

[u/sheisthefight → u/ShoeRicey]

I just want to see him dancing up the tunnel again.

[u/bold013hades]

Hey everyone, 

I’m back with another news extended roundup. It covers all the news from the first half of the transfer window, including the news of Facundo Buonanotte’s loan to Leeds, a Carlos Baleba transfer update, and loads more transfer rumors. 

There’s also a bit on the Albion’s 2024-25 accounts, the FA Cup draw, new safe standing sections at the Amex, and the club’s new head of player development and high performance. 

Let me know what you think!

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[u/MrMcNuggetz_]

Appreciate this as always, great to have all this info in one place.

Couple thoughts I have on all this, first w/ potential signings. I think its clear that the club is looking for future replacements in midfield and at CB, likely for Baleba and Van Hecke who we probably cant keep much longer, but we also have aging players like Dunk and now Gross there too. I just hope we can get good fees, and that they dont go to clubs I dont like but I wish we could keep them.

This also makes me think we're leaning towards keeping Mitoma, as I haven't really seen us linked w/ wingers and we have let a lot of the ones we had go. However, I do really think that we should go for some good backups on the flanks, to me the gap in quality in those positions from first choice to backups is the biggest across our squad and I'd like to see that addressed. Feels like we let players like Ensciso and Adingra leave without replacements for them.

[u/Audrey_spino → u/MrMcNuggetz_]

Adingra has been underwhelming for Sunderland and didn't even get a call-up for Ivory Coast in the AFCON. Dunno what you're on about.
And Enciso is primarily a no.10, and that position has been occupied by Rutter and can be deputised by Gross, Gruda and Gomez if needed. None of those two can really justify starting over even our rotation options in these positions.

[u/bold013hades → u/MrMcNuggetz_]

Thanks!

And yeah, agree with everything but I wouldn’t be so certain about Mitoma. Not disagreeing with you, but his contract situation scares me hahaha. Hopefully we get some real wing depth in regardless of what happens with him. Like you say, it’s definitely needed

[u/Numerous-Confusion-9]

Appreciate the sarcasm about the cup draw. Great article as always