The accounts for 2012/13 showed season ticket income after VAT removed as £9.6m from roughly 38,000 season ticket holders (VAT payable quarterly in the UK).
The average price of a season ticket was therefore £252 (inc VAT) which I think indicates a huge percentage of concession tickets.
A note in the 2012/13 accounts states that income in hand for the 2013/14 season as of 30th June was £4.5m (inc VAT) - so just under a third of the net season ticket income (£3.75m) for the forthcoming season was in hand by the end of June.
That money is crucial for the club to function - by delaying season ticket investment until there is change in the boardroom fans can force change. And those figures indicate that fans don’t feel under any pressure to pay early in any case.
The key issue is whether or not the club is a going concern.
The Board talk around the issue, but if there is a serious season ticket boycott, or if the season ticket cash is released to the club on a pay as you play basis, then they have a decisive problem. They talk about organising alternative financing, but if they were to lose 30,000 tickets at say £300 then that would cause a £9 million shortfall.
Given the rates of interest and the security put up to provide £1.5 million of “working capital” then to raise serious millions could be on even more onerous rates of interest. And who would provide it without security? You don’t need to be a genius to guess what assets would be necessary to secure those sort of funds.
The ghost of Craig Whyte is still there, but they haven’t heard a peep since May 2013.
Broadcasting rights of just under £300,000 remain a joke given the proportion of SPFL televised football which features Rangers. That’s under £10 per season ticket holder; an amount we’d all pay to ensure that we could plan to watch our games at 3pm on a Saturday.
Fans have the economic power to make of break this Board - have we got the bottle to use it?
Hold your nerve and they will have to change.