[Arseblog] KSE run a business, but we support a football club : Gunners

As an American sports fan that follows NBA and NFL as well (based in Australia) this is no surprise.

I implore people to listen to the arsenal vision podcast which slightly discusses Kroenke and his other ventures and how most of his assets are ‘illiquid’ tied to the value of properties and sports clubs. Yes his assets are upwards of $8bn, but it’s tied to the value of assets such as Arsenal, Rapids, Rams, Nuggets and many properties/businesses. I know many know this but I often forget there’s kids on this sub who just read the paper and think he has $8bn lying around in the bank account. He even used leverage to buy us which will in time be worn by the club. KsE want the club to be self sufficient and look to profit off us as the revenue pool of the EPL grows in turn increasing the value of the club. They are not taking money out of the club, contrary to many comments being thrown around.

My criticism of KSE is one main thing, many teams they own actually fucking suck. The only reason why they have the occasional success in the US is simple, theres a draft system there which rewards/helps shit teams to catch up. An illustration is the Denver Nuggets who were a midtable side that drafted decently to get where they are. They aren’t necessarily chasing championships. They seem to be happy with muddling along as long as the value of the clubs increase, which naturally will absent a pandemic. As Arsenal’s revenue increases over time, which it will over the long term, they make money because the value of the club increases as it is usually based on a revenue multiple.

Interestingly, at Arsenal this sub has been critical of the recruitment for over a decade and my understanding is some of the redundancies are coming in that area. One could argue there is reason to reshuffle that area. Am I fan of us ditching analytics entirely and becoming a haven for agents to flog players onto us? No not really, but during the Wenger era we ignored that entirely and relied on our scouts to find diamonds in the rough. I think a balance between scouting (Martinelli, Douzi Lol, Tierney) and agent signings (Pepe, William, Auba) makes sense. Combine that with a good youth academy we can make this work.

Not defending KSE, in fact I find the firings disgusting, just stating who they are, mediocre sports owners that view clubs as balance sheet line items. His biggest baby, and project that Stan is focusing on is the RAMS, they are building a mega project stadium in LA which is touted to be a cash cow. Stan isn’t well liked in the US to no surprise. We are an afterthought that Josh occasionally puts a few hours into for PR purposes. I was against Kroenke owning our club outright for this reason, it was fine to have him as a minority owner which allowed other shareholders to chime in and discuss our club and it’s future in an open forum, sadly now it’s basically a dictatorship and nobody has any say other than them.