Newcastle United's Stavely on Newcastle United F.C

asalam alikum everyone and welcome. I'm very excited to be speaking to Amanda St, co-owner of Newcastle United at this fantastic venue and to start off I have a nice difficult question for you before you start relaxing too much looking at the sea view now I read in an article that when you had 20 years old you owned a restaurant and you used to get up early in the morning and go to the kitchen and pluck chickens for lunch and now you are part owner of newcast United so what I really want to know is which is easier to pluck chickens or deal with footballers of the Premier League.

I think dealing with Premier League footballers is much easier to deal with. No, I plucked chickens. He had a restaurant when he was 19 years old. and uh and uh but the T the um uh I think there were some benefits. One good thing about plucking chickens at 400 a.m. is that when you come into your stadium you can at least go to the kitchen and when we had co uh and we had issues with the staff we were able to go in and I was able to tell the girls how to have a proper pint which is always very helpful for Newcastle.

I'm sure it's obvious, you know. As the owner and investor of PCP Capital Partners, you do many things, today we'll focus on sports. Obviously he is also advising Newcastle on the sale, advising the sale of Man City and trying to buy Liverpool. Twice true, are there any other football deals you've been involved in that we don't know about just those? I think that's more than enough, but I think what I'm really interested in is because on that time scale. from trying to buy football clubs, club ownership has completely changed and in your opinion what are they still seen as toys for the rich or are they financial assets that people are trying to monetize and if so?

They're going to try to do that. They are very, very seen as financial assets and not just financial assets, but there is now a whole asset class that has really emerged through the development of the Premier League. You know, in 2008. The rules. The environment around you, you know the acquisition of any Premier League club was very different, there were different rules on ownership, there were different rules on interested parties, um and then you know, obviously, the incredible growth of the Premier League. and in terms of um, the players that it attracts. The media rights that set those valuations have attracted a lot of institutional investors, and in fact, you know, I know everyone's like, oh, ffp.

Financial fair play is difficult, but it is actually that regulatory environment that has allowed private capital to come in and invest, and therefore. You've got a big change in the type of ownership in the Premier League, uh, against, you know, 15 years ago, you still think that broadcast rights have a long way to go because if you look at the articles that people wrote when the people were When buying and selling football clubs 10 years ago, they still mention the broadcast rights that they mentioned every year, but you can say a little bit, are you still really sure that that will increase valuations?

I think, in the Premier League, football is a unique asset class. and yet it is such a unique product and will always maintain its value. I mean, international rights will continue to grow and develop. I think the way we consume our foot will change the moment we know that we actually predicted the Sky Deal almost exactly as to where it ended up in the domestic market, you have an incredible interest in football, how it develops and if we will ever move to a DTC model in the next 10 years or a combined hybrid model, but to do that you need a lot of infrastructure and you know, we all know it's Bloomberg, you are the best at it, in infrastructure you need a lot of investment, around the ratings.

I have to ask this question as if you bought Newcastle for 400 million. 300 oh dollars yeah so what do you mean Valu now? Give me a clue. I'm not going to talk about how I could lose my job. So more like, well, I mean, look what I'll do, the only thing I'll do. What I will say about the valuation is, um, in particular, did you know PF, and, and, and I, my husband and the family, bought the club, we think it's okay at less than twice the turnover, most of the clubs, uh, at the top of the league, you know you've seen valuations between five and seven times the turnover, you know, we look at the things you know in a more measured way, we still look at the evaluation not only in terms of turnover, but that we use multivariate models that uh, you know, look at eidar, look at the profitability and that is essential, especially with the environment that we are operating in when the consortium that bought Newcastle when you arrived, I suppose you had a great business plan.

This is how we are going to run a football club. These are the people we are going to incorporate. This is the culture we are going to change. How long did it take for that plan to go out the window pretty quickly? I mean, I think when you come in you have all the hype of trying to acquire the club and it took us four years to do it, so you need us to know that we are patient and we know that we were persistent, but a dramatic change was necessary because the club had been run, you know, in a very different format and we had very little commercial income.

We had a team that was aging, a coach who didn't want it, basically didn't even want it. To come to work we had a fan base that was very angry and we had to take this incredible club and inject some life into it. I watched the documentaries and you know you've been in the dressing room, you know? you've been on the court To what extent is owning a sports team like a drug that clouds your ability to make good business decisions and how do you step away from that and try not to get too wrapped up in it? day to day in the week to week of operation I think we have incredible members and ultimately you know it's um you know the club is majority owned by pif and they work incredibly hard to make sure you know we're all very focused on a business plan and you have to be uh, no, you don't think about the drug of coaching football, you just think about the day-to-day stress of coaching games, doing well and making sure you make sensible decisions in terms of the transfer window, respect your ffp limitations and try to do things that innovate and come out of the box because that's the only way we know we're going to engage our fan base and grow the club. so we don't think about wow, you know you're going to lose it soon because it can be quite Terri, you're not going to make the same mistakes that you know certain London-based teams are making and they're getting too involved in In football, you know that we have an incredible coach, you know we have an incredible team, you know, bringing in Eddie and bringing in the executive team was really important, obviously, you know everyone is very involved in the day to day. functioning of the club, but it's um uh and it's difficult, you know, it's a very competitive market, uh, in terms of players and rules around it, so you have to be very focused, you're going to do something big. transfers this summer I'm not sure you'll have to go back and see a bit how we do over the next few months sounds like maybe a yes oh I don't know, I'm not sure what we'll be doing with the transfers at the time you said before that you are interested in the multi-club model and just to explain, you know that is when an investor takes a stake in many different football teams, you know the ability to realize economies. of scale learning about culture, players and data management for different teams.

Some cynics say it's actually people investing in a lot of different teams and hoping one of them isn't a total disaster, like are you still interested in doing the multic club or not, yeah I think we're a lot of PCP, I mean, look, multic clubs are part of having football, it's a real benefit to be able to have players and train players that are not part of your team, the UAA rules are changing um and the and then we have to see what emerges um and so and obviously you know I think the dynamic around whether we could have a club has changed quite dramatically over the last year so I'm still a big fan of the multi-club model, a lot of other competitors and friends in the Premier League have multi-club relationships. , but they have to be, it must be considered as a whole, are there markets that are more interesting than others?

We've looked in Belgium, we've looked in, you know, a lot of European markets, we've looked in Asia, Australia, we've looked in Brazil, pretty much everything, we've looked in every market to see you. Knowing and getting players into this, you know, through our Academy system and through that multi-club model would be very helpful in terms of allowing us to buy and have players part of our journey earlier, when you came into Newcastle. United for the first time, did you have any idea that women's team success was going to happen? I mean, you had 20,000 people watching a game, which is incredible, as you would expect. not at all, I'm delighted that the women have done so well, you know, they went up, it's very difficult, we had to start from League four and you can, you can go, it's one up and one down, so there is no um. and the bottleneck is so hard to get a promotion, we got promoted in our first year, now we are at the head of the next leadership and the girls, the women, work so hard, what has surprised me is that they have been in a great Journey similar to the men they have the right chemistry they are hardworking uh they are brave their football has improved dramatically we created a really strong narrative around their journey and we try to engage the community and say look we really appreciate you know if You, if you support to the Newcastle men, you support Newcast and the women, so we've had League Four games, you know, 26,000 at St James's, the girls can play, the women can play on the main stage, which we love, gives them a chance. to feel, uh, and it prepares them for big games, um, but they, you know, regularly get great attendance, why do you think the broadcasters are?

I'll be frank about this, the broadcasters don't, they don't seem to care that much, they talk as if they do but the amount they are spending on broadcasting women's football is small, which needs to change because it's a chicken and egg situation. Their excuses are that we're not making much money from it, but you need your matches to be broadcast to a wide audience. audience to increase popularity, are you talking to them and trying to encourage them to do a better job? Yes, we are always trying to encourage broadcasters and partners to consider doing new deals and seeing growth, the key to In the beginning, the first deal that was done in women's football, I think it was the BBC Sky deal, was important because it caught attention and you know, from the change in 2012 onwards, suddenly you see people watching football, criticism that we have to have an element of free to play free to Air simply because the more eyes there are, the more there will be , better and eventually those streaming revenues will increase.

I really think we have to lobby, we have to get involved, we have to take responsibility as owners to give it the um. audience and give our players that opportunity and I think that will happen, obviously there is a lot of growth in women's sport and a lot of growth in football, but there are still a lot of issues around, you know, around the particularly in As far as media rights go, let's just get back to multiplayer. Do you think you could see yourself owning a Stak in a Saudi club because some of them are open to investment?

Oh, I think that would be a lovely idea, no, I would, I think so. It will be a fantastic opportunity to acquire a stake in a Saudi club. I love the league and I've seen it develop and it's really exciting to see the competition really grow here too. Do you think there will be a Saudi club in the Champions League because there is something we have talked about. I'm pretty sure there will be a Saudi club in the Champions League. Well, I don't know for how long, but I don't think so. Knowing Saudy, I don't think it will take long.

The other question is that I am interested in your opinion on how football is run as a business and I love using this fact and I hope it is true. The Premier League generates the same amount of revenue as the NHL, which is surprising to me as one of the biggest leagues in the world generates the same amount of money as ice hockey and I think I'm right in thinking that there are no ice hockey fans. Here, right now, it's true and I don't despise it, but it doesn't seem like that, they shouldn't even be on the same page.

A Prem should earn a lot more money and he doesn't like it. Do you think it's working well? a business I think we all need to do more to make sure we increase our income. I think there's been a lot more focus from the Premier League owners to make sure that we increase our commercial revenue and our media and and as a product we should be a lot more aggressive, you know, there's a regulator that's coming in and there's a lot more focus on sustainability, sometimes when theOverregulation can slow growth and I think we have to make sure we get the right balance between the right regulatory environment. the right rules, um that and the right financial fair play, the rules that promote growth, and that's the only way to get great football and actually one thing about the last few seasons in the Premier League is that any club can win any G, any club can win any game, uh, and that's good, you know, that means you get incredibly exciting football that we have to take advantage of, we have to offer a great product.

I'm a big advocate, I know, of getting the self, you know, letting the media in. In our dressing rooms we have been quite brave with that because we are not a big club, so we had to go and tell our story, and I think the more we engage our audience and involve them in our journey, the more the revenue will grow. Where do you think the Premier League could do better? What is it? What is falling? I think you'll have to ask this. I think you'll have to ask the executive team. you know where they're going it's a tough time because there's been so much focus on sustainability that people have actually forgotten that we're running a you know we're providing entertainment and we have to. grow this business and it is not easy, actually, football is difficult, you have many limitations, you know, the financial fair plays roles, you know so many rules and restrictions on player purchases, so you really need, probably, a new thought, something new.

I think I've talked in previous panel discussions about some of the influx of Saudi money into sport, but for me the real hidden story is this influx of American money, especially into UK soccer and European soccer. I think a third of the clubs in the league are now American and half of the Premier League teams. Are you concerned that there are actually too many American owners in the Premier League? No, I'm not worried about there being too many, I mean the US. Um, American owners have traditionally been very good for the Premier League. I mean, when we thought about buying, you know, we mentioned that I had thought about buying Liverpool three times.

I think one was when Mr. Gillette was running it and then. Obviously, when Tom and John and the FSG team have done an incredible job growing an incredible club, and they and I think what I like is that the United States is such a big market that we need to connect that market more. but there needs to be a balance between all the owners, you know, and when you get a balance, a lot of people say, well, there's a lot of Saudi influence in the sport, but actually, proportionally, it's very small in comparison. it's with the amount of ownership of ours, um, but I know we have a strong ownership group in the Premier League, which allows for a good debate and, um, it's helpful that you think it's just because it's American, it's a cultural thing because I'm sure if there were 10, you know, if half the Premier League were owned by French owners, our TBL guys would have a field day and there would be protests in the streets, right?

Is it just because we are better business owners and in sports businesses and? they can, they can manage the teams better, possibly, I mean, they manage the assets incredibly well, so you know, that's right, and there was a real correlation, there was a dislocation between the Premier League rights and the NFL rights. , so it has come down slightly, so I can Imagine when we were looking at the US multiples. I remember going to a meeting with Mr. Henry and his advisors, who very cheerfully said, "Well, you know, we have Valu clubs at multiples five times and I said, you're angry and they We were right, you know, about the turnover multiples, but you know we were still running the clubs very differently, so I think the way that private equity will value the clubs will also change the dynamic uh and the people will have to be provide we need to be able to produce profitable businesses that's key just moving away from football because we're getting closer to the end and we can hear you know how Formula One is going. , but do you think you know you might end up trying to look? a participation in a Formula One team at some point um as PCP um, you, my husband and I looked at Williams a few years ago and you know, we were very excited, we saw a lot of similarities between Williams, Newcastle and you.

I know the same thing so we've looked at a lot of teams and it's great you know it's a great business and you know we're very proud to be here today so we love it we love Formula One what's stopping you? crossing the line you think? Well, we're not, so are we. I think we're too busy in Newcastle at the moment, but we've definitely seen each other well. Thanks for your time. It's been fantastic. I enjoy talking about everything from chickens to Formula 1, so we've done it all and a big thank you to our audience for their time, thank you.