Marc White: Meet the Owner who is also Manager | The Dorking Wanderers Story (Ep132)

31:06I think the fans are big on sustainability in general. I think they want sustainability whilst remaining interesting and whilst trying to pull up trees and create new stories. you know so but yeah very very lucky good fan base they get it what do you think what are the hardest decisions you have to make um honestly just um contract your ones with players because see i built the team on on blood sweat and tears and friends and relationship so i feel like a lot of our success also came from continuity of players so at any one time there'd normally be three to four players that have been there seven, eight years.

31:45There's a boy in our squad now, he's in the 11th year, 11 years at the club. So the point being, the model was, well, we'll keep this core players together. They know the culture, they love the club, they get it and we're just building around that as we go up. You know, a few will fall off, a few will come in and we've always got this core in the middle. So when I get to ripping up contracts time and saying that your time's done at the club, genuinely that is a, I don't find that easy. That's tough because there's players I think, we wouldn't be where we are without you, but now it's time for you to go.

32:18And that's hard. Brutal industry, right? I mean, sport in general, but football in particular, when it comes down to that point, you always see the moment to move on. The success that can be created by a group isn't always the success that gets continued by that group. But if I'm not the founder and the manager and all of that, I probably find that easier. But because of the heartbeat kind of being created, it's difficult. More broadly, we had a great chat. you said before you came in what do you think about the business of football at the moment yeah i think um i massively look at football as a lover of the game and i think what's great about football is whether an official or an owner a majority of people have the game at heart and um football people don't realize how fragmented it is so like all the you know the all the us guys are really jealous of the pyramid over here right but but every single piece of the pyramid is um a separate company.

33:10I mean, people don't even realise, you know, obviously we know the Premier League is, but the EFL, the National League is a separate entity and that goes all the way down the ladder. So I feel like if you extrapolate that, the decision making around decision for the game are often very, very protracted, fragmented. You've not always got the right people in the room. We we see at the moment all this you know all the the two arguments around we've got financial fair play then we've got making sure there's sustainability in those community clubs um and i feel like there's never really a task force all-encompassing that addresses all of it um without any kind of like self-interest in the room it's difficult and and i think that's why there's a lot of things out there that don't make total sense there's lots of ways you can look at it but let's say maybe in capping of free market economics open systems yeah let's call it cold hard capitalism right yeah you lose some of the value that's been created by the most incredible we've created the most insane products the premier league right it's the frankenstein in a way that now you can't control it so you're having to find ways to reduce spend yeah do you sit on the school of thought of yes but has to happen or do you know what that really worries me it worries me big time yeah i think ultimately um premier league i guess had a monopoly right on on the set on the industry across the world really um i don't think anything lasts forever i think um there's change um there's scenarios i know it's in the saudi attempts and stuff but there's there's you know practical reason why that's not going to work but i think that i think it's a dangerous game.

34:56The Premier League, to their credit, they fund football top-down. They fund it, they fund the Football Foundation, they fund football top-down and we have got the best product in the world and we're now in a position whereby, I think football's always best when you break it down to the layman and there's fans of certain clubs, your Newcastle, your Aston Villers, that before the season has even started, they say, well, we can't compete and that's not going to work long term because the interest will dwayne somewhere whether it's the supporter potential owner investment whatever that looks like and i think we've got to be careful that um um that the kind of rich don't get richer if that makes sense in that kind of top six yeah um and the rest i think i guess the way i'd phrase it would be we've got to be careful it's not taken for granted that that league yeah for sure in football people want to win yeah people want to sign footballers.

35:52That's how it is. And someone's got to find a mechanism where that works. The one thing overarching no one would ever disagree with is how do you prevent a club from going out of business? I think that's the absolute key thing because the football club is a key part of the community. And actually the impact on communities, I mean, from an economic perspective, but more so social perspective of clubs going out of business is catastrophic. I think that's a big thing that needs to be absolutely protected. Can I ask you then? Yeah. On that, right? Let's use talking specifically. Yeah. Maybe a really stupid question, but I'm never wrong.

36:28How do you stop yourself going out of business? Well, just, you know, not build up huge amounts of debt, make sure we've got, like I said, an ownership group with a big vested interest in making the right decisions and each turning point. So I think there's a big difference. and this is also undervalued. There's a big difference in going out of business and getting relegated. So for me, if a Premier League team does things wrong and end up in the National League, then that's fair game. And for me, this is all about that kind of like, make mistakes all you want and be defined by the snakes and ladders of this brilliant pyramid.

37:11But you cannot risk going out of business. You'd spend all of your years going up the ladder and then you will go down the snake for the first time when you got relegated yes how do you deal with that when you've had so many years of climbing that ladder to not as you've said completely melt away with one moment of disappointment well it's like that particular season we injury ravaged all sorts of breaks and all sorts we got relegated purely based on injuries and um um that is that cuts deep now still because to go through the non-league pyramid and when you get to the higher end it's a bottleneck there's one team get promoted from um into the football league it's two but it's only ever one automatic um so my point being that challenge of it's very difficult you've got to have a fair wind and a lot of luck because when it's only one up you know you could have a brilliant season but somebody else can have a better one and when you get to the EFL they have a mechanism of four teams up four down so So the relegation was and still is by far the biggest negative in our club.

38:22But it almost showed that the fans, the ownership group, everybody, yeah, everyone kind of stayed with it. You buy into the very popular now school of thought that you learn more from that failure than you did by continuing on the promotion train. I think so. Yeah, I mean, we got found out by slightly too quick an escalation in promotions. We were busy building a stadium. I was involved in that during that year. We got found out by getting the player recruitment wrong in terms of age and the sort of genre person. But yeah, the learns from it were massive. And it's a bit like, in my head, and I've never really said this before, but in my head, it's a bit like that heavyweight champ.

39:07It's a bit like that. They always say it's almost a bigger accolade to be the two-time, you know three times whatever having those things that knock you down and from our point of view i feel like in in my head we hadn't experienced that and we've now experienced it and it's made us stronger they like that fire in you even more maybe not that you needed it but yeah majorly i mean i'm you know 100 it gets me out of bed every day to deliver it is that kind of two times world champ they bounce back and actually then have a shot of the EFL um from ultimate disappointment and that journey because for us because it's all on camera as well and it's quite publicized it it's part of that story so it's a chapter in that journey yeah i mean when we've spoken to someone like let's say spencer again he talks about you talked about the rising costs of going through the leagues but it doesn't necessarily always correlate to increase in revenue have you you You know, which is the real challenge, I guess.

40:09Have you seen that as you've moved around? And how much leeway do you give yourself for those promotions where you can go, right, we can maybe stretch ourselves a little bit further this year, knowing that if you then do go back down, your cost base may reduce a little bit, but the revenue won't change. Yeah, I would say we've been relatively optimistic. If I use that as a, I'll use optimism as a, instead of like carefree, we've followed our nose a lot. Listen, we've never ever built up massive debt, nothing like that. So we've never had any kind of like, oh my God, if we get relegated, we can't pay the banks.

40:43We can't, you know. But we've always known we can cut our cloth accordingly. We've always kind of had that delta there to look at as protection, if you like. But we have chased the ace a lot, which is what you do in football. Are you losing money? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We lose money. I mean, if anyone says they don't, then they're either bottom of the table or they're lying. I mean, it's just an industry that's a money drain. I think in non-league football, there should be a lot more support from local government and government. There should be a lot more support because football clubs are heritage.

41:22You know, when the government says this year, well, we're going to put national insurance up, you know, 15.5 % lower bracket. yeah and all the other trading costs well the irony is right they've recognized the importance of these assets to communities which is why the football regulator has been put in place exactly exactly but there is a you're so right there's such a contradiction in in terms of like the way because these clubs are social hubs um on a huge level whether that's like where the single mum or dad takes her son whether that's where the person without many friends goes to meet people where families meet families.

42:02They're huge things where people participate as well, especially now in non-league football, loads of artificial pitches. But let me tell you, local authorities are charging a bomb for people to use them and government means if you run a football club, you're going to get charged for that. And that then goes right down to, like we try to run bursaries for, and we run a lot of football for all schemes in the community where we literally charge no money because we know that there are people that want to play football that maybe can't afford it. So it's definitely, I'm a big, in England, this is, in fact, I'll just sum it up.

42:39And anyone watching this with a football club or in knowledge of a football club will be nodding. In Jan this year, when we had massive rainfall, like, you know, we had probably 400 kids that didn't even play football because there isn't enough facilities for them in the UK. there is very much underfunded by government in terms of facilities, unlike most of Europe, and in terms of the cost of running a football club. And that definitely is why it's an expensive game. Back to your original point, do you lose money? Absolutely. Is some of that because we want to win? Yes. Is some of that because it's really expensive to run a football club?

43:19Yes. Do you make money? How much money, based on revenues, would you say, comes from non-footballing activities, using the ground, using the club, using the stadium, the license, etc. from stuff, as you said, outside of it? Yeah, I think maybe like maybe 35 % of our revenue. So a third of it, I mean, significant. Yeah, so we get knocked over sideways when the government says, actually, now this is going to happen. Or the local council say, well, we're going to charge you this for the beauty of, for the luxury of, I mean, you know, if you go and ask, you know, Bury Council now, you know, like, you know, how do you feel now that your football club went out of business and, you know, You were attracting 7 ,000 people and all the commercial economic benefits of that.

43:59They then sort of go, yeah, maybe you should have dipped in a bit better. Quite an interesting one, won't it? If and when, hopefully it won't happen, but if and when a club with a regulator in place hits these challenges. And part of the reason that they've been poorly controlled in their finances is because you've had things like rates go up and you've had actually government schemes come in to screw some of these clubs and their response to the regulator is, well, actually, it's your bosses. It's brilliant, isn't it? What a contradiction. It's your bosses. Do you know what? I don't mind at all.

44:25I mean, I don't mind saying this at all. It's not, what's the word, confidential. DCMS provided survival loans, funds. And this is a key, this just literally proves everything you're saying. they proved uh they called it winter survival funds it's kind of post covid you know coming out of covid uh dcms provided loans um relatively low interest to uh football clubs and they are the the pressure they're putting on clubs now i mean listen right we've kept up with our repayments right every cup got them all that's like a factory setting there are clubs now um across the uk that i can tell you now can't afford to pay them back they're essentially knocking on the door like a debt collector they're there they are putting um essentially a charge on their business so they're not allowed to borrow money these clubs without the dcms saying well you can borrow it but you know our loan sits ahead of yours and there's an absolute kerfuffle right now and these clubs are saying to them well what an irony that the money was provided to help community clubs survive at a time when there was no trade no business and now you're now making lives more difficult of clubs uh to to get this money back and at a time when the government if you like has made the cost of running this business ridiculously higher and football clubs are at the mercy of the economy right this is the bit people forget so you know like the the food supplier you know their costs have gone up they're passing it on to the football club right okay yeah the people you employ you know their their utility costs have gone up right but in this football club you've got this weird thing where you know your supporters through the door are saying well what are you doing to support the economy because you know there's less dispensable income so can you put can you you know can season tickets be less money yeah well i was gonna say finish that story right and who ultimately feels the effect of that because when you get hit by all of those people what do you do you probably put your ticket prices up and when you put your ticket prices up hey we're back round to the old fan and the old fan's the one that actually is out of pocket you've got this kind of b2b and b2c like mix in a football club that's difficult to balance yeah it's crazy yeah when you actually think about it like that yeah it's crazy what's your what revenues do you do a year three million three minutes okay yeah about three million and you fund the losses you the ownership group fund the ownership group do yeah they're brilliant yeah the ownership group do you Obviously, you can be successful without making losses, but the reality is anyone who says they are, they would be probably lying.

47:07We are probably more fortunate than most. Our losses are massively reducing. We're probably getting nearer to the point of sustainability than most, but that's because we've been fortunate to build up with the online coverage that we've got and commercialising that. So we're very fortunate. But how some clubs do it, I don't know. It's not fortunate. That's strategic. yeah I think it's yeah it is it is strategic yeah I play a game right with football clubs and much higher up than you but genuinely I sit here and we'll often have a conversation with someone and they'll say yeah you know we've got this media plan we've got a content strategy we're trying to do it okay cool how big is your media team well you know we've got two and a half people oh half a person well yeah you know they're kind of crossing over with this saying how many people would you get in your stadium 25 ,000 a week I'm like you have two and a half people and a content team a media team social media team whatever we want to call it servicing a fan base that you're getting that into the stadium let alone everything around it competing in some of the most competitive sports environments of the year it's going i totally agree what is going on also you can't that's not like that's just that's not strategic that's not a content place you are not giving yourself a chance to recognize that no it's not lucky you're making a choice yeah we are making a choice and i mean we do 10x like you know the likes of crystal patterson i've put it out there right okay we know our stats we know we know premier league stats and we are massive right but if you look at the opportunity to your point that these clubs have got i mean it's uh it's really weird premier league because um i mean i've known many this is quite strange to head around the the managers that run the under 23s in these premier league clubs they are earning um probably what a london underground driver earns or less the value they put on this is going to come back to your point the value they put on um the bloke that develops all of the young players in the club is is is you know the same as a london underground driver gets in the you know it's it's madness and the the reserve left back probably gets more than that a week and it goes the same to social media i don't think these clubs realize that even though they probably obviously they do yield and make a lot of money through premier league the they still got a huge opportunity and the efo clubs similar to the ones you mentioned there nowhere near it, way off it and they don't even understand really where it is and where it's going.

49:28But again it's the same reasons we've already discussed, if you can then say well why is that the case? And fair enough, it's another line on the sheet, it's more expense behind the scenes and that is another revenue, well another cost let's say as it's viewed, that goes away from how are we going to get promoted from League One to the Championship next season. Short-term impact. The long-term of you building up that media team in this day and age will far outweigh financially the value of you spending those extra few thousand in the player. But it's very hard for clubs to think outside of it.

50:04I think it's commonplace that they're blindsided and there's so many opportunity video on demand. Because obviously you've only got to look at what people want to see. you know these kids now 10 12 15 what they want to see is things on demand constantly um and and that is what these clubs aren't very good at doing tell us go on tell everyone that doesn't know what have you done how have you approached it what have you learned you know bunch of amateurs there's everything around the media profile that you've built in a club to give you now this exposure the the opportunity well i think we we capitalized on showing people my character and what character yeah this is me behaving if any he said to me before he started I swear actually you haven't yet which I'm so impressed amazed by I know but it's a good opportunity I appreciate being here it's an opportunity to talk about things that I never people only normally care about when I threaten the referee at the end of the York game I think my character we've got this natural club trajectory that's interesting my character interesting but I said there's a lot of characters in the game with loads of people like me um we had a guy turn up rich with a camera said i want to start filming stuff and a lot of it's down to richard really it's been a bit of a match made in heaven sounds a bit crap but he literally put mics on us and then just said right do you mind having a mic i was like i don't really care had no idea where it was going to go he then started showing the content um and it's kind of like also the timing was important because it was like you know youtube uh starting to evolve tiktok massively starting to evolve and a lot of short-form content that people want to see and what we've shown people is obviously the real side of a football club but we're very lucky because a lot of managers can't show the real them because they're worried about getting sacked by either the owner or the fans it's your protection mark the owner mark the manager you can go and say that on there oh thanks mark yeah it's great i know so we've just been refreshing and uh we've kind of we've managed to get this kind of mix that we've got a brilliant relationship with referees like even though really yeah we have like i've now i'm on about my fifth seminar now where i get invited to be speaker with all the referees and such is their respect because they kind of get us they get that we love football they get the but everything comes from a great place.

52:34And some of that content they see where I'm trying to get into the fourth official. But it's true. They say it's been eye-opening for them. They say, well, why are you trying to get into the fourth official? And I say, well, I'll tell you why. If you look back at the video, I didn't try and get into the fourth official until the 15th minute. But during the first 15 minutes, I noticed he was spending too much time talking to the other manager. So what I want to make sure I do is make sure he's not going to get influenced. I'm going to make his job tougher on the day. And they go, that's a good point.

53:05So you think if we probably have a bit more of a, you know, like, you know, arm's length approach, it'll probably avoid. Yeah, absolutely. That's the only reason I do it. Okay, that's interesting. Mark, why did you tell that ref, you know, why did you tell that ref, you know, why do you shout that ref so bad? So, you know, I'll go, well, because he didn't book me. Because he didn't book me. so I'm gonna keep at that ref to influence decisions until the point he deals with me because I think he can be influenced and this eye opener for referees I'm talking top down has been like okay yeah let's really think about it so the point is and that's content it's content but like and people love hearing it right and I love talking about it so the eye opening content people kind of get it It's good for the game.

54:02And it's worked out that people value it. But I hate using the word, but we have to. The hardest thing now is the authenticity of that content, right? Because I hear it all the time, obviously, in what we do, doing even this, right? Oh, how great it is. Welcome to Wrexham. We're just going to go and buy an asset. We'll be a part of an asset. And we're going to set up a series. And we're going to document how we've done it. And it's all going to be great. And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, in theory, there's been a pretty good use point of that. the one challenge is firstly you're not ryan reynolds yeah which for a lot of people is a shame to be yeah secondly you have probably completely different points of attraction as an asset or a club or whatever that give you a good reason to do that so every time people now look at this yes there is huge opportunity in content but you can't just wake up and decide you need to do it you really have to be clear on what you're trying to achieve from it so as you talk around that whether it's even just as simple as going we're going to bring my personality out we're going to show you what it's really like going in from a manager's perspective who also who happens to be an owner to tell the most incredible story within football.

55:03Great. I know what I'm in for. Yeah. I'm locked in. Yeah, no, completely. I'm locked in. If I'm a Premier League club, you talked about doing more than Palace, right? If I'm a Premier League club, what am I actually getting if I'm following a Palace content? Some of the Premier League content stuff when it's been on Amazon, I don't know, I found the most stale, boring often things. The Man City one, no one wants to, I didn't want to just tune in and watch them win every week. I didn't find it interesting really at all. it didn't show me what well I mean if you'd done a test and said you know you put down all the Premier League teams and said now write down their sponsors on the front of their shirts right you'd be struggling to get past three especially now right and this is the thing and this is this is exactly it you know I look at easy if you're Chelsea yeah yeah yeah true but the point is like growing up you football was in magazines and on tv right so as sponsors shirt was front and center of all the eyeballs that looked at them but now um it's kind of very much that kind of like you know stimulative like the billboard thing you know once you drive past the billboard twice you don't recognize it a third time yeah fact right and this is a you know this is where kind of you know football shirt sponsors now it's actually lower value weirdly than ever before for these people but if they're in front of like you know half a billion people like we were last year online and you know the demographic it's you know it's it's 75 85 percent male between this age to that age then i'm preaching to converted here the worth the value of that is a is a no market right So do you see, compared to other clubs, let's say, at your level, have you seen that revenue needle move in accordance with the success that you've had in those areas?

56:57You've been able to monetize it. Massively. All people want to do now is get their brand in front of the right people. Back in the day, I mean, you know, my background, believe it or not, is advertising, right? So there is a combination here. But back in the day, you would say to somebody, well, if you sponsor that football shirt, loads of people are going to see it. Right. OK. Can you prove that to me? Well, you know, you like football. Do you ever watch Match of the Day? Yes, I do. Right. Brilliant. There you go. We'll sign up. Now you can literally say, well, actually, we've got this many million people a week that see our content.

57:36OK. And they're actually between the ages of X and Y. And actually, they're from this type of demographic. So they're interested in that. And they'll go, right, well, that's what we sell. And that's the people we're trying to target. So here's my money. So it's a bit like the data on the field. It's a science that it's an easy sell. And yeah, much undervalued. I think you made a great point before about these people are recruiting for social media or managers. They don't even know what they're recruiting for, for starters. And it's just so undervalued. Oh, massive. but a massive opportunity so as you said but if you understand what it is you're doing you can't just do it and say let's do Welcome to Rex and Volume 15 or whatever and I see it I see stuff I see people saying oh you know here's our changing room and it's like well there's loads of changing rooms yeah what are you doing there then yeah tell me about you got the season starting on Saturday right looking forward you've had all of this story all the success building up to now ambitions I would imagine right let's just head off the table get as hard as you can of course right you want to do that yeah but how do you how do you look at what comes next for the club how do you look and keep giving yourself that motivation moving forward your role within this whole project when to bring people in like you have done when not to just interested in in that part of your mind we're a closed shop in i mean in terms of like um you know i think owners investment we're there we want to be now i think we've got the people around us to get to the EFL.

59:09You have to have a fair wind because of this one-up. I call it one-up because there's playoffs and every year it's a coin toss. We've seen clubs that have done brilliantly Bromley, National League, League 2, League 1, Stockport National League, League 2, League 1, obviously Wrexham, they're normally a National League Championship. So we believe with a fair wind we can do EFL we're one of probably 16 17 clubs outside of the football league maybe more maybe 20 between the conference and the south and the north that would say this is where we want to be we're not happy being where we are we want to get to Wembley we've got these kind of like school childhood dreams we want to achieve for the club and I feel like we're not looking any further than that and I think that's always worked well for us is it's having a plan but just not too much because a five-year plan gets changed two years in you know so is it a two-year plan you know so look it's incredible I love it it's such a different story we as I said to you at the beginning you know you have so many different types of football chats on the show you never quite know where they're going to go but genuinely having the opportunity to look at something properly on performance side properly tied into executive side and how that works in some miraculous way together is really cool but firstly congratulations on doing everything that you've done thank you and fingers crossed you managed to keep achieving everything that you want to and most importantly for sharing it because it's a great story thank you I appreciate the invite and talking about how passionate side of the game I love it you can't beat it can you no you can't it's brilliant and we just no matter what when I get back in the car outside I'll just want to win on Saturday yeah exactly I was going to say good luck on the weekend and you know massive game so I'm sure you'll do a great job I will look for you on the touchline but cheers take care thanks mate cheers Charlie thank you so much to Mark for joining it's an incredible story isn't it as I said in the beginning the most important thing in this is not to trivialise or joke too much about it because the achievements are real and while it may seem crazy Mark has genuinely owned and managed this club with huge success over the years his belief that he is no way near his ceiling I loved and summed up the energy and confidence that has played a part in taking him as far as he has a great story that has many more pages to write no doubt i hope you enjoyed it now if you want to see more from today's show you can do so by going to youtube or any of our other social channels across instagram tiktok and now of course sub stack there are more snippets to share and bite-sized chunks to consume and whilst you're there please do like subscribe and follow the show as you'll hear from your other favorite pods it makes a huge difference when bringing you the best guests and conversations from the world of sports, which is, of course, our endless aim.

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