Ryan Sparks, Bradford City CEO: ‘We’re a Big Club But We Haven’t had Enough Big Success’ (Ep72)

26:29How do you approach that whole process? Yeah, it's difficult because they're all different times as well. When I made my first appointment with Derek Adams, He'd just won his third or second or third promotion with the League Two club. And at the time, that was a headhunt, if you like. We went and we purchased Derek Adams from Morecambe. And I felt at the time, the club needed to be bold and be brave. And I wanted to show our supporters that we want to come back from this three years of decline, which almost took us out of the Football League for the first time in our history. we boldly moved for Derek Adams and we probably didn't give him the tools if I'm being honest he didn't have a squad and then his expectations were probably set too high from the start and then when we made our next appointment that was a coming together of stars aligning if I'm honest it was a right time right moment we'd only just made our decision on Derek to leave the club and then on this occasion when we appointed Graham which if you like was my third appointment outside of the club that was the first time I ran what I would say a proper process.

27:34Four weeks, 12 names, number of names down to 12. And that is incredibly difficult because at the time we weren't in a good place on the pitch. I think we were very low in the table. I had made a decision to put one of our players in temporary charge, which actually worked out quite well, but it wasn't received internally. That was probably a surprise to some of other coaches who may have thought they would get a chance. I didn't think that was the right thing to do. Kevin McDonald was the player. He's at Exeter now and I just asked him to give me time. I just need time. And we went through an extensive process.

28:07And then at some point in the process, there comes a moment where your gut tells you you've found the right people and you have to make the decision. And I knew that that was a decision that I needed to get right because after Mark left the club and we didn't get promoted and we lost the playoff semifinals, it felt like we'd missed our chance. Some of our staff left the club after that semi-final defeat they felt probably them too felt it and that's when you have to be a bravest because when you slip in potentially back and we did we dropped a few season tickets we started to just have a dip in turn of we're talking a couple of hundred thousand not millions but it dipped away from growth for the first time on my watch that was the biggest test and then we you know i mean it's easy to say you know graham's been a great appointment for Bradford.

28:56He's League 2 Manager of the Year. He's done an incredible job and we have a fantastic relationship and we all have a good bond and through the good times and the bad times, you stick together then. It was obviously the right appointment, but that was the longest time I've ever spent making one. And so now, you know, your pressures on performance go up because you're going into a league. I mean, I was looking at the league table this year and some of the teams in there, they're huge footballing institutions, right? League One is an amazing league how do you prepare to compete what now in your process let's use it right now you know we're in the end of may you've got a couple of months but you've got to make some big decisions how do you even go about approaching that well i think first of all you trust everybody that i trust my people so we have had conversations about this for a long time as a business we're fine for league one you know we won't be making mass hires off the pitch we want to make a few tweaks but from a football perspective it's obviously we've got a number of players out of contracts and we've got a number of players who've gone back to their parent clubs and we've got some holes in the squad and we need to bring some more quality in us and the players that are still here would want that because they want to they want to have a squad that we can compete with so there's a lot of work and it's very important that we try to limit and make the right decisions you're not going to get everything right so you have to commit to that as well I guess you had a league one and a league two budget so you prepared basically two scenarios your league one budget changes most by the amount of money you'll be able to commit to the performance side yeah I mean that our League 1 budget is, like I say, they're not dissimilar in the sense that whatever our break-even budget would be would probably keep us up in each league.

30:32But obviously in League 2, the gap, if you like, from the bottom to the top isn't 10, 20 million. It's one or two. So you can clear that gap and put yourself in the right place. I mean, I was looking at a document this morning that in League 1, 58 % of the top seven spenders over the last six seasons finishing the top seven. but that also means it's quite a chunk of people that buck the trend that way or that way so we don't know what a top seven budget looks like in League 1 yet but we have an idea in League 2 we knew exactly over the last few years what it looked like our budget next season will probably be echoes of the past you know in terms of Championship Premier League days when we're talking about revenue I think we can do 2 million commercially and I don't think that figure's been achieved in the Premier League by Bradford so that is Yes, it's different money, you know, inflation, things have changed.

31:25But the numbers are the numbers at the end of the day. And they are massive compared to what they were. The businesses are completely different animal. I think our objective initially is to hit 12 million for turnover next season. My FD would tell me we should be more, less optimistic and hit 11. But that's not the way we run the business. We will strive for that. And I think if we can do that, the growth of the business speaks for itself. How much is your guaranteed revenue, let's say, improved on that line? So you go, now you're in League One, our piece of the media pie increased, so we know we're going to get X amount more.

31:58How much does that influence that 12 million number and then what you have to achieve on top of it? Yeah, quite a bit of it. It's well over a million pounds more. We've got the TV deal. When we voted for the TV deal, we were probably the only club in the EFL that it didn't sue because it was an extra 200K plus, but we had a quarter of a million coming in from iFollow, from streaming, and you give that up. So we were double impacted in my view. We were one, we gave up our quarter of a million, which is now like 30, 40K overseas. But two, our rivals that perhaps didn't have the quarter of a million in the first place, then almost they have even more of a positive swing against you financially.

32:40So we actually voted for that deal, which was completely ridiculous on paper because we're voting to take less revenue. but we voted I voted on behalf of the club as a league not a league two chief executive of Bradford I think how could I possibly vote with eyeballs of league two and then say well I want us to be in league one in the championship because I've voted we'd be one club voting against and it also is not the way we run I'm a huge supporter of the football league I think it's the best governing body in world sport I think it's run by the best people with Trevor and his team and Rick I think they are exemplary at what they do.

33:17They need the support of the clubs and we're honest with them. If we don't like something, we tell them. But they're very, very, very, very supportive to the clubs. And I think having worked in other sports and you see the divide between the clubs and the governing bodies, it's just not there in football. It's just not there. There's a unity that supporters and partners perhaps don't see between clubs and the governing body. It makes you more powerful and you can move quicker. The fact that they have people in their organisation that have worked in clubs so they know how it goes. They know what you're up against.

33:48They know the pros and the cons. It helps. So yeah, in terms of the revenue, yes, centrally it helps. And the EFL are developing, commercially they're developing all the time. There's more, like another 200k centrally is coming to us that wasn't there last season, from League 1 to League 1, let alone what we've gone from League 2 to League 1. So that's not a given. They've earned that money for the clubs. Obviously we want more. But we're not a club that looks for that. We're not a handout club. We don't sit there and wait for people for more money to come down the chain because I think that would change our culture.

34:22We also, in terms of what our owner is investing, it is relative to what keeps us viable because people talk about sustainability and what they really mean is sustainable losses. What I try to talk more about so I don't sound like I'm reinventing history is viability. So where would the business sit if the owner was unable to help or assist the company, could the football club turn its wheel? The answer is yes. So once you've achieved that, you're actually quite a bit further on than some of your other clubs. It's one of the biggest issues. We spoke to Rick's been on the show and was fantastic.

34:57The most incredible recollection of statistics and everything without any information in front of him that I've ever seen. Amazing. But there were two things actually that we spoke about and I was going to ask about both of them, but now you've mentioned that piece. One of them was the reliance on owner financing and being able to create sustainable businesses dependent on the performance of the club, not the depth of the pockets of the owner. Massive challenge, we all know. But also part of the reason for that is the challenge that you have now managing a market inflation. You give more money to anyone in football, let's be honest, it happens in the Premier League, it happens everywhere.

35:29What it does is it just drives up prices. It doesn't necessarily encourage spend in other areas. It means that your player that last year cost 5 million, May this year cost 7. it means that that wage, which was two grand a week, is now four grand a week. The increase in wages, I mean, I were looking at it at the end of the season, and we've not finished our final financial year, but I've reflected on where we are. And, you know, from my start point, if you like post-COVID to now, we're probably spending infinitely to 50 % more on wages than we were at the start. The business is bigger, but we've had to make the gap bigger, if you like to be more competitive so that the loss gap has got bigger than I'd want it to.

36:09In the first couple of years, hundreds of thousands, losses, now more towards one million. Next year, more towards two, maybe more. And that's the price of promotion out of the division, if we're being honest. But you have to get that commitment at the start, which I've had. I'm a huge fan of what Wrexham and Birmingham have done for the growth of the game. I think we're not an insecure club, so we don't look at them and go, oh, well, there's no envy culture for us. They're making the EFL bigger. But of course, it has an effect on the market. When you see a centre-forward go to a club like that for millions and pay them tens of thousands a week, allegedly, but that's the case, then that's definitely going to drive the price of other players.

36:54And I guess for us, we just need to make sure that we spend our money wisely and we work very hard medically and we make sure that we're happy with the players we're bringing in and then we're happy to commit to them. And we won't spend what we haven't got, as in what we haven't got plus what our owners willing to help support with based on a set of objectives. So we won't go beyond that because I wouldn't want to risk the viability of the business further down the line. So Stefan Rupp, your owner, do you sit down with him at the beginning of that season looking at those finances and going, right, this is where there's likely to be a commitment on you individually on top of obviously the turnover of the business.

37:32And this is where we may require a little bit more investment if you're keen for it to take us here instead of here. Pretty much, yeah, pretty much like that. We speak regularly, as you can imagine, daily. But when it comes to that kind of thing, it's towards the end of a financial year, somewhere usually between almost the end and the very end. But this year it ended in the way it did and there was going to be a week where we just needed to put the ball down and maybe pick the champagne up kind of thing. and we did that certainly and I think I take the figures, the projections with RFD. We'll sit in Munich, we have time together and part of my role is to sell, not to sell a position, but to essentially give my opinion on what will the outcome be and this season was the first season where Stefan had to truly invest significant funds for us to maintain the budget that we'd been able to generate in many other ways in the past by having more cash reserves or bringing forward sponsorship revenue, which we've done in the past to make a fist of it, and we've delivered promotion at the first attempt on that.

38:38That then doesn't mean that's a license to do it every year. And then the conversation is, if we set this budget, that is the requirement. If we close the gap, which I think we will, as in I think our turnover will be better than the projection, what do you want me to do with that money? Do you want me to reduce your input or do you want me to add it? and that's fluid. That's a fluid conversation because that will be dictated to as the season progresses. January, for example. In my time at the club, he's never taken a penny back, ever. In my time in charge. He hasn't had to put much in, if I'm honest, comparatively to some of the clubs that I don't need to mention.

39:13You can work them out yourself in League One and League Two and the Championship and beyond. But in League One, there are some owners putting in 10 million plus, maybe more, 15 to 20. And that's not an exaggeration. those numbers are not part of our game plan ever but we still want to mix it with those clubs and we think we can whether we can beat them we'll find out but we want to be competitive we're a proud football club we're a proud city and we want to give the supporters a team like they have been that they start to relate to when I first started at the club right back then when we got relegated the supporters didn't want the players there was no relationship and now these people over the last few years particularly they were household names to the supporters and that's massive.

39:55That's a real turning point. How do you look at the current distribution of finances throughout the pyramid? We talk about it all the time, right? Centralises Premier League, gaps between Football League. You still have then incredible things where you have Jay Stansfield at 15 million being more than the turnover of the majority of clubs in there. So you've got huge money down the league, but then there's not enough coming from the top. We've got for the second time, the three promoted clubs getting relegated from the Premier League. There's challenges everywhere throughout this and money generally sits at the heart of it.

40:25How do you view the distribution of that money within the pyramid? Well, when I first took this role, I was part of the COVID, if you like, Zoom meetings between CEOs and chair people for the first time. And the whole backdrop of that was salary caps, if you remember. They wanted salary caps in League 2, League 1, and whatever. And I, at the time, felt it was illegal to have a salary cap. it's a restriction, in my opinion, put up on a market that you can't place. There were clubs in League 2 that wanted a£1.2 million salary cap, several. Despite what our model was in terms of can we break even every year, and we tried to, that to me just felt like a complete, how were you ever going to attract investment into the game?

41:11What is the future of that? I came from a sport where they salary capped the game, and I said it as a really young guy before I was even thinking about working in a role like this that I felt salary capping Super League was the start of the end for Super League and Super League as a competition is completely not the machine it was went before the days of the cap. Now they've been changing to that salary cap and they've moved it around and added rules but it's too late. They've set the dial for a limit on spend and if you look at the salary cap for rugby league in Australia, it's on another continent, literally, financially.

41:53So I think for football, the salary cap went in. The rules were ridiculous. It was about if you sign a player before this date, it doesn't count. So then I remember Bolton Wanderers and ourselves just trying to do as many deals as we could. It was ridiculous. And they threw the cap out in January because I think the PFA essentially took everybody on and won. and I just thought what a complete waste of time. However, going back to your point, if more money comes into the game, how are we going to control that? Because without some restrictions or some controls or what you're going to do with the money, where do we think the money's going to go?

42:28It's going to go on the pitch. If you think about what I've discussed with you about the basics of our finances, if I said to you we're going to get another million, I believe our owner's ambition is an ambitious guy, as am I, and we'd go, well, let's use that as well. we wouldn't go let's put it in the bank unless someone told us we had to or use it to develop a stadium or a training ground which would be useful but you would have to be told to do that I completely respect the fact we need the distribution is a problem you know I mean some of the parachute payments as well that are coming down the chain one of them clubs is in our league next season and their parachute payment is unbelievable you know Luton yeah you know we're going to be up against it with them because I'm sure they'll use some of their money for their stadium and other things but it would be a nice start point, to say the least.

43:14It's probably 10 times our start point, isn't it? But that's not us being envious of that. That's just the reality. It's the way it is. We don't spend a lot of time at our football club thinking about wouldn't it be nice if we had another couple of million quid because I think that can just affect your focus. We've just got to carry on doing what we're doing. We always support the bigger picture. The Football League will get behind what they're asking us to do and if a deal can be done, which with the regulator and the new man strikes me as a man that wants to do deals that can improve English football and its viability longer term, then fantastic.

43:47But yes, I think the initial concern is bridging the gap between the Championship and the Premier League, of which, of course, we one day would like to be a part of. But of course, going down the chain, that will help League One, League Two, and it might even help the National League, and the future of that could be something different. There's many conversations going about. Everyone's got their own opinion, and we just tried to crack on. and we'll see what happens with it. We have had good relationships with Premier League clubs. We sell a lot of academy players to Premier League clubs, and we respect them for what they do.

44:17We don't want to criticise the Premier League. It is an incredible machine for the economy of the United Kingdom, the amount of tax that gets paid in the systems by these clubs, players, et cetera, is huge. It's massive for the economy, but it's about perhaps how can we all work a bit more closely. You look at the amount of players that come through the EFL and end up in the English national team or other national teams, and it's massive. So I think there has to be a little bit for that and reflecting the growth of the game. I wanted to ask you about academies and the influence of that on your business.

44:47You know, we mentioned glibly earlier the football lottery, but when we talk about that, you know, it's the revenue that you can't necessarily guarantee on your books that could come from a cup run. It could come from selling a player or an academy player, whatever that may be. How influential is your academy to the club and also to the business at the club? Very, yeah. I mean, there have been seasons when I've been here where we've done nearly a million in academy sales in three or four players in one season, and there's some seasons where nothing. But we have a really good academy. There's a conveyor belt.

45:19Our former head of academy actually sadly passed away, which really created a huge challenge for us. But we're lucky that one of his kind of protégés, if you like, was still in the business and we've given him a chance. And he's a young guy. He's in his early to mid-20s, so it's similar to myself. why wouldn't you give the guy an opportunity because he's young doesn't mean he hasn't got the potential and now he's in the process of if you like rebuilding that but one thing we've not had to read but we've invested heavily in the recruitment of young players we brought a gentleman back to work with us who'd been elsewhere and we reset our recruitment strategy lower 8, 9, 10 years old so we're not losing players to the other clubs and for us it is a huge revenue stream because if you, as you say, you call it Football lottery Yeah, I call it the football it's football fortune isn't it and where I talked there about aiming for 12 million turnover we might come up short if everything went in your favour you could be 15 if you had cup runs selling young players selling senior players player trading in general but for us in League 2 as a category 3 academy player trading is actually pretty important How many players do you look to put through the team let's say from what you have now from that academy is it supplying the first team?

46:31No if I'm being honest because we don't have the resources. We don't run under-23 side. So we run an under-19s team. We have to accept that we are potentially not providing the pathway that we need to or the time that we need to. And there have been players, and there is one in our squad now, Bobby Poynton, who has bridged the gap on a level that is unbelievable. He is a hero in Bradford. And he's come from our academy, and he made it from the 19s to the first team, and he plays most games. He was on the pitch for the last game. And it's an incredible story. But we could have the pathway, but we were taking it away from the budget that we talk about, which is already going to be stretched to compete in League One.

47:13It's a tough decision we make. And that's why we centre our academy focus on the player trading. And then the players that we don't trade, we do bring them in. We do have three or four professionals that come into the first team squad every year. And everybody gets an equal shot. And some have made it. Some have played some games. Some haven't. How influential is the loan market for you? Bringing those players in from top teams, looking for that opportunity, but also balancing that with the stability and the experience that you still need to have on a permanent basis. I think it's critical for us.

47:42What we are able to sell to the Premier League and the Championship and previously League One clubs was the opportunity to play in front of huge crowds for their young players to feel pressure that they can't replicate in under-23s football. And I would say the vast majority of our loan players have been some of our most popular players. You know, it's so lazy to say that a lone player won't be committed to your club. Over the last few years, I've seen lone players cry on the pitch where attached players haven't. Not that that counts for anything, but they may be more emotional than someone else.

48:16But the lone players have been really special and they've left their own legacies. Some of the names in our arena will go on. And for us to be able to now attract players from slightly higher and, of course, the championship and potentially abroad is really exciting because we're still able to provide this unique platform that maybe only a few clubs in League One can provide. In League Two, we were the only club. The only difference, difficulty at times was perhaps not the most attractive proposition for certain personnel to want to come play in League Two. It's a bit different in League One. Something we talk about a lot is the education of players and the provision of access and support to individuals who may not have, well the education opportunities to create sustainability for themselves beyond their football and career and it's becoming more of a an issue or at least something that is being addressed a little bit more now we see a lot more athletes investing we see a lot more interest in them getting involved in areas outside of sport do you have any involvement with players on that front on what they do alongside playing football for the club it's a blend really if you're talking about younger players we spend time helping them if they're not going to carry on with us we obviously we train at part of a private school so we use the school's education tool if you like to help the players and that we have put players through their A-levels in that school and sometimes parents have taken their children to that school as well which has been beneficial for various reasons and obviously logistically.

49:44As the players get older I find it really interesting that certain players will ask you questions about the business and I've noticed that for a number of seasons you'll be having lunch or a coffee or whatever with a player and they'll actually start asking you about why would we do that and what would you do there and what were your thoughts with that? And you're thinking this is a little bit more perhaps than just making conversation. They're obviously starting to think about life after maybe football and certain players you can imagine not working maybe as coaching staff but actually you get a sense when you work with people of where they might be able to fit in.

50:22and you know when you look at like former players that are now like presenters and they're like naturally gifted, it's like just meant to be, you know, it's just part of their next thing and I have sensed that and then if a player ever said I would like to be, I mean some of our injured players have been involved in the social media side of the club with the media staff, it's not a bad thing, it's quite good mentally for them, it's good, it keeps them busy and there'll be some players that don't think like that and they just want to concentrate on their careers and whatever will be will be but certainly certain players I've had conversations with and thought, yeah, you're starting to think.

50:57You're starting to think about what's next. And if they ever needed that, we would always help them. We would 100 % provide something. What about opportunities for building a business, right? Building and developing on what you've already got. Something I looked at straight away and it stands out enormously as the incredible ground that you have. We talked about it, Valley Parade, 25 ,000 seats. Again, a very common thread is trying to create a football environment or infrastructure that's 365, right? More than just the match days that you have to take advantage of. What influence does Valley Parade play in your ability to drive better business for the club?

51:32A great deal, but it's a challenge in itself. So we look at a number of things like concerts, which we've never had, boxing fights on a significant scale, which we've never had. They are things we're looking at, but they have to be viable and we're not quite sure about the viability of them. So they're huge projects to piece together if you're not sure. We're looking at that as a way of developing our revenue in a different way. We don't currently have that. We are investing in our facilities more. You've seen that at a lot of clubs now where you go to some of these stadiums and their bars and restaurants are literally like bars and restaurants, not the old clubhouse kind of bar idea with an old carpet and some beer pumps.

52:11It's different now. It feels different. And we know we need to get on board with that because that will help us drive more revenue. But, of course, it's not as simple as that. There is a lot of capital involved, pouring money into a facility, and it will take you a long time to get that back. It's not as simple as if we spend, I don't know, a quarter of a million on an area, we're going to get that back next season. It's not like that. And then you're into this decision-making situation, and I have a list every year from my people that help, that essentially tell me what we need to do to be legal.

52:41So what are big things at Valley Parade, our stadium, at the facility, the safety of the stadium is top priority for me, and the bills are huge for that. It's an ongoing growing problem as the stadium gets older and our seats need to be replaced and they are not what they used to be. They're double the price and you're then making decisions between seats that generate as four to five million in revenue or bars that might generate as a couple of hundred grand over three years. So it comes down to this list and that's before we've even started talking about strikers. Well, that's what I was going to ask.

53:17how much you have to wrestle with the penny away from the pitch that's a constant wrestle we have a running joke in our club that they'll say we need to do this Ryan want to do this I'm like great what's the budget in zero but actually it sounds like a bit of a joke but it's actually not a bad way to start if your budget is zero you'd be amazed what you can achieve when you don't have anything to start with and then when you're able to then spend money you can create something really nice. And we have to work like that because we've done some really great marketing campaigns at the club, in my opinion.

53:54We've developed season ticket revenue beyond anything we've ever achieved in the past. And we've developed a commercial portfolio on the back of it that we've never had. But the best marketing campaign that I've ever seen took place in the 96th minute on May the 3rd because you cannot buy that. And you then have to harness it. But equally, you've got to create a facility for the people that's worth having. And that is a wrestle because you want to put the product on the pitch as well because you've seen the power of what the outcome of that was. It was beyond anything we couldn't possibly imagine.

54:27But it's quite easy then to slip into the way if we just spend money, we can compete. That's not a straight line. Do you get much pushback if you're spending money away from the pitch and fans go, I'd much rather have that new striker? I think it depends on the timing. I think if you're doing well on the pitch and you change the seats, great. if you were perhaps not doing well on the pitch and you started to change seats. You're seeing it at other clubs. The investment that some of the owners have put into the stadiums and the facilities, absolutely phenomenal. You know, they deserve immense credit for it because it's not necessarily coming back to them ever, but their on-field results have not followed.

55:04And then the question marks come. Wherever you do, you'll always have feedback. I call it feedback. And it's interest, really. People call it criticism. I'd much rather have criticism than no interest because then you've not got anything worth talking about really. The criticism or the feedback, if you like, changes. So if we're talking about our club, the brightness recently of the LED advertising boards, I think we must be doing all right on the pitch. If we're talking about the centre forward can't score and we can't keep it out the back of the net, the LED advertising boards become irrelevant.

55:35So it's always about the balance for me. And I just think that comes with the temperature. I was asked recently, when are you judged in your role? And I said Saturday and Tuesday. And they said, but you're not playing. I said, yeah, but that's when you're judged. You could be quite good at your job, but if we don't achieve anything on the pitch, in the eyes of a lot of people, you've failed. You're a failure. And if you win on the pitch, you might not be as committed in your job, but you've had some fortune on the pitch that might be someone else's work or some other era, and you go down and you're very popular.

56:09and that's fine but you don't I don't do this jump to be popular because if I did it I should probably try something else right but that's yeah I think it's about the balance to be honest John It's the final one before I throw some quick fire questions at you but you said something at the beginning which resonated and it was you know many difficult days few really great days but those great days are exceptional based on what you've just gone through and based on some of the challenges you've described and building those relationships with the fans how do you feel what's happened over the last month or so has, I guess, changed that relationship for you and given you some confidence to really go and build and develop now with a positive message and a positive experience behind you to give you the credit in the bank to deliver for them.

56:51Yeah, I think it's a little bit like the league table itself. So the game is based on maths and probability as a sport. You don't score many goals, so it's all, you know what I mean, it's hard to score, right? And if you look at, let's look at League 2, forget League 1 for a moment, There's four teams that can get promoted and two teams that get relegated. And everybody in the middle, apart from the ones that are happy to be in a playoff semifinal or a final and lose, achieve essentially nothing. So the chances of winning are slim and the chances of losing are really high. And I guess the point I made earlier is I've been in charge of Bradford now for four and a half years.

57:28That's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of days, thousands, if you like, over a thousand. In those days, it's hard to always remember the ones that were really great. You can remember the tough ones because they shape you and make you better. But the good times are few and far between. But as I said to our staff at the end of last season when we finished ninth and we were really gutted by that, we missed out on the playoffs by a point. We probably didn't deserve to be there, but the fact we were so close was agonising in the year before we lose the semi-final. And then we lost two EFL Trophy semi-finals, one this season, one last season.

58:02and it just felt like a never-ending, almost club. And that's tough for people that are coming to the well day in, day out, and giving you and the people around you everything. And I said to them at the time, I know it's tough, but when it happens, there's going to be 24 ,000 people plus in the stadium who are going to feel something that they've never felt, but you guys feel it in a whole different way because you've done it. You've actually built the whole thing. internally you've created the magic for everybody else to enjoy and I think we saw that at the end of the season most of our staff were in tears me included it was massively emotional because of all that toil if you like the graft and the hard work and the tough times where you sit there and go wow where do we go from here that is a question that you do ask yourself if we're being honest most people would maybe not admit that but it's true I think they are few and far between but when they come they're very special So you have to enjoy them as well.

58:59So a lot of people said that to me in the last few weeks, you must enjoy it because, you know, we're free. It's just around the corner before your next challenge. And that's true. But equally, you're very mindful of not over enjoying it because that can't be it. You know, there has to be more than that. But there must be, I mean, let's be honest, we're all human. There must be great personal achievement and validation in what's been created over the last few years now, which is fantastic. But I'd also imagine there's very little time to pat yourself on the back. You're always going again. you're always building towards that next thing and this now is going to be the major thing for the club, right?

59:30You just want to make sure that you stay there, but that's the worst case scenario now. You stay there. You want to keep pushing forward and that's what the fans will want. We want to use it. In terms of patting on the back, we're not big on that. If you need that, I don't know, it can be lonely then if it goes the other way. I think if you need that, it's nice to have, isn't it? When someone says, you've done a good job, it's nice. It makes a difference, but it's not essential, but we've got to use it because this is the bit we've been waiting for. we've been waiting to see what the next ceiling looks like for us off the pitch in terms of how much we can drive into the business and then how it ends up on the grass what is the end product so we don't know really but we but we're excited to see let's do some quick fires if you're right and we'll wrap it up let's go what's the toughest decision you've had to make as ceo probably two answers to that at times having the bravery to carry on is really tough because you've got your livelihood on the line when it's been really difficult or you've asked yourself some questions but the toughest decision without a doubt is when you part company with a first team manager i think that's really difficult that's the one way you don't sleep what's the game you're most looking forward to next season well i um we haven't had a west yorkshire derby as such for 18 years we play huddersfield townhome and away so that's a game we can't wait for but to be honest every game's exciting in that division for us.

1:00:48There are so many clubs that we want to play, that we've been waiting to play. I want to see how many times we can sell our stadium out, which is a really exciting prospect when there's been times early in my time at the club, perhaps not in this role, where we could count people left in the ground with 20 minutes to go or 10 minutes to go and averaging crowds of 13 ,000, 12 ,000. What could we do? That's the exciting part and there's nothing. We're not afraid of it. We're really excited about it. Do you think that's those 25 ,000, that's going to be pushed? How many season tickets, for example, do you have?

1:01:18We're just under 16 ,000 at the moment. Really? Which is the highest we've ever done. And revenue-wise, that represents like 3.1 plus million at the moment and still ticking away. That gives us a great base. Without that, you don't have a club. It's so overcooked where you support us or your lifeblood. And for us, it's critical because it keeps the energy there. It keeps the energy there for our owner to go, my wow do you know I mean one of the best days of his life so he wants more of it and that's important it was probably one of the best days of all of our lives to be fair but yeah I think I'd like to see we'll see what happened after the Fleetwood game well I can't remember I can't remember I can't yeah we went down to the pitch and me and my colleagues and our families joined us and the owner was down there and we was on the pitch when everyone else had left it.

1:02:15We went in the dressing room. Obviously, Graham spoke about really wrapped the season up in 30 seconds and Graham can talk more than I can talk. So that was a hell of an achievement. And we just let go a little bit, just enjoy it. I remember, I think, and Graham did something that he didn't have to do. I wanted him to hand the medals out to the players. He said, no, I want you to do it. because I think it's the end of quite a long chapter for you in this story. And he basically said, you know, you've been through some tough stuff. Do that. And I thought that was massively selfless of him and it's not something that I wanted to do.

1:02:53So that was a nice moment. And then to be honest with you, I was just with my wife and my friends and I was just on the halfway line. And I just stood there for a couple of minutes. Just, you know, you've got thousands of people still in the ground, maybe 10 ,000 plus. and you know I've stood on that pitch many times but I walked around it many times when I've been having to do some thinking about tough decisions or whatever and to stand on the pitch and see that it was just surreal, it was like it being in a film it felt like you were in a movie just one thing after another happened you know we had a shield presented to us things happened and yeah I lost my, unfortunately I lost my voice so I sounded like I was I don't know what I sounded like, I wasn't great What time did you get home?

1:03:34not too bad not too bad we ended up in a street in Bradford which is really popular with all the fans and everything and the players and it was just like something you've never seen before he's a young guy growing up in Bradford I tell people this a lot we were spoiled really as young youngsters because we saw Bulls and Bantams winning everything in their sports relatively speaking Premier League Super League World Club challenges promotions so we were constantly in City Park at the end of nearly almost every year, almost twice a year, just watching trophies go up, parties. And I just kind of thought as a young guy, don't get me wrong, one, I thought, wow, this needs to be my life.

1:04:12If I can't play, what can I do? So it was an inspiring thing. But then you just set it for granted. And when we had the parade into Bradford, and I've not seen, you know, I didn't realise, you didn't know what to expect. And it was like going back to when you was eight, nine years old and you're thinking, oh my word, wow, like that's what it was like. and then you realise how hard that is to get and you realise how incredibly, how much work must have gone on back there to deliver that time in time again. So you want as much of that as you can get. Look, we'll be watching next year, excited to see what happens.

1:04:49It's been so interesting and thank you so much for coming in and talking about it. So topical as well. Such an amazing time for you, hopefully for all the fans as well. I'm sure they'll love hearing about all this. So thank you for coming in. Cheers, thank you. having topical conversations is always the primary objective on this show it just depends whether we're lucky enough to be able to get the people to come and talk to us as and when some of these amazing things have happened and being able to get ryan into the studio just a few weeks after their incredible promotion is something i'm very grateful for as you've just heard bradford is a historic and quite incredible club in many ways with a huge number of successes in their history to accompany some of the low points, you get the feeling listening to this that this could be the start of something exciting where there is a little less volatility around the good times and hopefully some sustainability that can be put in place when it comes to competing consistently at the higher levels of English football.

1:05:41So a huge thank you to Ryan for coming and joining us and telling us all about what it has taken from him personally and also from the club to get them moving in the right direction. And we're very excited to see where this continues to progress. Now, if you want to hear more from today's show, you can do so by going to YouTube and typing in business of sport. But before we leave you, this is digital fitness coaching at its peak. I'm so excited for us to partner with Runner, a relationship that's going to get us all up and out there, me included, pacing the streets, woodlands, parks, beachfronts, but backed up by elite level insight and accessibility.

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