YORK City are working on bringing in a new scoreboard at the LNER Community Stadium which they hope can generate more than £80,000 a year for the club.
Since the Community Stadium opened last year, a small scoreboard has been used in-between the West and North Stands, displaying only the scoreline and time elapsed.
York’s new board, which consists of Glen Henderson and Alastair Smith, believes that the club are missing out on a revenue opportunity at the Community Stadium in not featuring a large scoreboard with advertising capabilities.
“From the first day we came in, we’ve had this question posed to us,” said chairman Henderson on the scoreboard.
“We’ve been sitting down with a lot of people – the (City of York) Council, GLL and others. We’re at a point where we’ve agreed something, the (York City) Knights have agreed something and, with the Council, we’re getting there.
“We have an issue with the structure of the stadium and where it would go.
“We’re in the process of getting a structural engineer out to make sure that the scoreboard that we want can fit there.
“We’re working on it, it’s just going to take some time.”
Chief executive Smith added: ‘Spennymoor (Town) make around £80,000 from their screen (per year), so if they can do that, we can do better, which is a new income stream we’ve never had before.”
Henderson and Smith were speaking at Monday night’s fans forum, in which numerous subjects were covered, including whether the club were able to run at break even.
“Having looked at the detailed accounts, I think it’s going to be tough, this year more than any other year,” admitted Smith.
“We’ve got to focus on getting bums on seats, the advertising opportunities and hospitality.
“We’re in negotiations for a new shirt sponsor which could be lucrative for us.
“Shirt sales this season have been phenomenal, we’ve sold well over 3,500 shirts, we're almost at 4,000 now.
“We want to get to the Football League. We’ve got to drive the club forward in the right manner without ever risking the club’s status.”
Fans also questioned the price of both children’s season tickets and the prices of food and drink inside the Community Stadium.
On the former, Henderson said: “We’re actually in the bottom third of the division, about seventh-cheapest, when it comes to adult tickets.
"We’ll definitely look into the children's prices though.”
Addressing the latter, Smith commented: “I know the prices are too expensive.
"But as soon as we go and say that (to the contract holder), the reply is ‘You forgo your percentage and we’ll put our prices down’, which doesn’t help anyone.”
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