NUFC Podcast: An interview with David Hopkinson, Newcastle United CEO

0:00This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. It's the true Faith Newcastle United podcast and we are bringing you a very special podcast today because we have a very special guest with us. It's Lou, no joke. It's David Hopkinson, CEO of Newcastle United, has joined us today to talk through what has been a transformative summer for Newcastle, his impressions of the city so far, almost a year into the job, and much, much more. I'm sure that Si is also here and will just get straight into it. Okay David, so summer has been a wild ride from a support or perspective. At one time it seemed like it was just going to go a bit like, oh, deja vu, didn't it? Like, you know, getting gizamped for players and feeling like, oh, this is just going to not be great. And now we're all excited. I think most of us are excited. We're excited about eight signings. We're excited about a new manager. We're excited about a really positive start to the season.

1:01So from your perspective, has it played out exactly as you wanted it? Or have there been unexpected kind of challenges along the way? Oh, and there have been unexpected challenges. Has it played out the way that we had hoped? It's been different. It is not the way we necessarily drew it up. There are things that have gone as we had hoped. There are things that surprised us along the way. And some of those surprises have been, frankly, better than we might have imagined. So, you know, life is funny. It will surprise you if you allow it. But today, you know, what's at the 3rd of September? I sit here and I am excited about the squad that's assembled and ready to go on Saturday. So with, I know you don't want to set targets. When you spoke, I think it was talk sport back in the... Back in February, you were very clear that you didn't want to set really hard targets. But do you think Neacastalcan looked up and looked at European football

2:03based on the successful summer we've had? Well, we're going to go find out. Yeah. And, you know, we're undefeated through our first two matches. That's nice. We'll see how Saturday goes. This is a build. This is a build. I don't know to what extent, you know, much speculation is helpful. At this time, I think we're going to learn a lot as the season goes on. I think some things will be really pleasantly surprised by. And I expect some setbacks along the way. And at the end of the season, we'll see if we've qualified for Europe or not. Good diplomatic. Yeah, very diplomatic. What about, like, if we're talking about surprises that we've had good... You've had good and bad surprises, right? And I really like that framing of it. Like, yes, there have been things that we didn't plan for. Actually, that's worked out quite in our favour or quite well. In terms of... If we track back, I guess the sort of rebuild was always on the cards. But really, if you think about it, it's like Eddie how leaving and Matthias Yisler coming in.

3:04How difficult was how kind of leaving when he did? Because there was sort of talk about it. There were rumors about it in the season, then at the end of the season. And then it, you know, it didn't happen until sort of midway through the summer. Yeah, the Eddie's decision, we accepted it and respected it. And, you know, I've got a wonderful relationship with Eddie. His contributions to the Newcastle United have been extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. And, you know, that the trophy delivered, unforgettable. But it's such a consummate professional and a really thoughtful person. Eddie gave everything to this club and... Too much. Well, right to the limit, right? At a minimum. At a minimum, he gave everything. And, you know, an unmatched work rate, incredible passion for the club. A real sense of duty to do what was right. And, you know, when he said, look, I think I'm out.

4:06I think I've just, I've got nothing more to give. We accepted that answer. I'm pleased, like I said, with where we are September 3rd, that was a late change to the program. But life is reading, react, you know. You, you, the situations arise. You're well prepared and you see how you can best navigate them. I think it's a real mark of... I'm sure I've said this to you, like a real mark of Eddie has integrity, actually, to be like, oh, I think I'm actually done here. Like, perhaps some people wanted it sooner. It happened when it happened and you can't really sort of... You can't change that now. But I think a mark of that, in terms of his successor, like when did you know MJ? Matthias, yes? Can I jump in here? Yeah, go for it. The cynical support is among us. I'm not saying I was one of them. Would have said that MJ was the most convenient choice because he was... How is that convenient, though? Working for a PIF club. Oh, right. It's, it's obviously a lot more to it. And I'm hoping David's going to help us understand this moment.

5:06But the cynics were straight to the... Ooh, well, that just seems like we've had to panic. And I know that's not the case. And I know there would have been plans for this eventuality. So yeah, how soon in that process did you know that MJ, as you call him, was the guy? Well, there's a couple of questions in there. Yeah, sorry. No, I... Look, it's worth explaining and understanding. Yeah, there's a succession plan for everybody. And I think I've described it elsewhere. So when Eddie made his decision, which we accepted, it's not a cold start. Yeah, right. There's not. Okay, you know, what do we do? It's okay. Well, let's turn to, you know, the succession plan and see where we are. And it had moved a little bit. Of course, that was really... We've had a really dynamic summer. Lots of managers moved. And many folks that were on our list were employed. And I want to remind you, Matthews was employed as you've correctly identified there in Saudi Arabia.

6:08But he's someone that we have been tracking for quite a while since before I got to the club. Someone that we felt would be the right fit for the personnel that we have here for the style of play that we want. And for... And frankly, that this community demands. So he was someone that we focused on to a very, very short list. And once we got into a conversation with him, it was clear quickly that this would be the right successor. What made it so clear from the conversations if you're able to share a bit of that with us? You know, Ross, my partner in crime and all of this, and I'm sure we're going to talk about the transfer window. And I really cannot understate that I am the Robin to his Batman in this transfer business. He's the football expert. And I'm the thought partner to him. He's the lead.

7:09So Ross is someone who is much better suited to assess Matt Chess's abilities as a head coach. Right. What I saw from my vantage point was someone who had a crystal clear leadership philosophy, the right energy, the right passion, conviction. And that there was a really strong fit between the code, the values of our club and his personal values. I felt that he would be an instant success here through early days. These are still very early days that views been confirmed. And I know that he feels the same way. He feels that this is a place where he can see his values expressed in the world. And so far we're off to, like I said, a flying start. Yeah, it was going to ask why do you think he's been such an instant success? You know, it has been, it was a great game, a game, a Liverpool really gave him a game.

8:10And then obviously the Cup game went really well, really fun game to watch. And the second game of season also, very positive, got off his win. And away from home as well, which is quite big for us as fans, because that was a difficulty of ours last season. It's his understanding of the sort of ethos of the club and the understanding of what you're trying to do that's made him hit the ground running, do you think? I think there's a multitude of factors. And I won't pretend to understand the role of the head coach, what he's trying to do with anything like the level of detail and sophistication he has. What I do know is he has got everybody aligned. Right. And they are performing like a team. And coming together very quickly, look, these are early days. Every team's gone through transition. Every team is trying to figure out who they are in the 26, 27 season. And we are as well. We've got to come together. We've got to gel. We've got to learn to work together.

9:11I think Matt Yesen and his team have done an incredible job bringing everyone together around clear ideas, clear philosophies, clear expectations and standards. And that's helping us through these early days. We've got lots ahead of us. This is very much a build over the course of this season and beyond. I think we need to actually frankly temper expectations. Okay. Right now. Yes, we are undefeated by a dead. At some point, we're going to endure a defeat. Maybe more than one. Of course, over the course of the season. No, thanks. And it'll be how we stay aligned. Right. That's what the data suggests. There might be more than one. And look, you know, it's about how we stay together when we're winning. Right. And look at how we stay together when we're not. And how we continue to build, you know, regardless of the score. I mean, the early evidence is there that everything you said about why he was appointed seems to be true. It's all there and the proof is in the pudding and the first three performances for sure. And I think we've all been preaching patience because we know there's a lot of work to do.

10:14And there's a lot more potential bumps in the road. But you did mention the transfer window. And that is contributed massively because I think. And I did want to ask you who's the main hero here and it sounds like Ross Wilson gets a lot of attention. Wilson gets a lot of the credit. But even three, four weeks ago. And maybe just before before the managerial change, we were thinking, oh, God, here we go again. And I know you weren't. You were just an observer last summer. You didn't really, you were in post just after the transfer window. Right. So you watched what happened last summer, presumably with a keen interest and what not to do. As we missed out on target after target after target. And then we had Munoz and then we had Manzambi. And it really felt like, oh, here we go again. We're going to lose out on all of our targets. And it wasn't coming together. And then out of nowhere, the last five weeks has just been. And believe it's smash it, smash it, getting unbelievable returns on the players that we've sold. Getting all the right fits for the squad. It just feels like it's coming together. How do you rate the transfer window now that it's closed? Have we ticked all the boxes we were planning to tick?

11:15You know, was this a successful transfer window for us? The proof will be in the pudding. Right. Time will tell. I'm really pleased about how we look at this moment and signs are positive. In life, we need to think in probabilities, not certainties. And I think we probably look like we're going to have some success this season. But of course, that's what makes this business and this game so magical is nobody knows. But overall, we're pleased. You know, there were some challenges over the course of the summer. Obviously, there were some setbacks. There were some successes. And what didn't vary was our work rate, our self confidence, our conviction. You know, we know no team achieved everything they said had to achieve. Everybody, and this is a very UK word, gazumped.

12:18I've also hijacked a lot. Look, you know, I just think, you know, there were every, every club sets out with their targets. Not all, they don't conclude successfully on 100% of their targets. And either did we. And yet, we were always expecting that we would be able to pivot our strategies. And ultimately, part of pivot our targets in conjunction with our strategies and make sure that we arrived September 2nd in a place where we were confident how we would be going forward. Along the way, as you said, some some difficult patches of road. I was relaxed about this. And when we talked to media, we talked to fans, and we would say, well, listen, why don't we measure the success or not of our activity September 2nd and see how it all came together? And I'm pleased with how it's come together. Yeah, I think as a fan base, I can't speak for other fan bases, but I think it's fairly similar.

13:19We turn to kind of panic or like think, oh, God, it's deja vu. Oh, God, this is going to be a nightmare. And like you talked about succession plan there. And I think as fans of Newcastle United, that feels quite a lot. That feels quite new still to us because it felt, regardless of how it was being run before, it felt like it was all a bit sort of mad scrambly dashed. For entire lives. For entire lives, basically. If a manager left, it was like, oh, God, what we're going to do rather than having a list and going out and chatting to those people and talking to agents and things like that. So it still does feel quite new. So I went at the beginning of the window, you know, the Munis and Manzambi, we're not, we're linked and then it was clear they weren't going to come to us. It did just sort of feel like, oh, God, it's just going to be panic stations. But so nice to hear that it was like, okay, that's not worked. We'll do the other things that we've already planned for. You know, I think, you know, while I'm only in this job coming up on a year

14:19and only living in this country coming up on a year, I have been in this business an awful long time, 30 something years. One of the things I can't tell you is that emotional regulation cannot be under a steady... Not how affordable to have. Yeah. As, you know, an incredibly important ingredient to success. Right. And that means when I talk about emotional regulation, I mean, our highs, maybe not as high, are low, maybe not as low. And what terrible at this. Well, you know, that's okay. Because that's the fan base. Yeah, exactly. Listen, so is there a certain element of madness or mania in the fan base? Maybe, but that's okay. That passion is what makes this so magical. Yeah. I think our duty, and certainly my duty as the leader of this organization, is to make sure we've got a steady hand on the till.

15:20And, you know, when I talk internally, this is a very noisy marketplace, and a very noisy business, and that our job is to separate signal from noise. Stay focused on the signal. Stay focused on execution. And if we do that, we'll be fine. It's nice. It feels calming to hear that. I don't know. I like it. But you talk about, like, keeping an eye on the till and all of that, keeping that steady. And if we start thinking about Newcastle 2.0, which you talk to George Corkin in the athletic about, and we've all been talking about, and we'll kind of understand, I think, that this is the rebuild. This is the new start to the newer era of Newcastle United. There is still skepticism among the fan base, and among, you know, hundreds, I'm sure, about catching other clubs up in the sort of cartel, if you want to call it that. Like, from a financial perspective, because we're coming at this from a much lower vantage point,

16:21financially, than those clubs that are already in that sort of pot. It feels like we're further away than we ever have been than that traditional six. Right. And I know that it's getting disrupted, and last season disrupted that a little bit, and hopefully this season will as well, and I've got everything across that several teams employed entirely. But in terms of the plan for how we do this financially, does the stadium play into that? Like, how does it all, you know, there's a worry that among supporters, and I suppose, bring it up, like, I'm sure you're aware of, that regardless of what happens with the stadium, if it's a new stadium, or if we expand the stadium, or however it's going to happen, that people will get shut out, like loyal supporters, who've been, you know, they're through thick and thin, and it's mostly been thin. The people who can pay more will be the ones that get it. Okay, so there's about 17 things. Yes, sorry. I just thought I would have a replay in. You sure did. Lisa. I can only hold about two or three things in my head at once.

17:21But let me just start responding now. You know, my background is American sports, other than a few years that I spent at Real Madrid. You know, the overwhelming majority of my time has been in North American sports, the NHL, the NBA principally, where, you know, it's very interesting because everybody has about the same size bag of money, like, called the salary cap, and the NHL, which may be the league with the best salary system of all, and the National Hockey League, it's a hard cap. There's not even a soft cap. That's the envelope. You can't go $1 above it. That's it. And so it makes for such an interesting game and system because you just don't know who's going to win. You know, the NHL season is going to start up. What's it? September down next month. Who's going to win the NHL here? I don't know. It's whoever managed their budget most effectively and their draft picks and all the things that, you know, go into assembling a squad in the NHL.

18:22The system we have in the Premier League and in football is different. It's recently changed, as you know, from PSR, which was last season's system to SCR, to squad cost ratio for, you know, the system we're under now that began July 1st. And it's an interesting system because people get different size bags of money. You know, they get different sized envelopes and the size of the envelope that you can spend on your player wages is directly correlated to. The revenues you generate, this is your point. Right. And we don't generate the revenues to some of the bigger clubs. Yeah. Okay. So what we got to do is catch them from behind. And we're in the process of doing that. You know, I have a plan. We have a plan. It's well articulated. We have spent, you know, spent the first year building that. We're in the process now executing that. What it means is the first phase of that plan is growing our revenues based on self-help.

19:22Okay. So, you know, what does that mean? Last year, last season, we did not generate sponsorship revenues from our training. Yeah. For example, well, now we're 11 million pounds in new money and a combination of NOX and sum up to wonderful new partners that were not club partners last season. So we've got new revenues being created there. We are going to, geez, I just, we're going to announce a sponsorship. Gosh, I hope it's tomorrow. Could slide. It's tomorrow Friday. I think it'll be tomorrow. We're going to announce another sponsorship with a major global brand tomorrow. So we've got sponsorship inventory, sponsorship categories. We don't have a car sponsor today. Yeah. We don't have a bank sponsor today. We don't have an airline sponsor today. Okay. So the path to growing our revenues to me is obvious. Sponsorship is a big piece of it. We're going to stand up a retail business. What's called in the industry a mono brand where we're producing our own product and better product and you know where we are both the manufacturer and the vendor.

20:26So we've got a deeply plumbed really well articulated strategy to grow revenues. And those revenues, we can grow our revenues here by 50% between now and 2030 while the other clubs are growing at 4% compounded. So we can catch from behind, but that's on us. Yeah. That is self-help. That's self-help. We also have a plan when we decide what we're going to do with the stadium. That's what we're getting to capacity. We need more capacity and that capacity is revenue. Whether that is a wholly renovated St. James's park or a new stadium. We've not made a final decision on that. But the decision is clear. We need, you know, we need more capacity. Now, I'm trying to keep track of all the things you put at the show. Sorry. One of the news. Right here. Okay. So this marketplace is not an American marketplace. This community from a ticket sales perspective does lots.

21:28I would say does more than their fair share of lifting the revenues of this club. So when I think about our opportunities to grow revenue, I think mostly about how we get revenues from customers outside of this marketplace. Again, a global retail business, global sponsor. Yeah, I think you know, we will do things like VIP hosting and hospitality. I think there is headroom there and frankly demand for it. That's why we made significant investments in St. James's park even over the summer to bring in some new and quite frankly a higher priced product because there was a demand for it. And we got to take advantage of that. But when I think about ticket prices for what I would call the fan, I don't see that as a big opportunity right now. And I think we need to be very cautious here about how we proceed there. I spend a lot of time in conversation with the fan advisory board.

22:30Yeah. And Michael McCarthy, he and I talked nearly every day. I speak to Lisa Moore and the NUST, the supporters trust almost every day. They've made their thoughts on ticket prices very clear. You know, we need to make sure that we don't let our rivals because we're in a competitive business. Run away from us on revenue. But we need to make sure that we are keeping our fans at St. James's park and keeping that magic because that's really what we're selling. That's the product. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And that's what attracts brands like Knox, brands like Summer, brands like the one we're going to announce tomorrow. They recognize that they want to put their brand near our magic. Well, it's what Alex used to say Alex of this parish. We're used to say when PIF bought the club, you know, you cast the United was valued at $325 million, $350 million, whatever the end price point ended up being.

23:39You're not, you're buying a pretty rubbish squad, a relegation threatened squad. The reason it was valued at that is the fans. It's the noise. It's the feeling around the club. It's the potentially untap potential at that time that I think is being tapped into much more now of this fan base because like we say, like emotional regulation is not necessarily our forte. But that is why St. James's park can be a cauldron when it needs to be. And it's what I think is the value of this club in a lot of ways. I know you're not going to be able to give us an answer on the stadium, new stadium or renovated stadium. But are we any close to a time frame? Well, I think I did give you an answer. Not to be precise, we haven't quite decided yet. And the reason we haven't is we need to work through the options. And you know, it's some of those manic fans we're talking about. It's very easy to put a prompt into Gemini or chat GPT and throw up what a stadium might look like in the future.

24:44And that's wonderful, but that's not really a transactible option necessarily. And these are complicated. I think there's a really good complicated and complex plans. But we're going to need partners to help us think through that, whether that's design, construction, financing. We're assembly with the best option is. And we're working on multiple competing priorities at once. If you're listening and not watching, it's easier to get a stadium for this dog. And he is the cutest little guy, but he is said to stage right now. He's super affectionate. He's not big on consent. And I promise we're working on that on that. Look, let me, you know, when we talk about infrastructure projects, and I'm happy we're talking about them at least tangentially. And we're thrilled that we were able to announce the new training grant. Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah, as an expression of our intent and our ambition made real, right? This is 190 million pounds.

25:46And is that built so to interrupt you? Is that being footed by PIF entirely or is it a combination of things like, or is that not something you can do? Well, it's ownership. Yeah, okay. We are majority owned by PIF. We've got Ruben Brothers as owners as well, but yeah, this is the club in the stadium. It's a huge investment. And it's a huge investment and it's real investment. Yeah, this is real money because, you know, there's no direct return on that investment. You know, a new stadium. Why do you build new stadium? Because they'll generate more revenue. There's a great return. There's no direct return on a new training ground. The return on a new training ground is giving us every possible advantage to attract, develop, and retain the best footballers in the world. I mean, what we're building here is big. It is not quite as big as Real Madrid's, but this will be the second biggest training ground in global football. We'll take that. Yeah, we'll take it. What we're building is going to be gorgeous and something we're very proud of.

26:47I had the privilege of working at Real Madrid's training ground at Valdivebos. And when you get out of the car and you've arrived at work and your first feeling is, whoa, I mean, it's impressive. Place matters, context matters. And that feeling of pride arriving at Real Madrid, I want to bring to this football club. Yeah. And we've now got a clear path to do that. With the training ground announced, we are now, we've got a little more capacity back to work on what's next. Have you ever seen the images of our old footballers having ice baths and bins? Yeah. It's going to be a step up from that. Yes, we're stepping up materially from there. Look, these things matter. The type of athlete that we need at Newcastle United, they have options. Yeah. They get to choose where they want to go. And we want them to choose us because we've got the best facilities.

27:47We've got the best path. We've got the best organization for them and for their families. These are family decisions very often. And our training ground today, which again, we made a big investment in our existing training ground to get up from. What I would describe as good to very good, our existing training ground is now very good. But it's not world class. And our ambitions world class, we need facilities to match and that's what we're going to go build. Size the happiest person in the world. I'm just going to play with the dog. You've mentioned that you're almost a year into the role now. Happy almost anniversary. In terms of your role, how it's all gone over the past year, have you any kind of finger on the pulse of your own popularity among the fan base? Because there was natural skeptics. Natural skepticism.

28:48Then there was sort of this is going to happen. And you went and talked to talks for at the beginning of the year. And people were like, oh, that's a big ambition stated there on the radio and things like that. And the event last week, you said that you don't regret any of that. And you still want, like you've got a state, there's ambitions, you've got to put a timeframe on it and all of that stuff. And now, of course, the summer has gone really by all most fans opinions really bloody well. People are tweeting like, fair fucking play to the ownership and the management and leadership of this club because these eight signings are class and YISIS is really good and it's all going well. And the sentiment around you and all of the sort of leadership seems to be much more positive. Do you care about that? Is that, if you were thinking about noise and signal, does that? I'd put that noise to the glory. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think the danger of playing that game is then you're going to get dragged up and dragged down. And it's very hard to focus on execution when you are paying attention to some of that noise in the system.

29:56And by the way, whether you're the CEO of the club or you are the left back, I would offer the same advice. Every one of our players says they don't look at social media and I think they do because... I think something like that. And I don't mean our players, I mean players. Young athletes too. I think we also need to recognize that sometimes the internet is not the nicest place on earth we know. So, we're a left. So, you know, I don't pay much attention to that. I'm not interested in that. What I know is we have clear eyes, a clear ambition, an unmatched work rate, and an excellent plan. We do all those things, then our... Speaks for self-reading. That's right. The deeds will speak for themselves. So I'm much more interested than the deeds than I am words. I think you have got this reputation for being quite bullish about the 2030 statement, which everyone is holding you to. And I appreciate that you've told already, told everyone that you've got to set a target otherwise.

31:00What's the point? If you're not going to be ambitious, I totally understand that sentiment. But one year into year, the five years, you've given yourself to kind of achieve those goals. And if you had to rate how... not just your own performance, but the performance of everyone you're working with, to get to the end point, how has that fist yet gone and then... Yeah, West and Tidal. Some have gone extraordinarily well, along the way they've all been setbacks. Thinking about 2030. So, you know, what did I say and what have I say? And I'll reiterate it here because I'm not going to waver from it. That by 2030, this club will be consistently incredibly competing for the top rises in global football. Now, SCRs we just talked about, is a system that has... critics would call it unfair, right? We're in a game where the correlation between wage bill and points earned is incredibly tight.

32:00Yeah, it's almost one to one. And then we say, oh, by the way, the more you earn, the bigger the envelope we'll give you to work with, because every place in the table is more money. So, it's a situation that is very attractive if you're at the top, because you've got structural advantage to stay there, and very challenging if you're not, because you've got structural limitations to keep you where you are. There are things that we can do, the self-help I'm talking about that, to change our own fortune, or at least make certain that we are optimizing the opportunities that are before us. And that's our responsibility, regardless of the system. Finishing 12th last season is a setback. Yeah. It's a setback reputationally. You know, that is a challenge when you're into recruitment, and you're not offering European competition, for example. When you look at a couple of those high-profile targets that we did not manage to land,

33:01Munoz went to Liverpool, could offer Champions League football. Monsombie went to Asdenville, could offer today Champions League football. That's a deficiency that hurt us. What really hurts is the missing revenue. So, the R envelope, the 26-27 season, is smaller than it would have been had we been in European competition this year. So, that's a setback. Okay. We keep on keeping on. We work with what we've got. We don't worry about what we don't have. And it does mean that you've got to respond to that situation. One of the very first moves we made this summer was the sale of Anthony Gordon to FC Barcelona, which really we had to do because we were working in the backdrop of violation of UEFA rules. A significant sanction that we had to get our, frankly, our Champions League wage bill down to a bill that fits for a club

34:12that's going to be playing domestic football this season. Now, I'm happy with the, frankly, the business we did on Anthony Gordon. I think the feeling was that was a good price and that helped from a envelope perspective. And by the way, it looks like Anthony's off to a good start at FC Barcelona and good for them. I think it's something that's worked out for us, for Barcelona and for Anthony. I hope that all goes very, very well. But it wasn't the first move. We made the first move. We made was extending Lewis Miley here. Lewis Miley is one of those players that we believe is part of our future, a local boy, a product of our academy, and incredibly important. He's not the only player that we've extended from the current squad. We're happy to announce Harvey Barnes extension recently as well. So there's a lot to work with here. But again, we need to be very clear about what we have today, what we expect to achieve in the coming weeks and months. And make sure that one of those sees consistently and credibly competing is the consistently.

35:17We need to be consistent, which means we need to have wage bills that are compliant. We can't be wasting money, let alone sporting sanctions, but we can't be wasting money paying you wafer fines. Yeah, I say wasting money. What would have been wasting money is that one of the big green lights of success for this season has been the turnaround in the fortunes of Anthony Langer and Yuan Wyser. Because I remember you talking in February about the outlay from the previous summer, and how important it was that we got some sort of success from that because that was a huge amount of money in the castle spent, I think 250 million, you know, ballpark. And had those two players not started the season the way they have, would we have been in bigger trouble? How important is the success of getting those two back into the fold and firing and is that credited the ice low as well? I'm thrilled to see each of those guys off to early success. And long made that continue. Yeah, they're each wonderful guys.

36:19I think there's maybe a multitude of factors that each had a really good World Cup. True. Yeah. And I think that will have been confidence boosting for each of them. They've got a new manager and with new manager becomes fresh starts. Yeah, Wyser had a terrible injury last season. And I think that I don't know if he ever really got over that. So again, early days, we're off to, each of them are off to wonderful starts. But we did say it's part of our plan. You know, imagine if we can get the more out of each of those players and they're delivering. So far, so good. In terms of the like SDR and all of the acronyms that we all have to leave in every new one every season. Does it not frustrate you? Do you not want to, do you not want? Is there like an appetite to like fostersome kind of change or like attack the Premier League? Is it frustrate? Sure it's frustrate.

37:20Sure it's frustrate. It's frustrate when it rains. Yeah, sure. It rains in environmental condition. And right now the environment we have is SDR. Now, now, you know, a couple of thoughts. One is, you know, we voted for system change. We were one of the clubs that voted for SDR. We felt that SDR squad cost ratio was a superior system for us to, in which we could compete relative to the prior system of PSR. And that's a vote that the Premier League required, a super majority required 14 clubs to vote. And it passed by the narrowest of margins. So we were the ones that got the type of system change we wanted. Now, I can also tell you, as I said, having American sports background where you've got salary cap, you know, you fight about in the US sports. You fight about revenue sharing. Right. Every single day. Okay. And, you know, I'm coming from Madison Square Garden sports and the New York Knicks, which is one of the top revenue generating clubs in the NBA.

38:23Knicks in five. New York Rangers, one of the top revenue generating clubs in the NHL. And, you know, we get pretty frustrated when we're there. And the Knicks are sending distributions to other teams that then turn around and use that might be a bid-john of free agents. Look, no system is perfect. Every system has frustrations. I think we've got to do the best we can with the system we've got while we've got it. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, I didn't expect a dramatically different answer. I just like, you know, it's the thing that frustrates us most as fans as well, isn't it? Like, we got bought by PIF and it was like, holy shit, we're going to be like incredibly rich. And then it was like, actually, you can't spend any of that. And it's all right. All right. Okay. Man, you can do it 10, 15 years ago, but we can't do it at all. That's what sticks. It's the fact that Chelsea and Man City did it. Now it's not. No, we're not. And knowing that Manchester City have allegedly broken the rules so many times, we still don't know how that's going to play out. And some supporters, and again, I don't want to generalize on anyone's behalf,

39:26but would ask, why don't we try and push the boundaries? Why don't we try and break the rules? Yeah. And I'm not saying that that's a good thing, but has it crossed anyone's mind to... Yeah, tie them up in... Just stick your fingers up to these rules and go, you know what? We're going to do it all the way. It would be kind of weird to vote for it and then be like, but... Yes, true. But here are two fingers, but I suppose. I'm going to stick to consistently incredibly competing. Yeah. Okay. And we have planned to do that and buy 2030. And by the way, we've got so much headroom here that I believe that we can succeed in the system that we have once we get ourselves sorted out and optimized. A couple of... I know we've taken a lot of your time already very, very quickly. Anything about the region that has surprised you? You've lived here a year now or maybe? Oh, I love it. How much I love it. I think a lot... You know, I'm coming from Manhattan. And... And Newcastle's not Manhattan. So it has so much to offer. I'm thrilled here. Lou, the dog is beyond thrilled here.

40:28He's doing that here. Look, these are my neighbors here in Newcastle are the nicest people on earth. You'll get that. They're genuinely kind. The food's great. The air's clean. The water's clean. I am thrilled to be here. It's a beautiful part of the world. I'm getting married in two weeks. Can I grab a... We're bringing a hundred friends and family from Canada and from the US here. And we just... You know, we want to do a destination. What do we do in New York? We say, no, we're here in Newcastle. I want to show this region off to a whole bunch of people. Most of them who have never been here. I love this. I'm thrilled and proud to be here. That's meant. Congratulations. Thank you. I hope they love it. We love it, obviously. And lastly, we will let you go after this. We're in Newcastle 2.0. It has started. It has started. It's starting well. What does Newcastle 3.0 look like? Oh, that's good.

41:29We're impatient, if anything. Yeah, clearly more and more and more. I think it's too early to talk about that in detail. I think about these... Let's think about my first year. As I come to my first year, I think I've got a very clear assessment of the potential of the organization. The gaps between where we are, where we need to be, and how to go fill those. So now, as I enter my second year, I think every day about execution. And I think about how we promote the type of culture we need within the organization to go make those dreams a reality. We've got infrastructure projects. We've got culture projects. We've got a lot in front of us. That will take some time to build and get rid of fully profit from. I think Newcastle 3.0 is ultimately what it looks like when we have a new home or a fully renovated home.

42:37And an organization that is world's best. There is nothing that stops us from being the world's best business team. At one of the world's premier football clubs, we need to be in that conversation of, is the world's best football club, Newcastle United. That is what we're aimed at building between today and the end of Newcastle 2.0. Okay. That was a great answer. We just came up with a really funny question. That was a really good answer. Thank you, Leia. Thank you, Leia. Oh, what's the one that strap myself? No, it's a good answer. We will leave it there. We promised, Leia, that this will be half an hour. We are now knocking on 45 minutes. So thank you so much for your time and for your thoughtful answers today. Thank you, Sai. Thank you, Lou, for being here with us. We're very, very grateful. Thank you guys for watching and all listening. We will be back as normal after the Bournemouth game on Sunday. Three points. There's three points to celebrate three points. Thank you once again, David.

43:37Thanks again. Pleasure. Take care. Thank you. Thanks, Simon.