Lenders will only provide finance if they are confident the money can be paid back.
Guarantors are also not keen to actually have to pay the costs which a borrower cannot pay.
The thing is as we are paying it back over 30/40 years the increased capacity and the improved corporate facilities plus sponsorship due to naming rights and the prime location will pay for itself.
Say we did go down and we had reduced capacity and ticket prices due to being in the lower division, assuming we average £29 per ticket with a capacity of 35k at Goodison and 50k at the new stadium, then the return will be:
GP = £23,345,000
BM = £33,350,000
The cost of borrowing including the councils 4 million a year on top would be anywhere between 12-20 million depending on length of loan and interest rates. We would have made 10 million of that back through the ticketing and at a lower estimate we should be able to pull in 5 million per year for naming rights. That could mean we are a few million up or need to pay out a a few for a spanking new stadium on the Mersey. Not bad eh?
If you go to the full capacities then it works out something like this per season: (assuming BM will be 60k)
GP = £26,346,500
BM = £40,020,000
This again doesn't take into account that the corporate side will be much better at Bramley Moore than at Goodison.
When you go up to full ticket prices being in the prem and the extra sponsorship, if we can secure european games then the differences will grow further again. It is worth the risk, sometimes you have to speculate to accumulate, not even mentioning the prestige of being in that location, which could be a major factor in whether we can break out of the other lots shadow.
From a business perspective this is a complete no brainer.