The graph below shows the reported profits of Newcastle United.
This graph shows the profits made by the club each year since 1998. It also includes the amount paid out to shareholders in dividends each year.
It is clear that the club generally loses money. The best year was 2004 when the club made a profit of £215,000 (two hundred and fifteen thousand).
No one really wants the club to making a huge profit, the aim is to invest in the playing squad, or the ground. There is though a need to not lose money every year. The figures for 2006 and 2007 show how the club was spiralling out of control. In 2007 the last year Freddie Shepherd was running the club the loss was £32.9m or over £600,000 each and every week.
The total losses for the ten years shown was £114m. So in only ten years the club spent £114m more than it took in. The dividends were of course part of this. The total dividend payments for that period were £32.4m.
The number of shares owned by various parties has changed over the last ten years but essentially 69% of the shares have always been held by the Hall and Shepherd families. This means their dividends came to roughly £22.4m. If this is added to to the pay that these families were paid, which was £12.1m, they collectively took out around £34m in just ten years.
Any profit the Hall and Shepherd families made on the purchase of the club by Mike Ashley was actually money he paid to them, rather than money taken from season ticket sales, or shirt purchases that is club money. No estimate is being made here of the profit made when Ashley bought the club.
