We wouldn’t be borrowing against future income.
Just spreading the payments over more time.
Both League 1 and the Championship have guaranteed TV money. We could have said that 50% of TV money goes to the Brickfields project and 50% goes to immediate squad needs.
Additionally, this isn’t me “spending other people’s money”. This is guaranteed money for the club from the TV deal going to the club.
[Apologies - as always, I have started writing, gone around the houses a bit, and ended writing far too many words so that most people will just take a look, think 'too long' and move on!]
The bulk of any money spent on the playing squad basically vanishes out of sight into the players' bank accounts. Take a player signed for £1m (a low fee for a Championship talent but a high fee for Argyle) who is signed to a 4 year contract on £10k per week (a low wage for a Championship talent but a high wage for Argyle). The total cost of the deal is ~£3m, two-thirds of which is pocketed by the player. Instead you can invest £3m into infrastructure and at the end of 4 years you still have that infrastructure and can continue to use it to generate income or home-grown talent.
Of course, if you manage to get promoted whilst putting more money into your playing squad then yes, you might get back more money than you put in. But in that case you then you need all of that money (and more) to meet the higher financial demands of the kinds of players needed at that level. Much more likely is the scenario that you don't get promoted and end up like the majority of teams in the Premier League and Championship - continually having to pump new money into the club (even with the increased TV revenue) just to try to stay where you are. Unless you have a bottomless wallet or a magic-money tree this can only end one way - it is just a matter of when that end arrives...
The other possibility is that you buy a player for a total investment (including wages) of, say, £3m and then sell them on for a good profit (say for a £10m transfer fee). That seems to work from a financial perspective but the profit generated is nowhere near the apparent difference of £7m because of tax and inflation. To replace the £3m player in 2-3 years time you probably have to buy a new player for a higher fee and paying higher wages.
Also, to build a really competitive squad at this level it is necessary to have not one or two £1m (really £3m) players, but many times this (and probably a few £5m+ players thrown into the mix too) which means that to increase the chance of a return on investment via the promotion route you need a far higher level of investment than the kind of amount that might become available to Argyle. Finally, to attract the kind of players needed you need to be able to provide them with the kind of working environment, facilities and support personnel that they could have access to at other clubs at Championship level and for that you need to invest in support personnel and infrastructure...
I know this will seem a bit defeatist but I am a realist. This doesn't mean that there isn't fun to be had supporting the club in its attempt to try to compete - there is. I just think that anyone expecting the club to find external investment that dramatically alters the parameters that the club operates within is almost certainly going to be disappointed.
The other point about the £11m being spent on Brickfields is that I am pretty sure that Simon Hallett would not contemplate spending it on players if he wasn't spending it on infrastructure. It is not a choice between infrastructure
or players but a choice between infrastructure or
nothing. It's Simon Hallett's personal money that is, plain and simply, not there for anything other than Brickfields.