Gavin Baldwin discusses future stadium events, friendlies abroad and Doncaster Rovers Belles

It's been a busy summer on and off the field so far, with numerous new signings added to Grant McCann's squad and improvements being made to the club's stadium and training ground.

Earlier this week the Free Press was granted a lengthy chat with CEO Gavin Baldwin. Here, in the third and final part of our interview, he discusses a range of topics such as non-football events in DN4, the Belles and the possibility of a Rovers friendly abroad in the future:

Q: This summer has seen ample non-Rovers events staged at the stadium. Is the plan to host more of these in future?

GB: "We've done the 'Play on the Pitch', the Eve Merton Trust game, there was world title boxing, Donnyfest - all of these generate significant revenues that go straight into the club.

"We don't want to lose the appetite we had when times were tough because it would be so easy to get lazy. Because realistically do we need to Donnyfest anymore to survive? Probably not. But let's not lose that discipline because that money can go into the playing squad.

"Our job is to make sure people don't get lazy but get hungrier and do more. Whilst other stadium staff were maybe having the summer off, we ran multiple events. In the past and the tough times, we'd take any booking for £2,000 because we needed the money.

"Now the plan is very clear: to have fewer events but for the ones we do host to be bigger, whether that be regional or national. So the aspiration with Donnyfest is to make that huge and something that everyone in Doncaster can be proud of.

"And if the club knows we have that every year, then that goes straight into the cashflow. So if we do four really big events then that's where we're changing and hopefully becoming a bit more mature as a business."

Q: What's the plan regarding away allocations for next season?

GB: "We're committed to housing away fans in the North stand next season and we'll work with Grant for what that allocation will be (game by game).

"If we use the Bradford game as an example last season. I would say we lost about £50,000 of revenue through restricting their fans - but we got promoted! And Grant would say that (arrangement) significantly contributed to that.

"So we'll keep every match as a conversation between Grant, Terry (Bramall, chair) and myself. Grant has been really clear that at times there is nothing better than shutting up big away fan followings. So he's not suggesting we only sell X amount for every home game.

"But as I say we'll have conversations on an ongoing basis but we'll always do what we can to give the team the best chance of winning on that day."

Q: Something many fans have asked about is the possibility of a Rovers friendly abroad to coincide with a week-long training camp. Is that something that's on the cards?

GB: "Yeah that's something Grant is talking about actually already. Obviously he'd like to please the fans but he wants to do what is best for the team. But straight after Spain this year he said he enjoyed it and that it was great but he's thinking of varying it up next summer.

"So that might mean we do it two weeks later and maybe we go to a country where we can add two or friendlies into the schedule. So it's very much on the agenda for us."

Q: Finally, are you able to just clarify the situation regarding the Belles after what was a testing season last time out?

GB: "With women's football, we (Club Doncaster) need to learn more. And it's constantly evolving. For instance, we need to understand what promotion for the Belles looks like and the implications of it. We understand that if they get promoted this year that it's a very good thing for the team and Club Doncaster. If they get promoted above that it could hurt the football team and we probably wouldn't let that happen.

"I'm going to the extremes here but if getting promoted to the Women's Super League (WSL) meant a budget of £10m, we can't afford that. And that's where we'd have to be reasonable. Using the Dons as another example, we spent years understanding them and understanding the implications of promotion.

"So we're really happy for them to get in the play-offs and do really well because the Dons operate with their own revenue and they bring additional income into Club Doncaster through beer sales and food sales for example.

"What they don't do is hurt the football club. At the minute, with the reorganisation of the women's leagues we couldn't hand on heart say we want them to be in the WSL because we don't know what that means. We've spoken to WSL teams and some of the squad budgets are huge and the honest answer is that at this moment is that we couldn't afford them.

"If we can get the Belles to generate their own revenue then it may be at that point where we change our aspirations long-term."

You can recap our earlier interviews with Gavin Baldwin, by clicking here for the first conversation and here for the second.