Villa Park Redevelopment

[algy]

The optimistic voice that is often in my head is telling me that we’re doing everything as organically as possible, kind of like we have with team building, while knowing the investment and wealth is there if we need a big gear change when the time is right.

Stating the obvious here, but PSR/SCR, we need revenue to grow to allow further investment.

Spot on Percy.  Strikes me we are achieving most the benefits of the Purslow Plan but at a fraction of the cost.  The revenue per ticket might be less as the product is not quite as good however that just lends itself to fewer GA+ tickets and more for the average fan. Which is what we have been asking for.

Agree completely. This feels more like what we actually need to me.

[olaftab]

It’s all short termism, make as much money as they can, and dispose of the asset as soon as they get a mental offer. Our sort of owners don’t do 50 year plans.

[AV82EC]

It’s all short termism, make as much money as they can, and dispose of the asset as soon as they get a mental offer. Our sort of owners don’t do 50 year plans.

Easy to make the assertion but does it have any grounding in reality? I’m not saying you’re not right but we have no idea of Naseef or Wes’s long term commitment or otherwise.

[not3bad]

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[Pete3206]

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Spot on

[Hookeysmith]

The optimistic voice that is often in my head is telling me that we’re doing everything as organically as possible, kind of like we have with team building, while knowing the investment and wealth is there if we need a big gear change when the time is right.

Stating the obvious here, but under PSR/SCR, we need revenue to grow to allow further investment.

We have had (for us anyway) 2.5 years of, if not success then at least growth on and off the field. To suddenly want to jump from 42K to 60K+ is unrealistic.

Not only have the scum 6 had many years of Champs league money, and favourable press for the casual home and away fan, they also have common that in the main they have all either won major trophies or at least been there or there abouts*

Cite£ had an antire area of land gave them with a huge stadium in it. Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs have the huge advantage of being in London and the North west lot have (hates to say it) have had a huge fan base since the 60/70's

We will require to win or be there every year challenging on all fronts for a good few more years before we could justify such a huge stadium change. Fans are fickle and the recent surge in crowd numbers can just as easily drop off if we lose our way a little.



*Obviously not Spurs

[Dante Lavelli]

It’s all short termism, make as much money as they can, and dispose of the asset as soon as they get a mental offer. Our sort of owners don’t do 50 year plans.

Easy to make the assertion but does it have any grounding in reality? I’m not saying you’re not right but we have no idea of Naseef or Wes’s long term commitment or otherwise.

Also, if spurs were sold tomorrow how much of their value would come from their cash-cow stadium rather than the value of their team?  A stadium might be a long term commitment but doesn't necessarily tie the owners to the asset for any longer.

[paul_e]

I mostly agree with hookey. We obviously need stadium upgrades but we do need to be careful we don't load ourselves with a bit of a white elephant.

That said, a new build stadium designed with other events in mind and with space and facilities to create footfall away from matchdays would mitigate those risks far better than rebuilding the north stand would.

If a new build is off the table for now then tinkering at the edges like this makes more sense I think, especially if we can get to 50k this way. As the plans are clearly marked as a feasibility study it'll be interesting to see what the outcome is. We could even look to get started this summer because a lot of the work could go ahead whilst there are concerts going on.

[algy]

Is Villa Park actually unsuitable for other events, though?

We seem to be putting on a gig for some local band or other this summer which has made a bit of a splash in the papers and so on.  If the ground is good enough to host Metallica, say, then I'm not sure which major band it isn't suitable for.  I think the Warehouse development is genius too, it should allow us to accommodate all sizes of gigs from the fairly intimate up to ... well, Bruce Springsteen for example, or Pink, or whoever.

If we can get Villa Park in use several times a week, even if it's just smaller gigs on a Friday night, then that makes all sorts of things easier, from the big stuff (much easier to argue a case for better transport links if they're in use that often) through to the small (bar staff will be better if they're working more frequently).

The transport links we have are in many ways second to none.  There's 2 railway stations, on 2 separate lines, within walking distance of the stadium.  We're right by the M6, and we're in pretty much the easiest city to get to in the whole of the UK.  Of course they could be improved, and I don't feel like that's overly likely in the very near future for the same reasons as Manchester United won't get huge government handouts for their improvements ... but the infrastructure is there, it's up to us to make a strong enough case for improving it.

The only real arguments against Villa Park are:

First, that 50k isn't a big enough stadium ... which seems to ignore the fact that the only significantly larger stadia outside London will be Old Trafford (Manchester), Anfield (Liverpool), the Principality Stadium (Cardiff), Murrayfield (Edinburgh), and Celtic Park (Glasgow) - 2 of those are national team stadiums, and the other 3 belong to teams that have been WAY more successful than we have in anyone's living memory.

The other is the facilities, which is kind of fair enough in the sense that our ground was built at a time when hospitality wasn't as much of a thing.  But then is the hospitality at any of those stadia that much better than ours?  From what I've seen of the Principality Stadium, it doesn't strike me as having significantly better facilities than we do.  I imagine Murrayfield is even less so.  Celtic's doesn't look as good as ours from a quick skim of the website.  Manchester United's look like something from the 80s. Liverpool's to be fair looks pretty good, but to me the idea that we somehow have massively inferior hospitality feels like nonsense.  For a club outside of London, we have a pretty decent hospitality offering.

[oldhill_avfc]

Ibrox, new Everton, St James ?

Just saw ‘significantly’ ….

[Lucky Eddie]

The optimistic voice that is often in my head is telling me that we’re doing everything as organically as possible, kind of like we have with team building, while knowing the investment and wealth is there if we need a big gear change when the time is right.

Stating the obvious here, but under PSR/SCR, we need revenue to grow to allow further investment.

We have had (for us anyway) 2.5 years of, if not success then at least growth on and off the field. To suddenly want to jump from 42K to 60K+ is unrealistic.

Not only have the scum 6 had many years of Champs league money, and favourable press for the casual home and away fan, they also have common that in the main they have all either won major trophies or at least been there or there abouts*

Cite£ had an antire area of land gave them with a huge stadium in it. Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs have the huge advantage of being in London and the North west lot have (hates to say it) have had a huge fan base since the 60/70's

We will require to win or be there every year challenging on all fronts for a good few more years before we could justify such a huge stadium change. Fans are fickle and the recent surge in crowd numbers can just as easily drop off if we lose our way a little.



*Obviously not Spurs

Sounds like a very good reason to protect your loyal season ticket holders to me.

[Hopadop]

How much do Premier League clubs make from tickets?

Sorry if I've missed this posted elsewhere.  I suppose a new, glamped up North Stand would help both increase the numbers AND the 'avg gate yield per fan'.

a) We've got a lot of catching up to do
b) I'm not sure we can
c) Or if I want us to

Also, the 3rd most unprofitable in Europe? Blimey

[kippaxvilla2]

So is the capacity going up to 50k then?

[The Edge]

So is the capacity going up to 50k then?

Not quite.

[Chris Harte]

I've no idea if this plan is real or not. However, if it is real, it's not enough, in my opinion. At least, not on it's own.

It's going to put around six thousand on the ground capacity, however, the waiting list for season tickets is reported to be around 40,000.

Now, what if only one in four of those on the list, if offered a season ticket tomorrow, actually bought one?

A bit of simplistic maths tells you that in that event the ground would be around four thousand seats short. However, I don't for one minute think the club won't seek to increase the GA+ offering in that area. There will be premium seats in this plan, so in the scenario I describe above of those ten thousand fans agreeing to buy a season ticket, it'll be less than 6,000 who actually get one.

I just hope there's also a significant number of family seats too within this plan if it's real, because that's what they should be doing.