Villa Park Redevelopment

[chrisw1]

We're adding 6,000 with the stand.  The rest could / would have happened anyway.

But fair enough. 

[paul_e]

The size of the ground was never going to reduce by 10k for the whole two years.  The works would clearly have been phased and the period that parts of the Witton & Trinity were out of commission would be minimised and mostly done during off off-season.  But you already know this.

The extended stand will be c12k.  The Anfield Road stand is c16,000.

My single point is, this is our only opportunity to maximise the land we have.  If ultimately we need those 4.000 seats there isn't anywhere we can practically get them without nocking down the North Stand. There would have been further benefits of being able to provide far better hospitality facilities, which is something we clearly lag miles behind from the teams we are hoping to compete with.

I've said before, if the remaining stands were unfettered by land restrictions, then this would be a smart, quick upgrade.  But they're not.  So my point is not that this won't be a decent development, just that it's wasting our only realistic opportunity to absolutely maximise the land we have.  It's just my opinion and I appreciate that you disagree.

Again, with what you know this could be us wasting an opportunity but the plans from Birmingham Council make it pretty clear that other things are happening in the background that we can only speculate about.

On the amount of time the various parts of the ground would have been closed for, we don't know, no project plan was ever released. Maybe the average reduction over 2 years was more like 8k but that's guesswork by both of us. However if we go with 8k that's the best part of 400k tickets over 2 seasons (assuming We make Europe and get a few home cup ties). Could we afford that loss in revenue right now, given how tight we are on SCR?

The purslow stand was supposed to be about 13500, with the corners wrapped on both sides for the bottom tier, something that isn't included in this design, that suggests they have plans for both sides that mean they're willing to hold off on doing that (or have decided not to for aesthetic reasons).

It could easily be that they're already in talks with the council that will see changes to the roads that allow us to rework the corners of trinity on both ends and rework the DE/North corner, even just that, with no further changes to the DE could add a fair few seats.

We added experts to the board and we've going with the plan they've put together, you are clearly aware of that expertise, so the difference of opinion is I'm willing to trust people that know more than me and you, seemingly, refuse to do the same, because you liked the previous design.

[Ads]

We're adding 6,000 with the stand.  The rest could / would have happened anyway.

But fair enough. 

Not splitting hairs, but it puts us in a marginally better position in total numbers than the previous stand, which had a larger footprint but didn't take us beyond a really annoying 49,800 something. The equivalent of somebody who puts the volume on an odd number for their TV.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

We don't need a 60k stadium. Look at the number of empty seats now for the Europa League as evidence. People will only come if we're successful. Adding 10k is the right amount.

For me 60k is the magic number, it would allow the club to grow the fanbase by encouraging families and youngsters whilst not punishing long time supporting seniors and other fans for that matter with one ticket price fits all. Have a look at how Celtic manage to fill their 60k stadium, their pricing is exactly where we could go to fill the stadium.

A push to increase rather than reduce the number of season tickets up to 40k should be the target with the remaining tickets for occasional fans visits. A clear understanding of exactly who we are and what we're capable of is needed. We're not based in London, we're not in a one club city, we don't have a long list of recent trophy success to draw the gloryhunters but we are a family club with a large catchment area and the biggest attraction in town playing at a very unique stadium with real football history.

I think Heck completely misread the room with his price hikes even though we managed to sell out the games. What's not factored in is the number of long term fans who are walking away due to being priced out. Once you lose the habit it's difficult to entice those fans back to their previous attendance habits. Build local, grow global should be our mission.

[chrisw1]

I agree Rudy.

[bill]

Best to keep it open. We cannot afford the loss of income. Closing it last season and missing out on the extra millions would have made the summer even harder.

Looking forward to watching the construction- does it start December?

The loss of income of demolition and a  total rebuild, is actually pretty insignificant, compared to the clubs total income. TV money dwarfs gate receipts.

[Ads]

Closing the North would have cost >£10m in ticket revenue alone at base GA prices. That's not insignificant, its the difference between having to sell Tielemams or Kamara in the summer, or not.

[eamonn]

Plus - although hard to prove, it would have made it easier for away teams to come away with something, one end devoid of Villa noise while their fans carried the volume across more of the ground.

Given VP has been a fortress in the main under Emery, and we've over-relied on our home results, taking some of its strength away would have been a gamble. Every dropped point is potentially worth millions as we've seen...

[Duncan Shaw]

We don't need a 60k stadium. Look at the number of empty seats now for the Europa League as evidence. People will only come if we're successful. Adding 10k is the right amount.

For me 60k is the magic number, it would allow the club to grow the fanbase by encouraging families and youngsters whilst not punishing long time supporting seniors and other fans for that matter with one ticket price fits all. Have a look at how Celtic manage to fill their 60k stadium, their pricing is exactly where we could go to fill the stadium.

A push to increase rather than reduce the number of season tickets up to 40k should be the target with the remaining tickets for occasional fans visits. A clear understanding of exactly who we are and what we're capable of is needed. We're not based in London, we're not in a one club city, we don't have a long list of recent trophy success to draw the gloryhunters but we are a family club with a large catchment area and the biggest attraction in town playing at a very unique stadium with real football history.

I think Heck completely misread the room with his price hikes even though we managed to sell out the games. What's not factored in is the number of long term fans who are walking away due to being priced out. Once you lose the habit it's difficult to entice those fans back to their previous attendance habits. Build local, grow global should be our mission.

Can you send that to Francesco Calvo?

[chrisw1]

Closing the North would have cost >£10m in ticket revenue alone at base GA prices. That's not insignificant, its the difference between having to sell Tielemams or Kamara in the summer, or not.

I believe you can account for lost revenue from stand rebuilds within PSR.  I'm not sure if you can within SCR or not.

[paul_e]

Closing the North would have cost >£10m in ticket revenue alone at base GA prices. That's not insignificant, its the difference between having to sell Tielemams or Kamara in the summer, or not.

I believe you can account for lost revenue from stand rebuilds within PSR.  I'm not sure if you can within SCR or not.

SCR (under cost control as it's aim) probably isn't really the important bit of the UEFA regulations for this as it's only 1 of 3 parts of their overall rules. The Solvency bit is simple and just means not getting behind on payments to creditors, I can't see any problems for us there. That leaves the Stability (Football Earnings) rules and they're a bit messier. They're the ones where they can decide to not allow selling your womens team to your parent company or to adjust the acceptable value of sponsorships, etc.

This does still allow for funds to develop the stadium, etc but it looks like any losses from that would have to be covered within the 'acceptable deficit'. That's currently €60m over 3 years but with the option to increase to cover 'unexpected' impacts on revenue. I have no idea if drops due to construction work would meet this criteria or not.

The best article I can find covering the whole set of rules is here - https://morgansl.com/en/latest/financial-fair-play-20

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Hopefully we're searching for a sponsor for the new North Stand. The Witton Lane Stand is highly overdue one too. Then we get Villa Park sponsored by Fortress.

[FatSam]

We're adding 6,000 with the stand.  The rest could / would have happened anyway.

But fair enough.

Yes, it’s probably only because the latest Witton End proposals are smaller, that we’re looking at these incremental increases around the ground in the first place.

A much more focussed cost benefit analysis is now being applied to all redevelopment. The current programme of redevelopment is all about achieving the most bang for buck, and keeping areas of the ground open plays its part in this.

I agree that we are not squeezing the absolute maximum out of the current site, but to do so would be disproportionately expensive. Given our history, 50k is probably the right first step. If we do consistently sell-out at that capacity the next step is the difficult one, because it either means some pretty transformative investment in  frankly a bit of a backwater, or a new site.

[Ads]

They're not smaller? The original plan wasn't getting us to 50k.

[FatSam]

They're not smaller? The original plan wasn't getting us to 50k.

If the new proposals are bigger, I’m fairly sure it’s only because of the bowl optimisation around the ground. The new retrofit Witton End scheme is smaller than Purslow’s version. Only slightly, but the footprint is just smaller. I’d be interested to know how the seat/ row spacing compares.