Chris Heck - President of Business Operations

[Dogtanian]

Apparently we have new London Offices? And the Big Heck has been talking from them.

https://www.ft.com/content/81eb92db-3e7d-4b45-a1a4-89f78530b87e

"Heck said it was vital to increase revenues to compete, highlighting opportunities in merchandise, sponsorship and expanding the club’s home stadium from roughly 42,600 seats to about 50,000"

 

[Somniloquism]

Wasn't the figure from 42600 to 50k from the revamped north stand which he cancelled? And stated he would replace with 2k seats?

[pablo_picasso]

Apparently we have new London Offices? And the Big Heck has been talking from them.

https://www.ft.com/content/81eb92db-3e7d-4b45-a1a4-89f78530b87e

"Heck said it was vital to increase revenues to compete, highlighting opportunities in merchandise, sponsorship and expanding the club’s home stadium from roughly 42,600 seats to about 50,000"

 

So why cancel the plans that was about to do just that?

Half of Hecks problems stem from his own fucking mouth...

[Drummond]

Heck hasn't got any problems, it's fans on message boards that have the problems.

[Billy Walker]

Apparently we have new London Offices? And the Big Heck has been talking from them.

https://www.ft.com/content/81eb92db-3e7d-4b45-a1a4-89f78530b87e

"Heck said it was vital to increase revenues to compete, highlighting opportunities in merchandise, sponsorship and expanding the club’s home stadium from roughly 42,600 seats to about 50,000"

 

I remember suggesting to The General back in the day that the Club should invest in a London HQ - a hotel/training complex kind of thing.  Aside from being a great investment for Randy/the Club portfolio-wise, it would have been an impressive facility to woo top signings, deal with the national media and to house our players for London matches.  Ah, what might have been!

[Dogtanian]

Apparently we have new London Offices? And the Big Heck has been talking from them.

https://www.ft.com/content/81eb92db-3e7d-4b45-a1a4-89f78530b87e

"Heck said it was vital to increase revenues to compete, highlighting opportunities in merchandise, sponsorship and expanding the club’s home stadium from roughly 42,600 seats to about 50,000"

 

I remember suggesting to The General back in the day that the Club should invest in a London HQ - a hotel/training complex kind of thing.  Aside from being a great investment for Randy/the Club portfolio-wise, it would have been an impressive facility to woo top signings, deal with the national media and to house our players for London matches.  Ah, what might have been!

It's probably a Regus office in Acton.

[chrisw1]

Apparently we have new London Offices? And the Big Heck has been talking from them.

https://www.ft.com/content/81eb92db-3e7d-4b45-a1a4-89f78530b87e

"Heck said it was vital to increase revenues to compete, highlighting opportunities in merchandise, sponsorship and expanding the club’s home stadium from roughly 42,600 seats to about 50,000"

 

https://archive.md/TJON2

[VillaTim]

Apparently we have new London Offices? And the Big Heck has been talking from them.

https://www.ft.com/content/81eb92db-3e7d-4b45-a1a4-89f78530b87e

"Heck said it was vital to increase revenues to compete, highlighting opportunities in merchandise, sponsorship and expanding the club’s home stadium from roughly 42,600 seats to about 50,000"

 

I remember suggesting to The General back in the day that the Club should invest in a London HQ - a hotel/training complex kind of thing.  Aside from being a great investment for Randy/the Club portfolio-wise, it would have been an impressive facility to woo top signings, deal with the national media and to house our players for London matches.  Ah, what might have been!

Or just use The Landmark Hotel like Purslow used to .

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Thanks for posting chris...interesting read in a number of ways!!!

[Demitri_C]

Like the we want to stay as CL club.

Thats what we all want and need. We dont wanna to be a one season pony like Newcastle

[Dogtanian]

Like the we want to stay as CL club.

Thats what we all want and need. We dont wanna to be a one season pony like Newcastle

Not with those horse-punchers about, definitely not.

[Villan82]

Wasn't the figure from 42600 to 50k from the revamped north stand which he cancelled? And stated he would replace with 2k seats?

Yes and due for completion for the 2026-27 season. His delay probably means, what, 2029 at the earliest now because of the Euros in '28

[chrisw1]

He prefers 'Great Eight' to 'Big Six'

I don't like either.  It implies some kind of untouchability and certainly a huge amount of media bias and rhetoric follows.

No clubs in the PL have a God-given right to consider themselves forevermore elite and above the remaining 14/12.  At times over the last 50 years Everton, Leeds, Blackburn. Forest, Ipswich, Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday, West Ham etc  will all have been in a position where they could have claimed to be big 6/8 but have fallen away.

For the good of the game we need to get away from perpetuating this 'big six' myth.  There is no Premier League without all of the 20 clubs playing in it.  I'm all for levelling out the TV money and prize money.  There will always be a big financial gap, but we shouldn't be perpetuating this and making the gap ever wider.

[dalians umbrella]

Never mind the Big 6, it's free-loading, sandwich-eating c***suckers like me that he's coming for.

https://archive.ph/TKzno


At Villa Park one afternoon, I went with Edens to visit the Lower Grounds, the all-you-can-eat dining area. Chris Heck, the club’s chief executive who formerly worked for the N.B.A.’s 76ers, suggested the idea for it shortly after he arrived in Birmingham last August. Touring the stadium, he stumbled on a decrepit ballroom-size space where ticket holders were permitted to gather. During the first game that the new venture was open for business, Heck says someone approached him on the concourse and took a swing at him — “because I took away the free space where he used to come and eat his sandwich.

After hearing how unpopular it was among supporters, I expected a dreary scene of a few people sitting at otherwise empty tables. Instead, the area was filled to capacity with some 800 fans. They were eating and drinking while a game played on several large screens. They certainly appeared to be enjoying themselves. According to Heck, the club would make 80,000 British pounds, or about $100,000, that afternoon. “We fill it up every game, so multiply that by 23,” he says.

Some of that money would doubtless end up being spent on making Aston Villa better: on players; or on importing more of the plyometric machines like the ones that Edens’s Bucks use in Milwaukee into Villa’s training facility; or on the scouting budget, perhaps. Lower Grounds would help defray the cost of trying to compete against some of the wealthiest owners and entities in the world. It would also, in some incremental way, make the business more valuable.

Those were ancillary benefits, but Edens insisted to me that they weren’t quite the point. He was convinced that the all-you-can-eat venue would improve the experience of attending a match, just as he felt confident that relieving the burden of the skiers trying to haul their kids’ stuff across the parking lot would be welcomed by club members at his Jackson Hole hotel. “Our fans are like, ‘We like tradition,’” Edens said. “And I tell them: ‘No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t.’ I mean, who doesn’t like a big-screen TV with plenty of food and beer?” Then he spread his arms wide and answered his own question: “Nobody.”

[Sexual Ealing]

Grim.