London Stadium Season 3 (2018/19)

ASLEFshrugged

In March Sir Robin Wales, leader of Newham council for 23 years, was deselected as Labour's candidate for Mayor and replaced by Councillor Rokhsana Fiaz.

According to Private Eye Fiaz is now investigating Sir Robin's dodgier deals including the £52.2m of Newham council money sunk into the Olympic Stadium and then written off. It seems that Karren Brady has been trying to arrange a meeting with Fiaz ever since she was elected in May but Fiaz won't talk until she has all the facts.

BubblesNeverDies

https://www.rokhsana.org/about/

Aslef, could do with more like her.

ASLEFshrugged

Bubbles, could do with fewer like Robin Wales.

BubblesNeverDies

Aslef ;ok

Pearces_Left_Foot

Capacity issued resolved going up to 60K soon and hopefully up to 66K afterwards

MrsGrey

More details here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46259611

grey_til_I_dye

From that article:

(new Chief Executive of E20) Garner has a positive working relationship with Karren Brady

And presumably a clearer grasp of legal issues,since every other time we've ended up in court or arbitration with them, they have lost.

;quaver Can we sue you every week? Can we sue you every week? ;quaver

MrsGrey

A reminder from the club that if you are on the ST waiting list, to make sure your details are up to date, otherwise you'll miss out when the new ST allocation is available.

https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2018/november/21-november/capacity-increase-new-season-tickets-sale-soon

Yeoldhammer

So is the plan to go 60k for the beginning of next season and 66k at a later date ? or 60k from January and 66k from the beginning of next season ?

IronHerb

60k as soon as the get it past the SAG certification process. 66k needs some money to be spent by us I believe so next season is the most likely.

MrsGrey

And some details emerge of what that 'money to be spent by us' amounts to and what for.

A stepped increase in rent, plus we cover the administrative costs of the process + any physical improvements associated with extra capacity. Which seems fair.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46545833

Adam

So, UK Athletics have booked the London Stadium for 2 weekends in July for the next 6 years.

With the Qatar World Cup being in November/December 2022, the 2022/23 premier league season will likely start in July 2022.

With the lengthy process of changing the stadium from Athletics to Football, this means we could have to play our first, maybe, 3 home games elsewhere.

If we switch our home games to away games (like we did previously), we could have a situation where our first 6 games of the season are away from home!

IronHerb

The SAG have issued the license which enables the capacity to increase to 60,000 for the Brighton home game and beyond.

https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2018/december/21-december/matchday-capacity-now-60000

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Wasn’t sure where to put this, couldn’t remember if there was a financial thread or not, there is “board / fan” one?

Financials up to May 2018, this is pretty early for us to make public.

https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2018/december/21-december/west-ham-united-announce-full-year-results

Made a profit (down from previous year)

Paid some more debt down

Still owe the shareholders a tidy sum (£45m)

They still take interest on it

Matchday revenue was less than the last season at UP

Record player spends

BKB was paid £400k consultancy fee for finding the Yank £10m interest free investment

Wages approx 60% of income

For me, couple of things, the move was supposed to generate more fund (think it was estimated approx £10-15m) from matchday sales, that clearly isn’t happening so what’s the gig there?

Also, no matter what, I’ll never ever get over the charging of the interest by the owners, id rather they took a performance based salary, in my opinion they’ve deliberately delayed the repayment of some of it to generate more interest for themselves.

Pearces_Left_Foot

I think no stadium sponsor and reduced capacity are the reasons for income being less

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Reduced capacity? We’ve been selling 22k more tickets for two years now. While the cheap tickets are obviously a good thing, someone has seriously miscalculated on those original quotes about extra revenue the move would bring.

Matchday income doesn’t include naming rights, part of the reduced income
Was down to getting less TV money

Pearces_Left_Foot

The. Capacity is 66 we have had 57 thinking they over estimated how many we would be getting every week plus we only get a small amount of food and drink income as most of it goes to stadium operators . The last season at Upton Park was an exceptional year we were on tv a lot that year even noble testimonial was televised . At the end of the day tv money is where most of the income comes from nowadays but at least we are getting more fans attending games and it’s affordable compared to other London clubs with their swanky cheese rooms and artisan bakeries etc. I think getting more people attending games especially kids will give the club more long term supporters ( get em while there young) and hopefully turn a few away fr9m the dark side (spurs)

MrsGrey

Although.... cheese room ;bowdown ;nonono ;wahoo

Adam

I think the average ticket price is significantly lower than it was at UP. There’s no specific evidence for that but we have much cheaper tickets now. I read that the cheapest season ticket at LS is £325 lower than at UP.

Also, we played 6 sold out cup games at home during 15/16, compared to 2 not-even-close-to-being-sold-out cup games at home during 17/18.

But as PLF wrote, tv revenue is much more important, as is selling out the stadium.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Pearces_Left_Foot said:

The. Capacity is 66 we have had 57 thinking they over estimated how many we would be getting every week plus we only get a small amount of food and drink income as most of it goes to stadium operators . The last season at Upton Park was an exceptional year we were on tv a lot that year even noble testimonial was televised . At the end of the day tv money is where most of the income comes from nowadays but at least we are getting more fans attending games and it’s affordable compared to other London clubs with their swanky cheese rooms and artisan bakeries etc. I think getting more people attending games especially kids will give the club more long term supporters ( get em while there young) and hopefully turn a few away fr9m the dark side (spurs)

Not sure how they over estimated? Surely they knew that the original and foreseeable maximum attendance was 57k?

They also knew theyd only be getting 30% of food/drink, just like they also knew
They would be saving £ by not having to pay for stewards, Police, pitch, goals and corner flags, upkeep of the ground, as it was all wrapped up in a cheaper rent?

I know where most of the revenue comes, but that is not my point or my beef, they partially sold the move on the notion that we would get more matchday revenue out of it, when in fact the first two seasons have come nowhere near what they said and is in reverse.

All for the kids being able to go, especially on the cheap, that’s a huge positive, thing is you can’t really charge more than what they are for the remaining 6k as they’re the furthest away. The 3,000 they just got - 2,000 have been sold to those on the waiting list as half ST, the rest general
Sale, which will hopefully fill in the gaps

;ok

Pearces_Left_Foot

Well they took the LDDC to court because our capacity had not been increased so I think they would of expected they would have had more people in the ground by now but I agree I would of liked to have seen a higher match day income than UP

MunichHammer

But didn't they reduce ticket prices when they moved? To me affordable tickets are worth more than an increase at the expense of the supporters.

chicagohammer

Affordable tickets are the way to go, whilst the revenue is obviously important, tickets sales can only be a relatively minor piece of the revenue pie.

Not sure what the average price of a ticket is, but assume a sellout 55,000 ground for every home game and you probably end up with 35-40 million, that only covers about three decent players, literally everything else has to be found from other sources of revenue.

Extremely simplistic example and more directional than anything, but I trust you see what I am getting at.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

As I said the cheap tickets are a good thing, but they didn’t just sell the move on that, they said we needed a bigger home to help bridge the Gap.......but financially it doesn’t. Well not yet

MunichHammer

Well, if you think about more fans coming to see the club then tickets are just marginal. What counts is that more people will see your sponsors so your deals will be worth more. And if you get enough people hooked through cheaper tickets you will have more potential customers when it comes to merchandise.

Moojor

You really can't please some people...

"Football is too expensive for you average Joe/Jane. Clubs are ripping off their punters" etc etc.

What the club isn't making as much money from the average Joe/Jane even after increasing the numbers, disgraceful!!

But yet, in that time, in which the supporters haven't been footing the bill, we have improved the team and got a quality manager in.

What exactly is the problem? That the supporters aren't being charged more on a match day??

No doubt you would be singing the boards praises is they doubled all the costs?

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Perhaps I’m not being clear?

At what point did I say that charging double or more would be a good thing?

I’ve repeatedly said that the cheap tickets are good haven’t I?

I was one of the biggest “moaners” on here at some of the ticket prices they charged at UP.

I’m repeating what they said, when they sold the move that by getting these extra fans in it would increase the match day revenue by 10-12m, it hasn’t in the first 2 years, did they get their numbers that wrong? that bothers me in that they may we’ll hike up the ticket prices sooner rather than later, especially with plenty of the 3 year deals finishing at the end of this season. So that’s my problem, okay with you?

;ok

MunichHammer

I don't think the numbers were wrong and I don't think they tried to mislead us or lie (as I have often read). I am prepared to believe that when they did their numbers they got this increase. At some point, however, they decided to reduce ticket prices to sweeten the move. Sure, they could have come out and said that cheap tickets and an increase by 10-12m were mutually exclusive but I get why they wouldn't do that.

What was the average matchday revenue for - say the last 5 seasons - at UP? I don't think you can count the last season all on its own.

Adam

Munich, you’re correct.

The last season at UP was exceptional compared to the previous seasons.

The final season at UP generated £27m. But the seasons before that were generating less than £20m. We made £19m, £19m, £18m in the 3 seasons leading up to the final season at UP.

Taking the first season’s income (£29m) at LS, we made an extra £10m, which is what SCHB was quoting the board as saying.

The second season’s income was less (£25m) due to a lack of home cup games (see my previous post).

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

I believe they got their numbers wrong, badly wrong, either that or they didn’t fully know and came out with some kind of sweeping statement? Perhaps to make the move slightly more attractive?

I have this awful feeling that once they’ve filled the additional 3-9k in the main with cheaper prices (6k are right at the back - not much choice) then they could crank up the ticket prices, just my opinion