Villa Park redevelopment

[foreveryoung]

16 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Tottenham is located in London. Everton are in Liverpool. These are different worlds.

Let me add to this. There are almost as many millionaires in London (~300,000) as there are people in Liverpool (~500,000)

There is no doubt there will be increase in revenues with a sparkly new stadium. I know we don't like to put VP down, but Everton's new stadium will be attracting way more commercial revenue than ours.

[Lichfield Dean]

6 minutes ago, El-Reacho said:

He says the planned new north stand was cancelled because there was no sense in having a 50k+ seater stadium that didn’t have the surrounding infrastructure to support it (parking and train capacity). 
Says the brick warehouse at the entrance to the north stand will still be converted to a large F&B destination.

Says he cringes at our players tunnel so they are redesigning it to make it much more intimidating for away teams. He says it currently resembles a council leisure centre.

He picks out 3-4 areas of the stands from where they are on the pitch that need redevelopment but it doesn’t give anymore detail on those.

Huh? The players tunnel is great as it is isn't it? It's a million times better than most other stadiums I see on TV. When I did the stadium tour I thought it was brilliant.

[ThunderPower_14]

Chelsea spent 20 years as one of the biggest clubs in the world with a 40,000 seat stadium. They're still playing in a 40,000 seat stadium. A delay of a few seasons won't kill us.

[El-Reacho]

11 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

Huh? The players tunnel is great as it is isn't it? It's a million times better than most other stadiums I see on TV. When I did the stadium tour I thought it was brilliant.

Yeah it looks well on TV, but you take his point that it’s a nice open/airy/comfy space for away players before the match.

Hasn’t really helped away teams in the last year or so having said that.

[CVByrne]

11 minutes ago, ThunderPower_14 said:

Chelsea spent 20 years as one of the biggest clubs in the world with a 40,000 seat stadium. They're still playing in a 40,000 seat stadium. A delay of a few seasons won't kill us.

I think whatever we do with the North stand it can't be something that takes 2 years to complete. So new plans should come for something to start post the Euros

[CVByrne]

34 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

There is no doubt there will be increase in revenues with a sparkly new stadium. I know we don't like to put VP down, but Everton's new stadium will be attracting way more commercial revenue than ours.

What commerical revenue is this? They are the only club outside of London to try something like this. The reasons for it were probably stupid in line with everything Moshiri has done there and was backed by a Russian oligarch who was going to overpay for naming rights. 

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

Everton's new Stadium will have capacity of 52,000 and we will have 45,000 (after these additional 2,700 new seats are added). 

If.

 

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, CVByrne said:

We don't.

So what, match day income is a drop in the ocean when it comes to total income.

Also Everton are a shambles, citing them to support any argument completely undermines yourself.

To compete you need to increase ALL revenue streams. Everyone else also benefits from the TV income. Our rivals also benefit from European money. They are all streets ahead of us in matchday revenue and stadium earnings from non matchday activities.

As the saying goes take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves. 

And I don't understand comparing Evertons output on the pitch and poor player strategey to their decision to invest in a new stadium.  They're 2 different things. Let's see what their income is from non TV and league placement Revenue is compared to ours 3 years from now shall we? 

[OutByEaster?]

13 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

I think whatever we do with the North stand it can't be something that takes 2 years to complete. 

How? It will take 2 years to do unless you put crews on it night and day, 24/7 which would be ridiculously expensive.

We'll be in a position to start looking at it after the Euros if we want to - it'll be interesting to see if the club looks to extend the currently granted planning permissions. Who knows, in 2029 the difficulties with contracted availability and cost might have eased somewhat.

 

[sidcow]

39 minutes ago, El-Reacho said:

He says the planned new north stand was cancelled because there was no sense in having a 50k+ seater stadium that didn’t have the surrounding infrastructure to support it (parking and train capacity). 

Can't believe he's doubling down on this nonsense. 

1) Villa Park has regularly hosted crowds of that size in the past. 

2) the transport plan was accepted by the Council. It was accepted WITHOUT the need for the Witton Station development as a requirement and it looks like that is going ahead anyway. 

3) can someone show me the 2 x railway stations within 10 minutes walk from Anfield, one of which has the most frequent train times outside of London?

4) can someone show me the motorway junction 1/4 of a mile away from Anfield?

I really can't believe he's doubled down on this, I really can't. 

[allani]

2 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

We need the redevelopment urgently. We are not capitalising on the Emery era. There are thousands of fans who aren't getting the opportunity to go to games,  get hooked and be our core supporters in the next generation. 

We don't have the facilities as present to keep up with Spurs,  West Ham etc. And soon Everton. Delaying just pushes us further behind for a longer amount of time. And I am fairly confident he has cancelled rather than delayed because his whole approach seems to be 'if my predecessor planned it I am not doing it'. 

Also: if everything that Purslow was doing was great - (a) why did NSWE feel the need to replace him at all?  It's not like he retired or got head-hunted by another club, (b) if NSWE thought Purslow's plans were good but that he wouldn't be able to bring in the extra revenue that someone like Heck could - then why didn't they tell their new "CEO" that the certain aspects of the strategy were core and could not be touched and limit his responsibilities to just increasing deals?, (c) if NSWE were convinced that the badge, redevelopment plans were great then why didn't they have the balls to stand up to Heck and tell him that they wanted to continue with the existing plans?  I just can't believe that there were not already doubts in their mind about the viability of some of these schemes or that a very strong case has been raised as to why we should change direction.  I just don't see NSWE as being clueless idiots like our previous three owners have been who could be so easily fooled by someone who people removed from the actual detailed discussions are convinced is completely incompetent and child-like.  Maybe if Xia, Lerner or even Ellis were still in charge I would be more willing to believe it.  I know these owners did employ (or were persuaded to employ) a clueless idiot who was completely incompetent to manage the playing side of things - but I think they quickly realised that their "dream" of recruiting the next Pep was flawed.  I also think it would have made them even more determined to ensure that any change in approach would be subject to much more scrutiny by them so that they didn't make a similar mistake elsewhere within the organisation and / or were not so reliant on the advice of others.

PS - For the record I always quite liked Purslow and felt he sometimes got a bit of a rough deal for what was essentially one bad decision - although at the time I could see the appeal of that decision.  It's clear that his skills were far more suited to the football administration side of things - and I think it is a shame that he couldn't be persuaded to stay and focus on that.  But it is clear that he didn't have the contacts or gravitas (at least oustide the UK) to really accelerate our revenue generation as much as required.  (I was also quite a big fan of the redevelopment changes when they were launched - but I'm also unsure that a significant reduction in match-day income for 2 seasons for a relatively small capacity uplift looks like a great investment at a time when we could be making bigger revenue improvements through better sponsorship deals, improved prize money, etc at least in part due to us being so difficult to beat in front of a full Villa Park.)

[sidcow]

37 minutes ago, ThunderPower_14 said:

Chelsea spent 20 years as one of the biggest clubs in the world with a 40,000 seat stadium. They're still playing in a 40,000 seat stadium. A delay of a few seasons won't kill us.

With unchecked Russian money before FFP was a thing, developing a monetised global fanbase using that unchecked money. 

And with London money we'd probably need at 52,000 stadium to get even close to their income from 40,000 seats. 

[CVByrne]

19 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

How? It will take 2 years to do unless you put crews on it night and day, 24/7 which would be ridiculously expensive.

We'll be in a position to start looking at it after the Euros if we want to - it'll be interesting to see if the club looks to extend the currently granted planning permissions. Who knows, in 2029 the difficulties with contracted availability and cost might have eased somewhat.

 

I don't agree with you, so we'll see what they come up with. I'm sure there are alternatives and we'll see those coming from club.

[sidcow]

Just now, OutByEaster? said:

At the 76'ers they have a high five tunnel - where you get to high five the players as they run out onto the court.

They charge $6,000 a game for it.

Man City and Spurs have their tunnel clubs, both sell for four digit prices on a game by game basis.

It's really simple, if Heck doesn't like a thing it's because it doesn't make money.

**** me. Homeless and starving in the world and someone thinks $6k of their money to high 5 a person is a valuable way to part with it. 

[WallisFrizz]

22 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Does this mean we need a "This Is Villa Park" sign? 

I’m fairly sure we have one already.

[sidcow]

1 minute ago, WallisFrizz said:

I’m fairly sure we have one already.

Nah. It's a "Welcome to Villa Park" 

Needs to be more intimidating, like a Lion biting the head off a footballer, loads of blood. That's what we need. 

Edited January 14 by sidcow

[FLVillan]

37 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Can't believe he's doubling down on this nonsense. 

1) Villa Park has regularly hosted crowds of that size in the past. 

2) the transport plan was accepted by the Council. It was accepted WITHOUT the need for the Witton Station development as a requirement and it looks like that is going ahead anyway. 

3) can someone show me the 2 x railway stations within 10 minutes walk from Anfield, one of which has the most frequent train times outside of London?

4) can someone show me the motorway junction 1/4 of a mile away from Anfield?

I really can't believe he's doubled down on this, I really can't. 

100% on this one.  Before the Holte was demolished post-Taylor report, the official capacity was 48,000.  And I would bet my house on that figure being exceeded many times, especially during the period from 1978-1983 when the Holte was stuffed full and they always announced the attendance as 47, 9** or 47, 8**.  They were clearly fudging those attendance figures (as did all clubs in that time period).  Infrastructure and roads around the ground were far worse in those days.  

[sidcow]

Just now, FLVillan said:

100% on this one.  Before the Holte was demolished post-Taylor report, the official capacity was 48,000.  And I would bet my house on that figure being exceeded many times, especially during the period from 1978-1983 when the Holte was stuffed full and they always announced the attendance as 47, 9** or 47, 8**.  They were clearly fudging those attendance figures (as did all clubs in that time period).  Infrastructure and roads around the ground were far worse in those days.  

I'll give it 5 minutes before someone posts that there are more cars these days

[nick76]

6 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I'll give it 5 minutes before someone posts that there are more cars these days

There are more cars today

[allani]

11 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Gonna stick my neck out and say that this would not work in England.

I have to say that (and I don't really follow basketball) I really don't like the elitism around it. Like most of the American sports it started as blue collar, but now both the NFL and NBA have gone bonkers. Courtside tickets can be as high as $50,000 per game (yes). At least NFL has a decent number of lower price seats, and MLB (which I follow the most closely) have some tickets as low as $6.

Aren't City and Spurs already doing something pretty similar?  Is it much different (apart from the prices) from paying for your kid to be a mascot?  Is it any different from paying for a stadium tour when you get to see parts of the ground that you wouldn't usually.  Is it any different from paying for a pit pass at the British GP (which has an absolutely massive number of people applying for tickets)?

I live in quite a rural part of Southern Italy and our local town has a big procession every August to commemorate a royal wedding that took place in the town 400 years ago.  Anyway each year they have an auction for someone to be the "king" for the day and the winning bid is almost always over €10,000.  Usually the winner is a TV celebrity / actor with no ties to the town at all.  There's probably a lot of people who would be very happy to spend a lot of money for a special occasion (e.g. 50th birthday) as something that they will be able to talk about for years.

I don't think it will be the same as a "high five" line - but I can definitely see the appeal of a VIP package that gives you a top notch dinner, access to the player tunnel pre and post match, corporate seats to watch the game, etc and maybe an opportunity to meet the players post match either in the changing room or as they are about to leave the ground.