New Everton Stadium

[GwladysBlue]

Dont take this The wrong way, I'm just asking the question.

We are gonna have a recession lasting many years with so do you think the owners still think it will be worth spending £500 million on a new stadium when just to get by supporters cash will maybe be needed to be spent elsewhere?

After 40 years, cos of financial reasons, I'm now one of many who for the first time will have to give up buying a season ticket and I'm not sure that Spurs would still have built theirs if they had foreseen what was gonna happen to the economy just 20 games after opening.
There is a chance it could take 10 years for attendances to recover (if ever?)

It depends if they want the club to progress or not. We can’t progress if we don’t have a new stadium and if they’re not willing to put up the money for the new stadium then we’re of no use to them and they’re of no use to us.

Football will bounce back from this. Crowds will return.

There was an interesting table I seen on BBC that said we’d be the third least effected club by playing next season behind closed doors because we take in so little in terms of matchday revenue. Tottenham stand to lose the most.

 

[degsy]

Dont take this The wrong way, I'm just asking the question.

We are gonna have a recession lasting many years with so do you think the owners still think it will be worth spending £500 million on a new stadium when just to get by supporters cash will maybe be needed to be spent elsewhere?

After 40 years, cos of financial reasons, I'm now one of many who for the first time will have to give up buying a season ticket and I'm not sure that Spurs would still have built theirs if they had foreseen what was gonna happen to the economy just 20 games after opening.
There is a chance it could take 10 years for attendances to recover (if ever?)

Our 52,000 might be an over estimate then not an under estimate of demand.

 

[The binman chronicles]

Dont take this The wrong way, I'm just asking the question.

We are gonna have a recession lasting many years with so do you think the owners still think it will be worth spending £500 million on a new stadium when just to get by supporters cash will maybe be needed to be spent elsewhere?

After 40 years, cos of financial reasons, I'm now one of many who for the first time will have to give up buying a season ticket and I'm not sure that Spurs would still have built theirs if they had foreseen what was gonna happen to the economy just 20 games after opening.
There is a chance it could take 10 years for attendances to recover (if ever?)

This will show just how willing our owners are to put in money. In normal circumstances owners would walk away from a project like this during an economic disaster, the issue is for our owners doing that means they may lose the last chance of building something iconic on the waterfront.

Our stadium was never going to pull in tens of millions more from standard paying supporters unless we substantially increased prices and seeing we are only going up by 13k unlike Arsenal/Spurs who increased by 20+ thousand with higher prices making each seat count for more. The extra premium seating and naming rights will probably make the exercise cost neutral or we'll have a few million more each season. Imho we were building the stadium to increase the value of the club not to make it a game changer in terms of making money to plough into the club. We have seen how they used the primary bidder money to help with FFP rules, so it could be to do with that, if they have flexible naming rights within the USM umbrella they could always tweak the contracts to comply if required.

If we continue with the build then I'll be even more sure that our owners are not here for the giggles.

 

[Jacko93]

I want to know more about the financing of the stadium which the planning application decision will force the club to comment on.

Why?

 

[H.H.]

It depends if they want the club to progress or not. We can’t progress if we don’t have a new stadium and if they’re not willing to put up the money for the new stadium then we’re of no use to them and they’re of no use to us.

Football will bounce back from this. Crowds will return.

There was an interesting table I seen on BBC that said we’d be the third least effected club by playing next season behind closed doors because we take in so little in terms of matchday revenue. Tottenham stand to lose the most.

1) Yes, Spurs are gonna be hit very very hard without a stadium income but they are quite lucky in the aspect of the wages to income level.
For Spurs, this is obviously gonna become a lot worse and could one day get near to Everton's level (I think the last published % was Spurs around 45% and Everton around 90% of money going out on wages?)
On top of a rising wage bill Spurs also have to add on to their costs around £30 million a year on stadium interest and if Everton do go ahead and build, they would also have to add on big interest payments on top of the already shrinking income levels (and this is why I thought it may have been Spurs and not your neighbours who were the team club recently quoted of losing silly amounts of millions a week?)

2) I'm sure every club owner wants their club/investment to progress but you say that you cannot progress without a new stadium but spending £500 million at the start of world's biggest ever recession on a stadium that, like Spurs, you may not fill for many years, (but that goes onto your answer to number 3?)

3) You say football will bounce back and that crowds will return but in all honesty, how many years would you guess it will be before the level gets back to the current records high (and if you say anything less than 10 years, I hope you're correct cos it will mean that many of us will again have jobs and spare money in our pockets?)

 

[H.H.]

This will show just how willing our owners are to put in money. In normal circumstances owners would walk away from a project like this during an economic disaster, the issue is for our owners doing that means they may lose the last chance of building something iconic on the waterfront.

Our stadium was never going to pull in tens of millions more from standard paying supporters unless we substantially increased prices and seeing we are only going up by 13k unlike Arsenal/Spurs who increased by 20+ thousand with higher prices making each seat count for more. The extra premium seating and naming rights will probably make the exercise cost neutral or we'll have a few million more each season. Imho we were building the stadium to increase the value of the club not to make it a game changer in terms of making money to plough into the club. We have seen how they used the primary bidder money to help with FFP rules, so it could be to do with that, if they have flexible naming rights within the USM umbrella they could always tweak the contracts to comply if required.

If we continue with the build then I'll be even more sure that our owners are not here for the giggles.

1) In all honesty, I don't think your owners/investors care about building something iconic, they just care about earning money on their investment whether iconic or not (just like our owners.)

2) A minor point but do you really believe that included in their stadium income, they did not plan to raise prices for the general match day supporters to help pay for it?

Naming rights. Let's be honest here, if your hidden backer isn't able (like he did did your training ground,) to invest in a very dodgy sponsorship deal, the amount a real company would invest is not gonna be a big game changer (as Levy has found out.)

After being on here a few years and reading all the stuff about Usmanov and he's (dodgy) money, a lot of hopes do seem to depend on him continuing or the hope that FFP will be changed in your favour?

Please realise all, I'm putting a point of view across/ask a question that a non Evertonian may ask.

 

[GwladysBlue]

Why?

To make sure it’s still going ahead. Only normal to be worried in the current circumstances.

 

[Lanolin]

1) Yes, Spurs are gonna be hit very very hard without a stadium income but they are quite lucky in the aspect of the wages to income level.
For Spurs, this is obviously gonna become a lot worse and could one day get near to Everton's level (I think the last published % was Spurs around 45% and Everton around 90% of money going out on wages?)
On top of a rising wage bill Spurs also have to add on to their costs around £30 million a year on stadium interest and if Everton do go ahead and build, they would also have to add on big interest payments on top of the already shrinking income levels (and this is why I thought it may have been Spurs and not your neighbours who were the team club recently quoted of losing silly amounts of millions a week?)

2) I'm sure every club owner wants their club/investment to progress but you say that you cannot progress without a new stadium but spending £500 million at the start of world's biggest ever recession on a stadium that, like Spurs, you may not fill for many years, (but that goes onto your answer to number 3?)

3) You say football will bounce back and that crowds will return but in all honesty, how many years would you guess it will be before the level gets back to the current records high (and if you say anything less than 10 years, I hope you're correct cos it will mean that many of us will again have jobs and spare money in our pockets?)

It's all pure guesswork at the moment isn't it? We don't know how much of an impact this is going to have yet, it's possible that attendances won't even go down, nevermind need time to build back up. Attendances continued to go up despite a huge economic downturn a decade or so ago, and - rightly or wrongly - people often find the money to do things they like to do from somewhere. Just look at how many people who appear to be in financial difficulty are able to find £30 a week to spend on smoking for example. It's not a given that football is going to implode, not by a long shot.

 

[H.H.]

It's all pure guesswork at the moment isn't it? We don't know how much of an impact this is going to have yet, it's possible that attendances won't even go down, nevermind need time to build back up. Attendances continued to go up despite a huge economic downturn a decade or so ago, and - rightly or wrongly - people often find the money to do things they like to do from somewhere. Just look at how many people who appear to be in financial difficulty are able to find £30 a week to spend on smoking for example. It's not a given that football is going to implode, not by a long shot.

I hope you're correct and I'm completely, 100%, absolutely massively wrong

 

[The binman chronicles]

1) In all honesty, I don't think your owners/investors care about building something iconic, they just care about earning money on their investment whether iconic or not (just like our owners.)

2) A minor point but do you really believe that included in their stadium income, they did not plan to raise prices for the general match day supporters to help pay for it?

Naming rights. Let's be honest here, if your hidden backer isn't able (like he did did your training ground,) to invest in a very dodgy sponsorship deal, the amount a real company would invest is not gonna be a big game changer (as Levy has found out.)

After being on here a few years and reading all the stuff about Usmanov and he's (dodgy) money, a lot of hopes do seem to depend on him continuing or the hope that FFP will be changed in your favour?

Please realise all, I'm putting a point of view across/ask a question that a non Evertonian may ask.

1) I agree with you up to a point, but we had a much cheaper location ready to go but turned it down to go to the docks. We could have built a bigger cheaper stadium without the 100 million it will cost to get the dock up to a point we could start to build on it. So if it was purely financial calculations we would have gone there instead. Yes we can probably get a bit more sponsorship being on the waterfront but how many years will it take to break even when you include interest?

2) of course we will put up prices but you have to remember that Liverpool isn't London and even though our tickets are relatively cheap I think a lot of people would baulk at the kind of increases required to really see a large benefit. In my head if you take our matchday income add 30 odd % for the increase in seats and then add on 25% for a BIG price rise (that I doubt they would go for) it still won't touch the sides of the top 6. Yes premium will help but that again is proportional to the amount charged in London or global clubs like the RS and Utd.

The one thing I agree with the much maligned esk is that to make it work we needed a much bigger stadium built cheaper to make sense of the numbers. So that is why I believe this is a vanity project, they have gone for the docks and a hope that if they can get the football side working the club could be valued amongst the big boys, which long term makes the investment worth it. To do all this it means they basically have to cover the cost through naming rights until the point we get successful enough to be able to get outside sponsorship like Chelsea and that is if we ever get there, otherwise the stadium would be taking away income from the club.

 

[havrey0123]

It depends if they want the club to progress or not. We can’t progress if we don’t have a new stadium and if they’re not willing to put up the money for the new stadium then we’re of no use to them and they’re of no use to us.

Football will bounce back from this. Crowds will return.

There was an interesting table I seen on BBC that said we’d be the third least effected club by playing next season behind closed doors because we take in so little in terms of matchday revenue. Tottenham stand to lose the most.

Success has nothing to do with a new stadium look at arsenal.
It's the players and manager that bring success

 

[havrey0123]

Dont take this The wrong way, I'm just asking the question.

We are gonna have a recession lasting many years with so do you think the owners still think it will be worth spending £500 million on a new stadium when just to get by supporters cash will maybe be needed to be spent elsewhere?

After 40 years, cos of financial reasons, I'm now one of many who for the first time will have to give up buying a season ticket and I'm not sure that Spurs would still have built theirs if they had foreseen what was gonna happen to the economy just 20 games after opening.
There is a chance it could take 10 years for attendances to recover (if ever?)

Attendances will be hit, we have one of the poorest fanbases hence why tickets are priced so low, when the stadium opens they will have to be even lower or else you are going to have empty seats

It will also be interesting to see how coronavirus has affected the interest rates bank charge.

 

[Lanolin]

Success has nothing to do with a new stadium look at arsenal.
It's the players and manager that bring success

You're confusing two very different things here. A new stadium doesn't guarantee you success, but that doesn't mean that an old stadium can't preclude you from it.

 

[H.H.]

Binman, thanks for replying, good post.

Regarding your last point. It seems like a lot does depend on your "hidden" backer being able to somehow flout the rules and be able pay more than its real value for a stadium sponsorship deal (or FFP gets abolished?)

The point about to then hope that the club somehow becomes successful "like Chelsea" and then will be able to get more outside sponsorship coming in.
Are you saying to get there the same way Chelsea did by spending 100's of millions?
Again, at the moment this would have to be done through either trying to get through dodgy sponsorship deals or FFP being abolished.
It makes buying all the players needed at the same time of paying off the stadium project just that bit harder to get through.

Thanks again for the reply .

EDIT; Sorry, I forgot to link your post.

 

[GwladysBlue]

Success has nothing to do with a new stadium look at arsenal.
It's the players and manager that bring success

Tell you what, though, a new stadium is a lot better than making a stadium look like a giant hole puncher.

Can’t put lipstick on a pig.