davek
Player Valuation: £150m
It's just a mess.
I think if the Arabs had bought LFC rather than FSG they'd have stuck to the plan to build in Stanley Park and gone with the futurist HKS design:
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It's just a mess.
I think if the Arabs had bought LFC rather than FSG they'd have stuck to the plan to build in Stanley Park and gone with the futurist HKS design:
tommye
Player Valuation: £100m
I'd agree Dave, the only thing going for it is it is impressively high on the landscape when coming from the park as it is soon the top of the slope. When viewed from elsewhere it doesnt look appealing
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
That huge stand of theirs makes Anfield look like a baseball stadium with a massive stand looking down over the infield.
It was a terrible idea.
nevsonlymate
Player Valuation: £8m
They wont care what it looks like its the revenue that it brings in and I guess it will be vastly greater than ours
Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
In many ways we're not really comparing apples with apples. Their new stands are equivalent in size to those at Wembley.
If they ever overcome the planning/transport issues (a big if at this point, I know) and remodel the Kop or Kemlyn, they'll be in the 70k+ region. Will it look as good from the outside as ours...? Almost certainly not..... but internally and functionally it will be a giant. Poor utilisation/design of the corners is probably its biggest let down, but many of their fans are insistent that they prefer the 4 individual stand format rather than a bowl. I think they could've had the best of both worlds in that respect and that they've been shortsighted.
The bottom line for them is they've got to 61k for a fraction of our outlay and in reality it's barely touched their petty cash.
Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
I agree, but that's a short term issue if this is only phase 2 of 3 or 4.
The Gallowgate end at St James's will almost certainly be extended soon. That'll at least make it a horseshoe format with symmetry along one axis.
tr_efc
Player Valuation: £950k
Yeah, true. Once Anfield is completed - should that be with the remaining 2 stands following the same direction as the Main Stand and Anfield Road end, I think it won't look bad at all. Still won't be a patch on ours though
Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
That's the point.... the previous incumbents repeatedly said that redevelopment wasn't viable, site restrictions, expandability of existing stands etc.
FSG had the opposite opinion and approach. I think their mainstand alone has more corporate than the whole of BMD. The new Anfield Rd adds more corporate to that (corporate lite).... and as an end stand of 86 rows is significantly taller than our south stand.
The ROI is measured in a few yrs.
nevsonlymate
Player Valuation: £8m
The 13k additional seats will help but any chance now of competing with the revenue of the big 6-7 makes it almost impossible even with a state of the art stadium just hope the new board have the expertise on revenue to claw some of the gap back by utilizing the stadium and position its in.
toffee66
Player Valuation: £8m
The Anfield redevelopment v BMD development reflect two big differences in ownership priorities:
The first is brand building. Our Board, probably correctly, decided we needed an iconic location and design both to satisfy existing fans/partners as we exit a truly historic but uncommercial venue and just as importantly to attract new ones to build a stronger commercial future. Liverpool is already a global brand and Anfield a ‘destination’ so they needed to expand capacity as much as possible but could do it cheaply wth a purely financial eye. We need to build a relative palace and even then it is incessantly second-guessed; they can have a pair of pig’s ear extensions and the media/global fans will still acclaim it a palace.
The second is the two owners different understanding of economics. Liverpool’s owners are classic VC/PE guys who think primarily in terms of speed of return and minimising the cash outlays, maximising speed to cash inflows. The Anfield redevelopment has followed those principles allowing them to keep the cash flowing in whilst building. Being done from a position of strength it is smart business and they will not give a damn about architectural critics.
FM comes from energy/utilities where timelines tend to be longer term and initial outlays are often vast. BK comes from theatre/film where cash is hand to mouth, so publicity and hype is key. Sold out notices at venues with limited capacity sustain demand and ticket prices better than a half full bigger venue. BMD is a strange compromise between their worlds as it is a big outlay for a slow but pretty sure long-term return but is also capacity constrained so sold out signs will help both marketing and pricing.
You can make a case that both clubs chose the approach that was best for them at the time, though Farhad’s cash flow drying up puts a bit of a spanner in the works of his plan for a three year ‘Russian’ money splurge (underwritten by Usmanov’s USM sponsorship) to convert into lifetime ‘English’ money returns for him, kids etc.
The first is brand building. Our Board, probably correctly, decided we needed an iconic location and design both to satisfy existing fans/partners as we exit a truly historic but uncommercial venue and just as importantly to attract new ones to build a stronger commercial future. Liverpool is already a global brand and Anfield a ‘destination’ so they needed to expand capacity as much as possible but could do it cheaply wth a purely financial eye. We need to build a relative palace and even then it is incessantly second-guessed; they can have a pair of pig’s ear extensions and the media/global fans will still acclaim it a palace.
The second is the two owners different understanding of economics. Liverpool’s owners are classic VC/PE guys who think primarily in terms of speed of return and minimising the cash outlays, maximising speed to cash inflows. The Anfield redevelopment has followed those principles allowing them to keep the cash flowing in whilst building. Being done from a position of strength it is smart business and they will not give a damn about architectural critics.
FM comes from energy/utilities where timelines tend to be longer term and initial outlays are often vast. BK comes from theatre/film where cash is hand to mouth, so publicity and hype is key. Sold out notices at venues with limited capacity sustain demand and ticket prices better than a half full bigger venue. BMD is a strange compromise between their worlds as it is a big outlay for a slow but pretty sure long-term return but is also capacity constrained so sold out signs will help both marketing and pricing.
You can make a case that both clubs chose the approach that was best for them at the time, though Farhad’s cash flow drying up puts a bit of a spanner in the works of his plan for a three year ‘Russian’ money splurge (underwritten by Usmanov’s USM sponsorship) to convert into lifetime ‘English’ money returns for him, kids etc.
Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
Agreed, the approaches are opposite ends of the spectrum. In most ways those approaches don't appear to reflect either club's status. They have a massive fanbase and earning power well beyond ours, yet chose the cheaper (phased) approach. Our fanbase (though sizeable) is much smaller and our revenues are tiny by comparison. Yet we've chosen to speculate to accumulate with an eye-watering outlay in the hope that it projects the club forward in a single hit. It now looks like the glaring hole in that funding model has meant that FM has had to sell potentially a quarter of the club to MSP for less than a fifth of just the stadium costs alone.
The other thing is both clubs are aiming at different things. LFC want to go into the 70k+ region in the longer term. For every 10k over 40k capacity, the total cost of a complete new stadium can almost double. Hence the reason why many larger clubs choose redevelopment over moving. Of course it also gives them the opportunity to test demand across all levels incrementally whilst barely touching funds for team building etc.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Great post mate.
I'd also add that it reflects a cultural divide. Historically LFC have always had an eye for business. They had the reputation as being more commercially orientated than Everton. Profit was one of the motives for the split after-all. I know they lost their way, to the extent that Shankly entered a midden of a club which didn't spend, but they were set up as a creature of business - first local, then national and international.
toffee66
Player Valuation: £8m
I agree the approaches do not reflect the status of the clubs, but they do reflect the priorities and methods of the owners (or at least did for us when initiated). We are a long way off being able to sustain the sort of crowds Liverpool know they can attract. If we are very lucky in 20 years we might be talking about how the inbuilt design limitations at BMD present hurdles for a needed phased redevelopment but an awful lot will need to go right between now and then. It is hard to believe in that right now.