I mean shit, like club level seats and exec boxes mean anything to the average fan.Originally Posted by Letters
I mean shit, like club level seats and exec boxes mean anything to the average fan.
They're inexplicably linked though.
By building and now possessing a new modern 60k stadium in the heart of London we can project a sense of "big-clubness" (can't think of a better word tbh) ..... something that's very attractive for sponsors like Emirates, Puma, Europcar etc to be associated with. All the real massive clubs have big stadiums (Utd, Bayern, Barca, Real etc) and we could never really join that club if we were still playing in small 38K capacity and increasingly run down stadium today.
It isn't a surprise to me that the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs are now clamouring over themselves to increase the capacity of their own places.
Building the Emirates was categorically the right call IMHO and I think history will prove it.
To be fair we have been trying to increase our stadium/move for about 15 years.
We've just been absolutely shocking in doing so. At least you just went and got yours built.
It doesn't really matter what method you employ to regulate it to be fair
You make it sound like a walk in the park, first of all we had to deal with Islington council blocking it for years before it finally got agreed in 2001, then the stadium construction ground to a halt whilst we tried to re negotiate the terms of the repayments to the bank for construction costs which set us back a year.
Then we had to agree loaded deals with both Nike and Emirates where we were tied down to them for longer than we needed to secure the corporate sponsorship.
Chelsea have a small and shit stadium and that hasn't stopped them from getting good deals. They just signed a massive deal with Yokahoma Rubber. Before our sponsorship deals we lagged behind loads of clubs with the sponsors with unimpressive stadiums. Liverpool and Spurs had better deals than us for years. We should have been able to attract better deals without the stadium. In fact, the money we needed up front for the stadium locked us in to long running bad sporship deals we had to run down before getting better deals.
I'm sure the Emirates is a good move for us but I'm yet to see the financial benefits. So far it looks like the good fortune has come from sporsors and TV rights and I believe those would have come anyway if we had kept on winning and playing our brand of football. I'm not convinced that we needed the move to house a bunch of c class, downgraded players and overpaid kids. There must be something more we can pull from the bigger capacity beside the perception of being a big club.
How I wish Sir Norris had been alive today. We would have built an 80k stadium instead of a measly 60k and got TFL to move the tube stadium also.
Back to reality however, If we wish to be a BIG club we need to win BIG prizes. We have the brand and the worldwide status, but these are built on our success of a decade ago. If we were winning leagues and occasional CL. Maybe we like United could get someone to sponsor our toilet paper for 30m a year.
It was always a longer term strategy, we're still making repayments far as I understand so out new financial clout has come about because of new sponsorship deals but soon the debt will be paid off and we will be in a far healthier position, financially, than any other English club. Utd have a mountain of debt, Chelsea and City are entirely dependant on benefactors which is not where you want to be longer term.
Couple of good articles I found about it:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcm...for-arsenal/2/
http://northlondonisred.co.uk/arsena...-inside-track/
From what I hear the debt will be paid off over 25 years, non negotiable at a rate of some 15-18M per year or thereabouts. We are only about 10 years into paying it so it wont be over anytime soon as you say. The debt has never been an issue no matter how much you try to make it into one.
Our revenue has increased greatly so thats good, but so has literally everyone elses too.
I don't think anyone on here is suggesting that the Emirates move was not the right thing to do. We were able to let more fans watch the team, increase our revenue & for me the biggest benefit is providing a world class stadium for what was meant to be us becoming a dominant force in Europe. This all important is acquiring players who want to join a top club with the best facilities.
The issue is - "Has the stadium move provided us with any advantage in relation to 4th place". Before you address that, if you agree with my opening line, then look at what we're discussing. A stadium built to make us Europe's greatest & yet we are discussing if its helped us get 4th place in our domestic league.
For me, if the finances were low due to stadium repayments then it would suggest we have missed out on buying the required quality over the years, especially as Chelsea & City have been able to acquire whoever they liked over that period. This would suggest that the Stadium has not helped in our league plight. However, I can't remember the exact figures but I had read that we only needed something like 47,000 in the stadium every week to meet stadium repayments & the weekly stadium costs. That left the attendance balance + kit deal + retail income + TV money + player sales to spend on the squad.
This would suggest to me that even after the move (surmising that kit deal & TV money would be similar whether we moved or not) then the only negative financially was the 38,000 at Highbury minus the 13,000 attendance balance.
This surely is "small beer" in the scheme of things, especially as TV money started to rise rapidly over this time & ofcourse the Emirates did offer a bigger revenue than Highbury with stadium store & larger corporate hospitality facilities.
I think Wenger has had reasonable money to spend every year but realised it wasn't enough to compete with the limitless pot of Chelsea & then City, so decided to keep trying his own way of turning potential into quality. Unfortunately, buying proven quality will always result in better short term success.
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