Retractable seating at the OS

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paulhs1
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by paulhs1 »

Mr_Andersonn wrote:I believe that we could share with rugby, but then lets get the rugby club involved in financing decent retractable seating!
David Gold said earlier this evening on twitter......

"Fans would be against any form of ground share DG"
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by Mr_Andersonn »

the pink palermo wrote: London Wasps are currently up for sale for £1 - with the buyer taking on their debts .
Saracens are losing money hand over fist .
Ideally we would get the stadium and go it alone, but we all know this now wont happen.

Ken Bates bought a debt ridden Chelsea for £1 many moons ago!

With the right investor, who is to say where either of these rugby clubs end up.

I certainly don't want any of these guys taking a ride on our backs and it is no surpise seeing Wasps up for sale given their current situation.

The board clearly have lots of work and many discussions ahead before they dismiss this idea totally.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by hammersk »

paulhs1 wrote:I very much doubt that the banks will be happy to lend to a club with no asset. Look at Coverntry City for a prime example. They have moved to a stadium as tenants are in debt and now cannot raise funds to get them out the mess their in. They are heading for league one!
What is Old Trafford worth?
Now, how much is Man Utd's net debt?
Look at what is happening and who the public owners will be (Newham).
We won't be Man U, but we won't be Coventry either.
The club you should have used as your analogy is Man City - we are getting a once in a lifetime opportunity.
paulhs1 wrote: We know whats on offer, a rented stadium that will be shared with possibly 3 or more sporting clubs, no share of events or minimal naming rights meaning no cheap tickets. No retractable seating unless we pay for it. And we are moving from a ground that we have sole use of that is our home to a stadium that will be shared and we play second fiddle to Athletics in!
- We don't know whats on offer.
- It was always going to be a rented stadium.
- We always planned to groundshare - and we did at UP with Charlton (however I don't believe that a groundshare is inevitable anymore)
- We may well forego minimal naming rights
- But there will absolutely be cheap tickets - at least until the point that demand precludes this.
- We will not be paying for retractable seating (at least not in full)

What you are hearing from Altman is the same thing you heard from the French this week, in defence of their economy.

In a word, it is desperate.
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the bubble hammer
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by the bubble hammer »

Paulhs1, you really have got to stop putting words into people mouths. There is one thing speculating what might happen, but you are clearly stating it as fact. If and when you are party to what gold/sullivan and brady are discussing about the new tender documents , then please fill us in with all the relevant correct information.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by paulhs1 »

the bubble hammer wrote:Paulhs1, you really have got to stop putting words into people mouths. There is one thing speculating what might happen, but you are clearly stating it as fact. If and when you are party to what gold/sullivan and brady are discussing about the new tender documents , then please fill us in with all the relevant correct information.
The deal has changed, since first winning the bid in February. The OPLC have made it clear that they now want the stadium as multi use and not for the use of one main tenant during the football season.
We will probably be ground sharing with a Rugby club or even two, there may be American football and cricket matches as well as the already planned 21 athletic meets as well as concerts and events. And now they are proposing that they will not be paying for any retractable seating.

One thing that has puzzled me is that all along the club have been saying that the reconfiguration costs will be £95m to include retractable seating, and yet the OPLC have said that it will cost £95m just to reconfigure without even adding retractable seating....Someones figures don't stack up, either someones made a mistake on the numbers or we were never going to get retractable seating!
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by Wembley1966 »

paulhs1 - you forgot to mention that these 21 athletic meets will be taking place at weekends and we we'll have to move out and rent somewhere else for our matches that clash with the athletics. Oh and that would be against Premier League rules, so we're stuck with a lifetime in the Championship - assuming we haven't gone the way of Coventry and gone completely bankrupt by then as we don't own anything.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by paulhs1 »

hammersk wrote: What is Old Trafford worth?
Now, how much is Man Utd's net debt?
Look at what is happening and who the public owners will be (Newham).
We won't be Man U, but we won't be Coventry either.
The club you should have used as your analogy is Man City - we are getting a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I'm not really sure that we can be compared with Man Utd and Man City were bought by a sheikh with more money then sense. I think Coventry is a great example of what could happen to this club if we don't have an asset to lend against. Just google Coventry's current situation, it's all there in black and white!
hammersk wrote: - We don't know whats on offer. We know more now then what we did this time last week
- It was always going to be a rented stadium. Yes which could be a big problem!
- We always planned to groundshare - and we did at UP with Charlton (however I don't believe that a groundshare is inevitable anymore) A ground share with events being out of football season was always discussed but I beleive sharing with another team during the football season was never mentioned...even Gold has said on Twitter that the Fans will not want this!
- We may well forego minimal naming rights We will get a share of naming rights but how much will we get when you consider that it may need to be shared across three sites and other sporting clubs.
- But there will absolutely be cheap tickets - at least until the point that demand precludes this. Can you explain how this will now be funded..we will have less revenue streams then we have now?
- We will not be paying for retractable seating (at least not in full) This is not what was stated by the OPLC yesterday
What you are hearing from Altman is the same thing you heard from the French this week, in defence of their economy.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by WHURS »

If you read the statment corectly it states, they have reserved 21 days to include the athletics, 20-20, concerts and events, not 21 days exclusively for athletics then add cricket + events.

There is not a rugby club in the land that could pay their way in a 60K stadium let alone 2. Plus Rugby Unions season runs parallel with the football season so you wouldn't be able to fit the fixtures in even if you wanted to.

the NFL are the only other sport that could potentially fill the stadium if they bring a franchise over here, if they dont they will continue to use Wembley for their 1 off games as they sell out its 90K.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by paulhs1 »

WHURS wrote:If you read the statment corectly it states, they have reserved 21 days to include the athletics, 20-20, concerts and events, not 21 days exclusively for athletics then add cricket + events.

There is not a rugby club in the land that could pay their way in a 60K stadium let alone 2. Plus Rugby Unions season runs parallel with the football season so you wouldn't be able to fit the fixtures in even if you wanted to.

the NFL are the only other sport that could potentially fill the stadium if they bring a franchise over here, if they dont they will continue to use Wembley for their 1 off games as they sell out its 90K.
I have read the statement mate.....they have said that there is going to be up to 21 days for athletics, there could be 1,10 or 21 but they have allocated up to 21 days.

I think that the likely options are;
1) WHUFC and one other rugby club
2) 2 rugby clubs
3)WHUFC

But for us to be the sole user the OPLC will demand we pay more money in rent. If not then it is feasible that between 2 rugby clubs, 20/20, events, NFL, naming rights and additionals that they can cover the £5m rent.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by WHURS »

Even under the original deal we were never going to be the sole occupier of the stadium, Athletics has been a given from day 1, then you add in all the talk of live nation, Essex cricket, and others. The only difference with the way it stands now is we won't have a stake in the management company.

Naming rights even for the whole site won't be anywhere near as much without a football club, especially (hopefully) a premiership one. The premiership goes out to over a billion people every weekend, if you take that away you are left with the world championships in 5 years as the only global event. Who is going to want to sponsor a council run swimming pool, volodrome and a empty stadium? The NFL are a red herring they have Wembley and unless you see the economy improving anytime soon they won't risk a franchise over here, they will stay at Wembley.

The main athletics season runs from June to september, 16 / 18 weekends with the vast majority of events being regional qualifiers. There are very few that could possibly be deemed big enough for the actual stadium and even less that could actually clash with any of our fixtures. The only event that could possibly impact the fixture list would be a 20-20 cricket final. I dont believe there will be a Rugby team even half interested in the stadium while the plan is for it to be 60K.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by paulhs1 »

WHURS wrote:Even under the original deal we were never going to be the sole occupier of the stadium, Athletics has been a given from day 1, then you add in all the talk of live nation, Essex cricket, and others. The only difference with the way it stands now is we won't have a stake in the management company.
In addition, there could be another sport playing during the football season, athletics will have a 99 year lease, possibly no share of events revenue, and we could have to rearrange a few fixtures each season.
WHURS wrote:There are very few that could possibly be deemed big enough for the actual stadium and even less that could actually clash with any of our fixtures. The only event that could possibly impact the fixture list would be a 20-20 cricket final. I don’t believe there will be a Rugby team even half interested in the stadium while the plan is for it to be 60K.
The plan is to convert to a 60k stadium and both Wasps and Saracens are interested. Also no one is doubting that both those clubs will not be able to fill the stadium but for them it’s not about that, they just need a stadium for their own reasons, in any case they will probably both just use the lower tier and shut off the upper tier which will give them a 25k stadium. their rent will be minimal if shared between both clubs. Let’s say they both pay £1m per year, the OPLC then get the same rent but from 2 clubs. You then get the likes of Aviva, Guinness & Magners sniffing around for naming rights. It’s a no brainer for both rugby clubs based on their financial situations!
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by taffhammer »

paulhs1 wrote:
I think that the likely options are;
1) WHUFC and one other rugby club
2) 2 rugby clubs
3)WHUFC

But for us to be the sole user the OPLC will demand we pay more money in rent. If not then it is feasible that between 2 rugby clubs, 20/20, events, NFL, naming rights and additionals that they can cover the £5m rent.
If you go to an auction and make the first bid then you start low, if thats the only bid then you are quids in.Therefore the auctioneer will spout all sorts of tripe about the object in question before the bidding starts. Conclusion, only we want it and the auctioneer has egg on his face.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by brownout »

Wasps have to move from Wycombe as rugby premier league requires minimum 15,000 capacity. They get fined every season and will soon be forced to move. The council have refused planning permission for new ground.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by eastsider »

News to me about Saracens as they are getting a new share of a stadium in Barnet which was in the evening Standard a week or so ago. I go to Saracens Rugby and am quite sure they ended there interest in the OS 6 months or more ago..... :think:
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by WHURS »

Paulhs1,

Even if the 2 rugby clubs were intersted in a partnership, you have already said what the likely outcome would be. (if they could out bid us of course). Athletics are almost an irrelevance when it comes to re-arranging fixtures, they just dont have enough meetings a year that could affect the football season, even if there is an event that did, i think i remember a something about giving us 2 years notice. and is moving a game or 2 really a deal breaker of a problem? and you seem to be giving the boards of the rugby clubs more credit than our own in negotiating their share of a naming rights deal.

Aviva Paid 40million euros in 2009 to name lansdown road for 10 years, a national stadium. Do you think the stadium could get a similar fee? with a likely average around 10-15k for rugby? Rugby just doesn't have a big enough audience for them to expect any significant share of naming rights.

I think one of your poll questions should be "do you trust Gold and Sullivan to pull out if the deal is not right?"

Because all of the stuff being put out by the OPLC is hot air, and if any of it is remotely true I would expect them to say thanks but no thanks, and we'll see you in a few years.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by Romford »

mywhufc wrote: sounds good but what about the corporate boxes, where would they be,
There is plenty of room for corporate boxes....they can even sit on top of the retractable seating
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by Romford »

Francoisvander or else wrote:
The rake will be far to shallow with a differential height of roughly 4-5 centimetres per row not nearly enough for a first class viewing experience
The rake will not be too shallow...you have to remember that the people in the Upper tier seat will be viewing the pitch and not the running track.

Just look at the differences of rake of the Rio Stand...Upper and lower
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by Romford »

brownout wrote:
That's what I said - continuing upper tier down to pitch side will cover the current lower tier seats - the only tier designed to be permanent.
And they will need to be left there for the athletics meetings....the retractable seating will go over the top of the current lower tier
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by beckton »

brownout wrote:Wasps have to move from Wycombe as rugby premier league requires minimum 15,000 capacity. They get fined every season and will soon be forced to move.

How many other rugby clubs have a capacity of 15,000?


My local one has a capacity of just over 13,000 and I've never heard of them being fined.
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Re: Retractable seating at the OS

Post by Mr_Andersonn »

Another side thought here - will these rugby clubs who are supposedly interested in the OS get much support from their own fans?

Wasps moving from Wycombe to East London! Does it work differntky for rugby whereby the fans will go to the ends of the earth to watch their egg chasing heros ???
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