‘A £100m offer could be made next month’

[Saint Toppy]

24 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

No , but those clubs could access loans ( backed up then by other outside investment ) which would enable them to improve/build improved facilities that would bring in enough extra income to both pay off the loan and improve their financial state , be that a Wakefield,Cas,Bradford or a Swinton/Oldham , or indeed non heartland clubs potentially buying into an existing facility or new one 

Not a ' hand out ' 

Fair enough. Personally I wouldn't object to some of that money being used as RFL Loans to clubs to improve their stadia, but it wouldn't go very far. Saints stadium ended up costing nearly £26M (a decade ago) and even a basic "flat pack" stadium like Warrington's that could be upgraded at a later date cost over £12M to build back then. Today I doubt anyone could build a new stadium for less than £15-16M, so even with an £8M loan the clubs who need new stadia (Cas, Wakey etc.) probably couldn't afford to fund the rest.

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

Fair enough. Personally I wouldn't object to some of that money being used as RFL Loans to clubs to improve their stadia, but it wouldn't go very far. Saints stadium ended up costing nearly £26M (a decade ago) and even a basic "flat pack" stadium like Warrington's that could be upgraded at a later date cost over £12M to build back then. Today I doubt anyone could build a new stadium for less than £15-16M, so even with an £8M loan the clubs who need new stadia (Cas, Wakey etc.) probably couldn't afford to fund the rest.

Clubs would have to make a realistic decision , do Cas and Wakey decide to stay put and gradually update ? , Because as you say , full blown new stadia would be outside affordability , but a new single stand at both venues ( primarily based on income generating ) could be done , similarily Salford and Swinton both accessing funding for a usable facility at Agecroft for both clubs would probably be a better option than what is being proposed at Moor Lane 

The main priority would have to be long term income generating , and that would also have to mean being based on whichever tier of the sport those clubs find themselves in , because if we are to all of a sudden say " well this money can only be used to facilitate bringing SL ( locked in ) clubs up to necessary standards ". Then in that case set the criteria for all right now , and dump those who don't pass it , now 

[Damien]

I think people get too hung up on clubs improving their grounds or situation meaning they need brand new 12k or 18k new stadiums. If we are talking about the likes of Oldham and Swinton just getting a ground in their towns with a couple of 2,000 seater stands would be great. The likes of Cas could significantly improve their ground with the building of a new stand for a few million.

It shouldn't really be a case of spending £15-£20 million or nothing and that is the attitude that has led to the deterioration of many grounds over decades. 

[Saint Toppy]

5 minutes ago, Damien said:

I think people get too hung up on clubs improving their grounds or situation meaning they need brand new 12k or 18k new stadiums. If we are talking about the likes of Oldham and Swinton just getting a ground in their towns with a couple of 2,000 seater stands would be great. The likes of Cas could significantly improve their ground with the building of a new stand for a few million.

It shouldn't really be a case of spending £15-£20 million or nothing and that is the attitude that has led to the deterioration of many grounds over decades. 

Its probably not as necessary for some of the smaller lower tier clubs to have a shiny new stadium, but old stadia like Cas & Wakey are 'moneypits' I remember McManus saying years ago that Saints were spending between £1M - £1.2m a year just to keep the stadium in a usable condition and maintain their safety certificates. So even though Cas & Wakey are a lot smaller than Knowsley Rd was they'll still be spending substantial sums every year on maintenance. Just replacing 1 stand would still leave them with significant maintenance bills to pay every year so all the extra income generated will just get eaten up by the older parts of the stadium upkeep

[GUBRATS]

10 minutes ago, Damien said:

I think people get too hung up on clubs improving their grounds or situation meaning they need brand new 12k or 18k new stadiums. If we are talking about the likes of Oldham and Swinton just getting a ground in their towns with a couple of 2,000 seater stands would be great. The likes of Cas could significantly improve their ground with the building of a new stand for a few million.

It shouldn't really be a case of spending £15-£20 million or nothing and that is the attitude that has led to the deterioration of many grounds over decades. 

Exactly , yes Fev's stadium is all a bit ' higgledy piggledy ' , but it provides what is needed , and brings in revenue , a single decent stand at both Cas and Wakey , designed properly to maximise revenue both match and non match day could work very well for both clubs 

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

Its probably not as necessary for some of the smaller lower tier clubs to have a shiny new stadium, but old stadia like Cas & Wakey are 'moneypits' I remember McManus saying years ago that Saints were spending between £1M - £1.2m a year just to keep the stadium in a usable condition and maintain their safety certificates. So even though Cas & Wakey are a lot smaller than Knowsley Rd was they'll still be spending substantial sums every year on maintenance. Just replacing 1 stand would still leave them with significant maintenance bills to pay every year so all the extra income generated will just get eaten up by the older parts of the stadium upkeep

In that case , they're stuffed then , relegate them so they don't need to maintain anything but one side , sorted 

[Damien]

5 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

Its probably not as necessary for some of the smaller lower tier clubs to have a shiny new stadium, but old stadia like Cas & Wakey are 'moneypits' I remember McManus saying years ago that Saints were spending between £1M - £1.2m a year just to keep the stadium in a usable condition and maintain their safety certificates. So even though Cas & Wakey are a lot smaller than Knowsley Rd was they'll still be spending substantial sums every year on maintenance. Just replacing 1 stand would still leave them with significant maintenance bills to pay every year so all the extra income generated will just get eaten up by the older parts of the stadium upkeep

Saints said they were losing between £500,000 to £750,000, still substantial but no where near that high.

One stand was an example, it could be two. It could be incremental improvements. You prioritise for the best returns.

[Saint Toppy]

1 minute ago, Damien said:

Saints said they were losing between £500,000 to £750,000, still substantial but no where near that high.

One stand was an example, it could be two. It could be incremental improvements. You prioritise for the best returns.

That £1M- £1.2M was the total bills for stadium & grounds upkeep so that £750K was more than likely the additional costs every year to fix major defects and provide improvements just to keep safety certificates

[Damien]

12 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

That £1M- £1.2M was the total bills for stadium & grounds upkeep so that £750K was more than likely the additional costs every year to fix major defects and provide improvements just to keep safety certificates

All stadiums have bills and upkeep costs, even new ones. I'm not really sure what your point here is. Saints said Knowsley Road was costing between £500,000 to £750,000 so that's good enough for me.

Anyhow I fail to see your general point regardless of this. A new stand reduces maintenance cost and increases income significantly, especially if you add corporate facilities that are few and far between at many older grounds. Other improvements can reduce maintenance costs further elsewhere.

Just because a new stadium suits Saints it doesn't mean its the way forward for all clubs, particularly those that cant afford one or don't have a benevolent local council.

[Dallas Mead]

1 hour ago, Saint Toppy said:

Fair enough. Personally I wouldn't object to some of that money being used as RFL Loans to clubs to improve their stadia, but it wouldn't go very far. Saints stadium ended up costing nearly £26M (a decade ago) and even a basic "flat pack" stadium like Warrington's that could be upgraded at a later date cost over £12M to build back then. Today I doubt anyone could build a new stadium for less than £15-16M, so even with an £8M loan the clubs who need new stadia (Cas, Wakey etc.) probably couldn't afford to fund the rest.

Talk to me about warrington’s “basic flat pack” stadium please mate in comparison to the Saints vision of incredible cladded brilliance?

[Saint Toppy]

1 hour ago, Dallas Mead said:

Talk to me about warrington’s “basic flat pack” stadium please mate in comparison to the Saints vision of incredible cladded brilliance?

It was 4 fairly basic rectangular stands with open corners (no complex curved corner sections to design & build) with a lot less bespoke design elements than something like Saints have (particularly the roof structure. It was designed so that they could fill in the corners at a later date as & when they needed them and budgets allowing.

[Dallas Mead]

7 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

It was 4 fairly basic rectangular stands with open corners (no complex curved corner sections to design & build) with a lot less bespoke design elements than something like Saints have (particularly the roof structure. It was designed so that they could fill in the corners at a later date as & when they needed them and budgets allowing.

The corners HAVE been filled in, we’ve even got a permanent big screen for kisscam Karl’s future plans too

[dboy]

4 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Are you suggesting that clubs who currently play in decrepit old stadia get a handout and have a stadium built for them...

Equally, (maybe even more importantly), what about those clubs that don't even own a ground? Club's who are pouring hundreds of thousands of Pounds out the game in rent every year?

Club's like Hull FC, Wigan, Huddersfield, Salford*.

We can't give them even more money, just to spoff it off to a landlord.

 

*I know, they don't actually bother paying their rent.

[John Rhino]

On 13/11/2021 at 09:20, The storm said:

They are not trying to grow the game

 

They are looking for a return on an inveatment

The two go together. No one invests to see their asset lose value.

If they grow the game their return increases. It just has to be the right people investing and then the right people running it. 

I can't see any alternative at the moment 

[GUBRATS]

2 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

That £1M- £1.2M was the total bills for stadium & grounds upkeep so that £750K was more than likely the additional costs every year to fix major defects and provide improvements just to keep safety certificates

Yes , but it was a genuine ###### , Hilton Park had better facilities 

[GUBRATS]

2 hours ago, Damien said:

All stadiums have bills and upkeep costs, even new ones. I'm not really sure what your point here is. Saints said Knowsley Road was costing between £500,000 to £750,000 so that's good enough for me.

Anyhow I fail to see your general point regardless of this. A new stand reduces maintenance cost and increases income significantly, especially if you add corporate facilities that are few and far between at many older grounds. Other improvements can reduce maintenance costs further elsewhere.

Just because a new stadium suits Saints it doesn't mean its the way forward for all clubs, particularly those that cant afford one or don't have a benevolent local council.

Correct , essentially one decent side on seated stand with whatever offices,sensible corporate and preferably some rental income included and all you really need then is some basic terracing , capacity dependent on reasonable expectation of max required by recent history 

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, Dallas Mead said:

Talk to me about warrington’s “basic flat pack” stadium please mate in comparison to the Saints vision of incredible cladded brilliance?

Safe , dry , reasonable viewing , decent clean bogs , eatable food and beer , for the masses , prawn sandwich machine for the rich people , rent out anything else you can 

Thats about it really , doesn't need to be ' iconic ' , round , oval , square , octagonal or anything else 

[GUBRATS]

53 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

It was 4 fairly basic rectangular stands with open corners (no complex curved corner sections to design & build) with a lot less bespoke design elements than something like Saints have (particularly the roof structure. It was designed so that they could fill in the corners at a later date as & when they needed them and budgets allowing.

Is that the saints roof that blew off ? , Because the council lads brought in to finish it didn't put enough screws in it ? 

It doesn't matter what shape it is 

[LittleboroRoughyed]

Alternative to individual stadia why not consider ground sharing (not sure who owns what) but Cas & Wakefield - sell both grounds & invest in 1 purpose built stadium with additional investors, RFL loan Wigan and Leigh etc

[GUBRATS]

2 minutes ago, LittleboroRoughyed said:

Alternative to individual stadia why not consider ground sharing (not sure who owns what) but Cas & Wakefield, Wigan and Leigh etc

What has that to do with private equity ?

[Tommygilf]

41 minutes ago, LittleboroRoughyed said:

Alternative to individual stadia why not consider ground sharing (not sure who owns what) but Cas & Wakefield - sell both grounds & invest in 1 purpose built stadium with additional investors, RFL loan Wigan and Leigh etc

It would be either in 1 of those two places or the middle of nowhere though sadly. It only really works for teams in the same conurbation or moving to a larger mutual population centre.

[LittleboroRoughyed]

Gubrats you keep asking how the money should be spent and seem to have a preference on investing a large proportion of it on infrastructure ie stadiums. My observation is that if the private equity was to be used as a loan to clubs then it would make financial sense, where appropriate, for clubs to share stadia. A joint Cas / Wakefield new stadium, with an appropriate capacity, jointly funded by sale of existing stadiums (if owned by the clubs) + private investment (other leisure/ retail etc) + Private Equity loan   would be better value for money, higher benefit cost ratio & an overall stronger business case

[GUBRATS]

2 minutes ago, LittleboroRoughyed said:

Gubrats you keep asking how the money should be spent and seem to have a preference on investing a large proportion of it on infrastructure ie stadiums. My observation is that if the private equity was to be used as a loan to clubs then it would make financial sense, where appropriate, for clubs to share stadia. A joint Cas / Wakefield new stadium, with an appropriate capacity, jointly funded by sale of existing stadiums (if owned by the clubs) + private investment (other leisure/ retail etc) + Private Equity loan   would be better value for money, higher benefit cost ratio & an overall stronger business case

In truth I think taking a PE deal is madness , I keep seeing various suggestions that aren't really explicit as to what they are suggesting the money could be used to create guaranteed financial returns , to me the only investment would / could be in getting clubs more financially independent outside TV/central funding is via stadium improvements , in Oldham's case , finding either a site to develop or to purchase a share in an existing facility 

Any suggestions ?

[GUBRATS]

8 minutes ago, LittleboroRoughyed said:

Gubrats you keep asking how the money should be spent and seem to have a preference on investing a large proportion of it on infrastructure ie stadiums. My observation is that if the private equity was to be used as a loan to clubs then it would make financial sense, where appropriate, for clubs to share stadia. A joint Cas / Wakefield new stadium, with an appropriate capacity, jointly funded by sale of existing stadiums (if owned by the clubs) + private investment (other leisure/ retail etc) + Private Equity loan   would be better value for money, higher benefit cost ratio & an overall stronger business case

The only joint venture / share I'd see that could work would be Salford/Swinton at Agecroft , and that would need a real will to make it work , with a genuine equal shareholding 

[Tabby]

Just Chuck the £100m into the lower tiers. Premier Sports would be buzzing. 
 

SL not so…