New Everton Stadium - Hill Dickinson Stadium

[Tom Hughes]

I'm not sure Moshiri ever seriously pursued market funding.

I think the funding model was basically just "Usmanov."

Then when that tap ran dry, it was panic borrow to survive.

Like you say, it's a miracle it's been built and we're still a going concern.

They fielded it to investment banks several times and employed a few people to try to secure funding before construction started and throughout the build. There was barely anything above ground when USM dropped out of the equation. Initially Moshiri was saying that he would fund half of it and the club would secure funding for the rest. Of course there was the proposed offer for a special funding vehicle from LCC.... but that was never confirmed nor taken up. When nothing else materialised, Moshiri insisted that he would fund the whole build if necessary..... but in reality was already negotiating loans and putting out his feelers for a sale. I think it's a minor miracle that we got through to this point tbh.

 

[Tom Hughes]

It's not the size of the stadium right NOW that's an issue it's the restrictions we have placed on ourselves growing further. This is EFC for the next 200 years.

It's a fair point to mention the "future-proofing" aspect. In the next few years, Birmingham, Villa, Newcastle, Leeds, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd may all be moving or going larger again. Can this site do the same if ever required? How cost effective might that be?

On the same issue, I can remember KEIOC helping to facilitate the meeting between Bestway and the club regards their Loop Site. Bestway had gone to the trouble of employing HOK (the biggest stadium-design company in the world) to do an outline study/design based on their site, while the club had employed bargain basement Barr construction for their Kirkby proposals. The first thing Wyness asked in the meeting, was if it could be expanded to 70k, because that was the key criteria that the club was adopting. Obviously just trying to instantly fob off Bestway's proposals. Leaving Bestway questioning the competence and profesionalism of the club's officials....

 

[ultra]

Leaving Bestway questioning the competence and profesionalism of the club's officials....

Outrageous…lol

 

[Tom Hughes]

Outrageous…lol

I can't remember his exact words, but think they were quite colourful haha.

 

[adi dassler]

I'm convinced all those crying about the capacity must have been asleep these past 2 years. How have you not noticed that this 53k iteration almost crippled us financially?

 

[cjuk87]

So many builders and architects in here, who thankfully, have never built anything in their lives.

So my Ikea Billy Bookcase built itself? I don't think so mate.

As I'm in a position to talk about these things, I'll confidently say, we should've aimed for 100k. Anything less shows a lack of ambition.

 

[Jacko93]

It's a fair point to mention the "future-proofing" aspect. In the next few years, Birmingham, Villa, Newcastle, Leeds, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd may all be moving or going larger again. Can this site do the same if ever required? How cost effective might that be?

On the same issue, I can remember KEIOC helping to facilitate the meeting between Bestway and the club regards their Loop Site. Bestway had gone to the trouble of employing HOK (the biggest stadium-design company in the world) to do an outline study/design based on their site, while the club had employed bargain basement Barr construction for their Kirkby proposals. The first thing Wyness asked in the meeting, was if it could be expanded to 70k, because that was the key criteria that the club was adopting. Obviously just trying to instantly fob off Bestway's proposals. Leaving Bestway questioning the competence and profesionalism of the club's officials....

It took them till then to question it???

 

[Makis]

It's a fair point to mention the "future-proofing" aspect. In the next few years, Birmingham, Villa, Newcastle, Leeds, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd may all be moving or going larger again. Can this site do the same if ever required? How cost effective might that be?

On the same issue, I can remember KEIOC helping to facilitate the meeting between Bestway and the club regards their Loop Site. Bestway had gone to the trouble of employing HOK (the biggest stadium-design company in the world) to do an outline study/design based on their site, while the club had employed bargain basement Barr construction for their Kirkby proposals. The first thing Wyness asked in the meeting, was if it could be expanded to 70k, because that was the key criteria that the club was adopting. Obviously just trying to instantly fob off Bestway's proposals. Leaving Bestway questioning the competence and profesionalism of the club's officials....

And why would we need a bigger stadium? For d*k waving contests?

The money from those extra seats is rather miniscule and make it hard to justify the increased costs. Could even end up being a money-drain for the first 10 years.

Just as an example: club had somehow managed to get another 150 million to be able to build +10k seats (it would have probably cost even more, but le't keep this conservative). At 1000 pounds per seat per season that would be 10 million. 150 million at 10pct is 15 million per year in interest alone, plus around 4 million more if it's for 40 years. In 10 years time loan is closer to 100 million at which point that structure would pay itself back. But even after paying all that money back it would still be less than 5% increase in revenue.

So unless club can squeeze way more than that for each seat I can't figure out where the business case is.

But there's another issue and that has to with demand. Simply put: if there are ample seats for every match people won't so often bother with a season ticket. So season ticket sales would almost certainly be down. There would be more tickets in GA. So attendances would be more liable to things like how well the team plays, weather, opponent etc. There is no guarantee that every match is sold out for that 60k+ stadium, and it should or losses would be even greater.

 

[Tom Hughes]

And why would we need a bigger stadium? For d*k waving contests?

The money from those extra seats is rather miniscule and make it hard to justify the increased costs. Could even end up being a money-drain for the first 10 years.

Just as an example: club had somehow managed to get another 150 million to be able to build +10k seats (it would have probably cost even more, but le't keep this conservative). At 1000 pounds per seat per season that would be 10 million. 150 million at 10pct is 15 million per year in interest alone, plus around 4 million more if it's for 40 years. In 10 years time loan is closer to 100 million at which point that structure would pay itself back. But even after paying all that money back it would still be less than 5% increase in revenue.

So unless club can squeeze way more than that for each seat I can't figure out where the business case is.

But there's another issue and that has to with demand. Simply put: if there are ample seats for every match people won't so often bother with a season ticket. So season ticket sales would almost certainly be down. There would be more tickets in GA. So attendances would be more liable to things like how well the team plays, weather, opponent etc. There is no guarantee that every match is sold out for that 60k+ stadium, and it should or losses would be even greater.

Which is pretty much what I said in my previous posts. The point however, was the issue of future-proofing was also raised. .... ie what happens if we do become massively successful in the next few years and demand does increase. Can the stadium, its site and infrastructure support an expansion, or is 53k-60k the cost/space/logistics-effective limit?

 

[James Patrick]

And why would we need a bigger stadium? For d*k waving contests?

The money from those extra seats is rather miniscule and make it hard to justify the increased costs. Could even end up being a money-drain for the first 10 years.

Just as an example: club had somehow managed to get another 150 million to be able to build +10k seats (it would have probably cost even more, but le't keep this conservative). At 1000 pounds per seat per season that would be 10 million. 150 million at 10pct is 15 million per year in interest alone, plus around 4 million more if it's for 40 years. In 10 years time loan is closer to 100 million at which point that structure would pay itself back. But even after paying all that money back it would still be less than 5% increase in revenue.

So unless club can squeeze way more than that for each seat I can't figure out where the business case is.

But there's another issue and that has to with demand. Simply put: if there are ample seats for every match people won't so often bother with a season ticket. So season ticket sales would almost certainly be down. There would be more tickets in GA. So attendances would be more liable to things like how well the team plays, weather, opponent etc. There is no guarantee that every match is sold out for that 60k+ stadium, and it should or losses would be even greater.

There was a business case for bigger but sense went out the window spending £100m just to get out of the mud.

 

[Thetigerblue]

As someone pointed out many posts ago, Everton have only once exceeded average attendances of over 50000 in its entire history. And that was in 62/63.

 

[Kevsleftpeg]

Which is pretty much what I said in my previous posts. The point however, was the issue of future-proofing was also raised. .... ie what happens if we do become massively successful in the next few years and demand does increase. Can the stadium, its site and infrastructure support an expansion, or is 53k-60k the cost/space/logistics-effective limit?

Increased demand wouldn't change the underlying economics unless we double the price of the tickets.

 

[Rich1878]

As someone pointed out many posts ago, Everton have only once exceeded average attendances of over 50000 in its entire history. And that was in 62/63.

No. We've hit over 70,000, sixteen times, most recent in 1960, against Burnley

 

[b-rad]

No. We've hit over 70,000, sixteen times, most recent in 1960, against Burnley

They key word is average

 

[Miked1e]

No. We've hit over 70,000, sixteen times, most recent in 1960, against Burnley

I assume it was meant as average attendance over a season.