How important is owning the stadium?

[threesixty]

I believe the club have a 99yr lease at a few million a year or something silly.
Other clubs have had to take huge loans with massive interest rates that they have to pay to build a new ground. 
I don’t understand how West Ham can have any money problems whatsoever?
Why would we better off owning the stadium as if its land value, well, your using the land to play football so there is no other use for it.
Plus, clubs like Liverpool & Everton own stadiums in cheap areas of the country so it feels like ownership doesn’t really mean much.

Not sure I get it? (Apart from having the right to tear it down and rebuild something better).
 

[Massive Attack]

how does that make a difference - event if we own the place we literally need to knock down and rebuild, at least partially

To get the seats next to the pitch, the playing surface would need lowering in order to add additional seats at a similar rake as the existing lower tiers.  Be interesting to know how many metres the pitch would need to be lowered and how many additional seats would need adding to achieve this.

If I remember rightly it can't be lowered due to radioactive waste just below the pitch

We need to get rid of the toxic waste from inside the Boardroom first. 

[Mr Anon]

The poxy athletics track that we can't get rid is a reason we need to own the stadium.

how does that make a difference - event if we own the place we literally need to knock down and rebuild, at least partially

To get the seats next to the pitch, the playing surface would need lowering in order to add additional seats at a similar rake as the existing lower tiers.  Be interesting to know how many metres the pitch would need to be lowered and how many additional seats would need adding to achieve this.

If I remember rightly it can't be lowered due to radioactive waste just below the pitch

[Full Claret Jacket]

I don't care about owning the stadium necessarily - They are expensive to run, have high running costs and are likely loss making. What I do care about is moving from a stadium where it felt like you were part of something that influenced a result to a stadium where it feels like you are an inconvenient tourist.
Its clear that the core issues cannot be addressed without knocking down the stadium and rebuilding. A huge amount of public money has been burnt on this white elephant which is all on Lord Coe, the original temporary design and also Spurs and their 'State aid' claims which stopped us owning it and ever having potential to do something with it. The whole matchday experience for me is a dud compared to Green Street. Despite travel to it being better for me, I just don't want to go enough anymore as the matches are largely sterile and the hardcore fanbase watered down.

That said I am going to the Spurs game. If there isn't an atmosphere for that then there is no hope. 

[southbankbornnbred]

The sad thing is that, after we literally blew up Upton Park in an act of self-harm, the single biggest lever in the club's potential development now would be to buy the London Stadium and develop it to a purpose-built, year-round venue (in which other events are held).

You'd add/acquire nearby or on-site commercial/retail, bars, cafes, hotel, museum, tours etc - all revenue streams linked to ownership of the ground. Exclusive stadium and training ground naming rights, brand rights - even a matchday fan park (spit!) if that's your sort of thing.

Once all that shit is established, you could go global and take the brand abroad if you want - sponsored training academies, international retail (why do you think PSG have a shop on Oxford St), eSports and digital etc.

I'm not saying this is what West Ham should do. Just that this is what the world's biggest clubs are doing - from Real Madrid to Bayern, PSG, Man City and even those cunts at Spurs. This is why real investors are still sniffing around Premier League football clubs: because of the untapped potential even in a league where, for years, we thought the "big money" was just the TV money from Sky. Newcastle's owners, having been told they can't just give the club shedloads of cash, are about to embark on all of this. All aimed at boosting their "football-related" operational revenues under PSR.

Even if we wanted them to, IMHO our owners are incapable of delivering something like this. They're the equivalent of the blokes selling £1 fruit from plastic bowls on the high street. They have no concept of the above - hence they haven't even found a stadium sponsor nine years after taking over an Olympic stadium in a city as global and popular (to international capital) as London.

Imagine Terry Brown being confronted with the above, let alone David Sullivan? He probably thinks eSports is a typo. (Declaration - I don't really know much about eSports, either, but it's a big and growing market).

You don't have to do all of the above at Chelsea or Barca scale. But we are literally the dividing point in the Premier League. Seven sides have revenues above ours now: Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs and Newcastle. We are now #8, I believe. Everybody above us is going down the route described above. So the gap between them and everybody else, starting with us, is growing.

The question is: do we want to try to compete with that or not?

And, of course, the bigger decision is always about the kind of club you want to be. Do we want to be a local, community-based club or a global brand - or something in between (which is where we probably should aim)? Losing Upton Park uprooted us massively and we sold our soul for it. But we haven't even made a good fist of chasing the £££, which was the reason for us leaving Upton Park in the first place. As always, it was a two-bob, half-assed attempt to modernise West Ham. Like a shit bond scheme.

[southbankbornnbred]

Stadium sponsorship.
Stadium events.
Hotels etc on/at stadium.
Stadium tours.
Retail/concessions at/next to stadium.
etc etc etc

Its a long list. So, yes, owning your own stadium is a massive boost to a club that knows what it’s doing. All of the above are being used by the likes of Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool etc to put even greater distance between them and the likes of us in financial terms.

Newcastle and Spurs are about to embark on similar paths. But we have one and a half hands tied behind our backs.

[southbankbornnbred]

In fact, I’d say that by moving us to a rented athletics stadium for the sake of about £15m
in extra annual ticket revenues, the current owners have MASSIVELY inhibited our ability to make far more money by utilising a stadium asset.

But they don’t care. They just want somebody stupid to pay too much for the club that doesn’t even own a stadium asset, so it becomes somebody else’s problem. They hoodwinked everybody.

[southbankbornnbred]

It’s a long, detailed explanation, but there’s a VERY good reason why owning our own stadium would be a good thing. But it all hangs on the post-Sullivan/actually having a competent chairman era.

The short version is that if, financially, we want to grow into being the club we could be (with our fan base), and if the current PSR rules will continue to apply, we would need to use a ground we own as a major revenue-raising asset - if we want our annual turnover to compete with the so-called big six or seven.

Under PSR, you can’t use capital to cover wages etc. You have to use “football related” operational revenues. This includes stadium sponsorship, stadium income from other events etc. It’s a long list. But, basically, owning a stadium is much more likely to draw the sort of £100s of millions we’ll need to match even Spurs’ revenues in future.

If we want to shift from £325m revenues now to the £500m+ bracket that would make us far more competitive regularly, then a stadium we own would be a big help.

Its not essential. It just gives you more options to make a LOT more money in a sport dominated by cash.

But what’s the fucking point when these clueless twonks are in charge? They haven’t even sorted out a sponsorship deal for an Olympic stadium in one of the few truly global cities in the world. Which almost any idiot could do. They are incapable of taking us to the much mentioned “next level”.

[BRANDED]

Strictly speaking, just like your car, there will always be a total cost and a total benefit of ownership. 

As far as I understand it they will both depreciate over time and there will be maintenance costs. 

Our deal was probably a steal but involves a stadium not loved by anyone in the top tiers. Not that any top tiers are that much fun.

If you own your ow car you can do a shit in it and its yours to clean up.

[RootsRadical]

It matters when the club want to stage extra games and events as they are limited to using the Stadium only 25 days a season and only during the season.
Also matters if the club wanted to redevelop the stadium in part or full, which is needed but won't ever happen unless another Athletics stadium becomes the home of Athletics.
 

[Pub Bigot]

Sixty, do yourself a favour, get yourself a ticket and actually go to the stadium. 

If we were leasing a football stadium for 99 years, it wouldn't matter so much, when all said and done. The problem is we are leasing an athletics stadium, that we can't do fuck all with.

The match going experience is the worst in the country for fans, you'llknow what i mean if you do go, and we no longer have home advantage for the players. It's a disaster.

 

This was a business question really.
I did mention “apart from the right to tear it down and build something new”. Not asking whether fans love it or not, rather the inherent business value of owning a stadium for a football club.

The San Siro is not owned by AC Milan or Inter Milan for example.
Also I think Roma and Lazio’s stadium has a running track as well. I dont hear there fans moan as much as ours about the distance etc, and I hear the atmosphere is good.

I think the biggest problem has been the shit football regardless of whether we win games or not, its not very exciting to watch your team pinned to their area for a whole game even if they nick a win. Good football makes people excited, whether your down the pub or in a stadium. Atmosphere comes from that I think.

This may be an unpopular perspective, but the distance from the pitch should in theory not impact the atmosphere within the stadium, and you used Lazio and Roma as the perfect example. Another example is Hertha Berlin, who when I was there made a racket, and our very own stadium has rocked a few times, e.g., Chelsea in the first ever London derby at the London Stadium, and Seville. 

I agree with many that zero consideration was given for supporters and generating an atmosphere when we moved in, and the club actively works against fans creating anything worthwhile. Unlike other stadiums we don’t have vocal sections, safe standing areas and one section has a wall right above where I sit to block any interaction between home and away fans. 

One thing I do like about the London Stadium is that away fans hate it. I don’t want them to enjoy their day. But I’d prefer if they hated it because it was difficult for them to generate an atmosphere or feel safe and comfortable. There is the crux of it as it’s literally a walk in the park via a park to and from the ground. It doesn’t have the moody residential terraced hosing around the old ground or pubs that are for home fans only with West Ham fans watching the away fans not in police escorts walk quietly by with their heads down. 

Even with new owners we’re stuck at the bowl, so we need to find ways to make it how more enjoyable for us and horrible for away fans. 

[Massive Attack]

It's far more important it's a purpose built Football Stadium before anything else. It aint, so I couldn't give a fuck who owns it. Sick and tired of the fucking shithole that's gone a long way to ruin us.

As for money problems, there isn't any. Whoever's peddling that myth at the Club is a lying cսnt and anyone daft enough to believe it is very gullible. They are swimming in it.

[iphammer]

Would renting a stadium mean you could claim back more tax compared to owning a stadium?

[northbankfrank]

Maybe one day an owner will come along with serious dough and build exactly what we want, or there'll be a world cup and a new proper football stadium built in London that will be available to rent. And we'll just give the keys to the bowl back and fuck off. 
I know no one likes the current set up but we are 'free' to a certain extent. I don't think owning a stadium is important, our 'home' is the mean streets of East London. 

 

 

That mythical owner with serious dough would most likely be a Yank or Arab who knows nothing about the club or it's history.  When rebuilding the stadium for a billion or so is put to them, they'll ask why.  When they are told that the current one is the second largest in the league and it sells out for every game, they'll ask why it needs rebuilding.  When they are told it's because a dozen or so people who don't go to games moan about the current one on an obscure message board, I think I know what their response will be.

[threesixty]

I just think the stadium is more of a proxy for our hate of the owners than anything else. If they rebuilt the stadium tomorrow to be closer to the pitch we’d still have Sullivan running the thing and it would still be shit. We could still get relegated but we would be “closer to the pitch” so that would make up for it.. errr. No.

Conversely if we had a decent non pornographer running the club in an honest way, and they brought success, I think the stadium would bug some of us, but wouldnt really be a big deal.

Thats how I see it I suppose.



 

[Mike Oxsaw]

It would be nice to have the club own it's own home again, but where?

Redeveloping the Olympic Stadium in a non-starter for various reasons and almost any land within the M25 will be viewed as prime residential development areas; them's just the facts of having a need to provide housing for the unknown growing  population size of the UK.

Buy and redevelop the O2 arena site? No chance - south of the river.

Wanstead Flats? The burghers of Wanstead would never have it.

Upminster/Hornchurch/Rainham/Purfleet? Nope, not only will the locals not have any of it, those areas will be inundated when the next climate change enhanced 1953 sized storm strikes, and, in any case that's getting too far from our roots - we're not the Arsenal, for fuck's sake.

Where the fuck can we set down our roots again?

[honky cat]

Maybe one day an owner will come along with serious dough and build exactly what we want, or there'll be a world cup and a new proper football stadium built in London that will be available to rent. And we'll just give the keys to the bowl back and fuck off. 
I know no one likes the current set up but we are 'free' to a certain extent. I don't think owning a stadium is important, our 'home' is the mean streets of East London. 

[Russ of the BML]

If we weren’t allowed to own the stadium … due to Tottenhams interference… we should have turned it down and forced the governments hand 
Tottenham never wanted it and obviously feigned interest to get concessions from Haringey about paying for infrastructure around their rebuild & obviously a pub team like Orient were never getting it
Levy played a blinder & Sullivan was obsessed with selling UP (twice) & not giving a shit about it’s suitability for football 
Sullivan was the one who said he didn’t care about an intimidating end of pitch stand as everyone preferred to sit on the halfway line

 

Yep I recall (could be wrong) UP was mortgaged to the hilt and a bit of a financial millstone hence Sullivan wanted rid, which I can kind of understand financially, but in retrospect and from a fan perspective It was the terrible move we all feared it would be. We'd have been better off staying put and redeveloping the east stand and we'd be the envy of many a team, but that would have entailed our owners spending real  money in the face of the cheap shiny option dangling in front of them

But we wasn't allowed to do that as TFL wouldn't sell the bus garage behind the East Stand.... Y'know, they really wouldn't....nudge nudge wink wink......

Which they then sold as soon as we moved out....

You get the idea

[Westside]

I thought the reason Spurs and other clubs were upset with us getting the Olympic Stadium for peanuts was because they all knew that the big burden for each club competing in the league was the stadium they had to build to actually compete. So they all thought it was an unfair advantage.

Which is why it baffles me how this club can have any money problems whatsoever because I sort of dont see that owning a stadium is a useful asset compared to a 99yr lease for peanuts.
Spurs have to pay back 800m or something crazy over the next god knows how many years.

This club is so mismanaged it’s scary.

 

We have money problems, due to poor transfers and paying high wages.

Various posters have summed up the pros and cons of owning a stadium, but as others have also said, a stadium as security for borrowings, will only be of interest to a lender, if that stadium can be knocked down and the land used for something else. The Boleyn Ground, was regularly used as security for our loans, as ultimately, it has been knocked down and developed, so would have made good security.

[goose]

That's just a load of old bolony which suits their narrative.

why would it suit their narrative when they dont own the stadium?
the stadium site was previously a chemical storage facility, the issue with the ground was raised in 2010.

[Mad Dog]

was their stadium built on a toxic waste dump as well?

Pretty sure it was built on an Indian burial ground.
Most of the toxic waste is found in the board room

But I did hear there was some waste product buried beneath, one of the reasons we "cant" dig down further 

[Bondholder]

That's just a load of old bolony which suits their narrative.

[goose]

was their stadium built on a toxic waste dump as well?

[threesixty]

When I was growing up in the 80s I remember seeing clips of lots of European / international games where there was always a running track around the pitch. And the teams would come up from some underground tunnel or something! Used to think it was quite cool really…

I know I’m in the minority (as always!) but I really didnt think it was a big deal us going to the OS.

I feel like the club is the people, the fans, the players, the badge. It’s like when people complain about the decor in a nightclub but the rest of us was raving in some old car park with bird shit everywhere.. didnt matter ,we loved it. 

I suppose if you want to swear at players all day it helps that you’re closer to the pitch lol!


 

[Bondholder]

Conversion is possible. Read below regarding the stadium that held the Copa del Rey final earlier this year.

The match was played on 26 April 2025 at Estadio de La Cartuja in Seville – in the first event at the venue following its expansion and conversion from an athletics facility ahead of its use at the 2030 FIFA World Cup – between arch rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid.

This conversion took EIGHT MONTHS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_de_La_Cartuja

[RBshorty]

It was always a land grab for Sullivan. Owning West Ham was the cost too getting the stadium. Now that ain’t going to happen. We have become a cost hindrance to him. Nobody is buying into a Premiership club which only real value is it’s league status.(Especially more so. When the richest owners on the planet can’t even invest into its squad. Without being told how much it can spend.?) Regardless of what you hear. We are in a World Wide Economic Depression. And even multi billionaire have to tighten their belts. And even the most ardent fan wouldn’t buy the Gold shares. Just too let Sullivan spunk away the money.

Owning the Stadium is important to the club and Sullivan. And the only people now who will buy us. Will only do so when we hit rock bottom. And the next few seasons will be rough. But it’s the medicine we going to have too stomach. To see the back of this ownership.

COYI.