Prestwich_Blue
Well-Known Member
I posted this on another thread but thought in hindsight it needed its own.
Prestwich Blue said:Ok, as promised here’s a summary of what I've found out so far. Some of it is already known but some is totally new and surprising.
First of all, let me stress this is at Feasibility Study stage only. No decision has been made and even if something is done (which is not guaranteed) it won’t start before mid-2013 at the earliest. So there’s a long way to go yet.
ADUG are not particularly impressed with CoMS for various reasons. The first is that it’s below the capacity required for a CL-final Tier 1 stadium but bigger reasons are that it doesn’t have the “wow” factor and doesn’t really fit the plans they seem to have for the area (and I don't know what these are).
It also doesn’t have anywhere near enough corporate facilities of the standard they want (they aren’t looking at the “pie, pint and programme” market here) and there are problems with the catering facilities, which have proven to be too small to permit greater efficiency and throughput. So consultants have been asked to look at three options.
The first is expanding the existing stadium but this isn’t what people think it would be. If they could expand capacity by 10-12,000 then the bulk of this would probably be corporate with maybe no more than 2,000 ordinary seats added. So forget about a new Kop or anything of the sort. That’s not on the cards for CoMS. However there are immense difficulties in doing this and we would lose the stadium (or at least a significant part of the capacity) for up to two seasons. I am told there is also no great enthusiasm for this and it’s also believed that the benefit of doing it would not be commensurate with the cost but they want it on the table, so they can say they’ve considered it.
So Option 2, as we've already heard, is a new stadium but this is where the surprise comes in as they have been given two separate requirements, one of which has a clear rationale but the other doesn’t.
The first, which we already know about, is a new stadium of around 70,000 capacity (somewhere between 67,000 and 72,000 I’m told) with the probable site on the North Car Park, as has been reported. This will have capacity for 15,000 corporate customers and will be looking to generate in excess of £2.5m per game in ticket & catering sales. The ticket prices will vary depending on the view you want but at the lowest end of the price range there would be significant numbers of very affordable tickets. However Tier 1 or 2 on the halfway line would attract higher prices. That sort of pricing model is what has made United’s revenues so high but our owner is more concerned about filling the stadium than squeezing every last penny out of the fans.
This is believed to be the largest stadium we could accommodate on the North Car Park site but building it on the Clayton Aniline site has not been ruled out. Like I said, it’s about knowing what’s possible at this stage.
Now here’s where the surprise comes. A 3rd option has been requested and this is a stadium with a capacity of around 100,000, making it the biggest stadium in Europe and twice the size of CoMS. This will have to be built on the Clayton Aniline site. However, if that’s not interesting enough, there was a lot more reticence about the way they planned to fill this. In effect, the consultants were told they didn’t need to know that at this stage but a match-day revenue generation of around £4.5m was anticipated.
This suggests that there is a Plan B that they’re less keen to publicise and I wonder if it’s connected to the chairman’s statement the other day about the PL becoming more like the American model. He doesn’t strike me as someone who would say this without a plan in mind. The question is, if so what is it?