skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Lengthy read on the stadium and finances
https://thespursreport.wordpress.co...itive-through-the-stadium-construction-phase/
The balancing act: Can Spurs find a way to remain competitive through the stadium construction phase?
4 Replies
If it didn’t already feel real, the sight of the new stadium starting to rise up from the ground illustrates that a new era is finally dawning on Spurs. The next five years promise to be one of the most exciting, and most risky, periods in the club’s history.
Spurs are borrowing at least £350 million from banks, plus securitising future commercial and matchday revenues, in order to fund the stadium project and associated development.
The debt load will surpass what Arsenal took on to build the Emirates a decade ago, and will only be topped by Manchester United, who last year paid around £35 million in financing and £15 million in dividend payments for the privilege of being owned by the Glazer family.
Having spent a decade wading through the planning process and acquiring the land, now the club has the challenge of delivering a 61,000-seater stadium in a densely populated part of London on a tight timeframe, and to budget.
Things appear to be on track at this early stage, but an extraordinarily challenging few years await. The reward is clear though — New White Hart Lane promises to be a world-class stadium, and a true sporting cathedral that is everything the dreary Olympic Stadium will never be.
I have previously written about the stadium financing issue in great detail. In this post, I am going to take a look at the broader state of the club’s finances, and the challenges that lie ahead through the stadium construction phase.
Moving away from pragmatic player trading
A look through the recent financial history of Spurs reveals a number of distinct eras, layered on top of each other like sedimentary rock.
From 2001 to 2007, you have the “Early ENIC” years, in which Daniel Levy inherited the mess from Alan Sugar and piled on more mess as he tried to get to grips with the intricacies of Premier League chairmanship.
From around 2007, the “Wheeler Dealer” era truly began. This was a period of frenzied transfer activity that gradually pushed Spurs from mid-table to the fringes of Champions League contention, but without any sense of stability or sustainability beyond the confidence that more bargains would be found, and more mega fees extracted. This era came to a shuddering halt with the failure of the Bale money splurge, and the realisation that Spurs were never going to be able to compete with the moneybags elite when needing to sell as well as buy.
Since 2014, a new era has emerged, with a more prudent approach to player trading and a greater focus on cost controls. How much this is connected to the stadium funding, or the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino, is unclear. Certainly, you suspect Andre Villas-Boas was supposed to be ambitious young manager to lead Spurs through the tricky stadium construction phase, but there was a problem with a beanie hat and not everything works out.
Pochettino has made a virtue out of having a young, hungry and therefore relatively cheap squad, and the narrow band into which most of the player salaries reportedly fall is seen as a contributing factor to squad unity. Likewise, the club has had the incentive to ensure its accounts are glistening as it struck agreements on financing — a little money saved now could mean a lower rate of interest on the £350 million stadium loan.
Tottenham has been a consistently profitable club in the past decade, but has been reliant on player trading (profit on disposal of intangible assets, as it is known) to achieve this, as the following chart shows:
In the past decade, the club is £152 million in profit. However, in that time, accounting profit on player trading is £295 million — without player trading, the club would have theoretically lost £143 million. Of course it’s not nearly that simple, but it illustrates the degree that Spurs have needed to sell in order to buy.
When Levy referred to “pragmatic player trading” in the club’s rather panicky statement to reassure disgruntled fans in September 2015, it didn’t sound right to me due to the suggestion of a continuation of the “buy low, sell high” era that had already started to pass. “Prudent player trading” would have been a better phrase — no need to sell players the manager wants to keep, but limits on what can be spent and a more cautious approach to acquisitions.
What the stadium financing phase needs is as great a degree of stability as is possible in the anarchic environment of Premier League football. Player trading is the biggest uncertainty of them all in football’s financial landscape. Now that Pochettino has cleared out the flotsam inherited from the Franco Baldini era, fans can expect the “churn” to reduce in transfer windows to come.
Cost controls in action
If you read any analysis of THFC finances from recent years, you’ll see some variant on the following phrase: “Daniel Levy runs a tight ship”.
There are many stories of these cost controls in action — my personal favourite was Mido being told to run across the tarmac to ensure he got a seat with extra legroom on a budget airline flight to London after being bought from Roma.
For a couple of months a year, this gets frustrating. The club’s approach to transfers is akin to dental surgery — deals are done painfully and slowly. Contract negotiations seem to drag on endlessly, key targets are missed, players leaving the club are left in limbo while the market is scoured for someone desperate enough to pay the premium.
Part of this, undoubtedly, is personality driven, and there appears a genuine relish in tough negotiations and brinkmanship. But part of this is necessity — with matchday revenues at their limit, and the club unable for various reasons to match the commercial growth of the richer clubs, it has become increasingly important to find value in the transfer market and control player costs with the stadium financing ahead.
I want to illustrate “where the money goes” at Spurs, and demonstrate what these cost controls actually look like.
.
I’ve gathered data from the past 10 years for revenue and the two major outgoings, namely wages and transfer spend.
(For transfer spend I will use the figure for amortisation. Amortisation is an accounting method whereby the cost of buying players is spread over the lengths of their contracts. There’s an explanation at the bottom of this piece, but essentially amortisation is an annual figure that shows how much the club is actually spending on transfers. The advantage of this is that, while most transfer fees are undisclosed, the amortisation figure is listed in the accounts.)
Here is a chart:
This gives you a picture of how revenue and wages are rising, but transfer spending has actually been quite flat.
However, if you combine wages and amortisation, something interesting happens:
As you can see, wages plus amortisation tracks revenue remarkably closely from 2007-2014, to the point that it is almost a mirror. It is only in 2010 (financial year) when the gap becomes close. You can see the balance-sheet management in play to ensure spending remained at the desired level.
Why am I so confidently proclaiming a new financial era? Look at 2014. For the first time, revenue starts to diverge, and there is every indication that the divergence will grow starker over the next two financial years.
In the next accounts, the following senior players will come off the books, or be added:
OUT: Paulinho, Holtby, Capoue, Kaboul, Stambouli, Chirches, Soldado, Lennon, Adebayor.
IN: Wimmer, Trippier, N’Jie, Alderweireld, Son,
While there have also been a number of new contracts, and there are hints some of Adebayor’s contract pay-off may have been factored into the 2015 accounts, in all likelihood the wage bill is going to be level or even lower in the 2016 accounts. Meanwhile, the strong league performance means TV money will increase. In the 2017 accounts, we’ll have both the new Premier League TV deal kicking in, and Champions League revenue, to counterbalance a series of new contracts and the signings made in the past window.
My prediction is that revenue and first-team spending will continue to diverge in the next two years. This puts Spurs in opposition to most other Premier League clubs, which are frantically offloading the new TV money on transfer fees and wages as fast as it is pouring in.
As it stands, here are the combined wages and amortisation for the four clubs arguably “closest” to Spurs financially (United are on a different planet, and Chelsea and City are billionaire playthings, so a comparison isn’t worthwhile):
Arsenal — £244.1m
Liverpool — £227m
Tottenham — £139.4m
Everton — £97m
West Ham — £94.3m
In previous years, Spurs have been all alone in “sixth” place in spending on wages (among several other indicators of club “size”) — we will start to see other clubs narrowing the gap. Some may interpret this as a lack of ambition, but ultimately Spurs have a £750 million stadium scheme to fund, which seems pretty ambitious to me.
The growing gap between revenue and first-team spending means more funds that can be rolled into the stadium project. Spurs appear to be positioning themselves to absorb the spike in financing costs that is to come.
In short, since 2014 Spurs have been shifting to a more sustainable model that relies less on big transfer fees to balance the books. The emergence of home-grown stars like Harry Kane, smart acquisitions like Dele Alli and Eric Dier, and the strong management of Mauricio Pochettino have turbocharged this shift. Sometimes you need a bit of luck.
Learning from Arsenal
Over the next five years, the period of peak financing, Spurs need to strike a balance between funding stadium construction, and remaining competitive on the pitch.
Over the next two seasons in particular, the financial benefits Spurs can accrue from being competitive (Champions League money, greater share of British TV money, improved receipts from Wembley),relative to the amount of money that can be saved, justify continued investment in the playing squad. A competitive and appealing Spurs team will greatly help the club sell the increased number of tickets and long-term hospitality packages that is the rationale underpinning the whole project.
Levy has repeatedly stated that there is no need to sell players to fund the stadium, including at the last board-to-board meeting with the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust. This isn’t just a statement of confidence in the funding package for the stadium, but also recognition of the need to ensure Spurs field a strong team on opening day of the 2018/19 season.
However, there is a difference between not needing to sell players, and having limits on what can be spent to secure new ones. The extent to which Spurs can compete for new players over the next five years will depend on how much Spurs will have to spend to finance construction. Spurs will be taking on huge debt — at least £350 million — but the key will be controlling the amount that is spent each year on interest payments and repayment of principal.
(Why do I keep saying five years? As previously reported, the £350 million loan will be a five-year loan, which will then be refinanced — per the Viability Report for the project submitted during the planning process. Until I hear otherwise, I will assume the basic funding plan is the same.)
As the only other club to have built and financed a comparable project, the best example for what lies ahead is Arsenal. I don’t want to go into too much detail as the comparison isn’t perfect, but there are a few points worth making.
Arsenal, notoriously, felt the squeeze during construction, creating a need for parsimony that some fans argue Arsene Wenger has never really shaken off. Spurs have the great advantage of learning from Arsenal’s experience. From my understanding of what I have read, Arsenal ploughed ahead without all the required funding in place, which made it more expensive and at one stage forced construction to stop. Spurs can’t afford such a delay given the tight time schedule imposed by the need to play away from White Hart Lane.
I’ve attempted to gather data for the finance costs paid out by Arsenal, to demonstrate, not so much the amounts, as the “profile” — how finance costs will peak and then reduce and flatten to a tidy annual sum. This is extremely hard — Arsenal have refinanced their debt load on several occasions, making it hard to track. The chart below gives the club’s stated figures for interest charges in the period, and debt payments due in the coming year (repayment of principal).
Arsenal raised debt for both the Ashburton Grove stadium project, and the redevelopment of Highbury — likewise, Spurs will be funding property development (on the “southern development land” on the stadium site and at 500 White Hart Lane) as well as stadium construction. I can’t be sure all the debt payments relate to stadium/property development, so take the figures with a pinch of salt. But, it is a consistent measure.
The 2007 figure isn’t right, as I can’t find the “repayment of principal” number due to refinancing, frustratingly. But for the first four years, you can see how total financing costs were between £35m and £45m — quite a burden. From 2008, things levelled out, and Arsenal continues to spend around £19m a year on its Emirates “mortgage”.
Spurs can expect a similar profile to this. For five years, repayments and interest will be high, but then the bank loan will be refinanced into a long-term debt package at a lower rate of interest. Arsenal’s debt is split about 80-20 between fixed-rate and floating-rate bonds, at 5.8 percent and 6.6 percent interest respectively. More than any aspect of this whole project, I expect Daniel Levy to get the best possible terms on this sort of financial jiggery-pokery — he has years of experience.
We won’t know how much Spurs are spending on financing costs (I could ask, but I will get a polite note stating the commercial sensitivity of the topic, I guarantee) until the accounts covering the financing period are published — we’ll have to wait for the 2016 accounts, published in April/May of 2017. Any attempt to put a figure on it on my part would be conjecture. But it will be substantial.
One final point of comparison with Arsenal is the shift in the broader financial environment of a Premier League football club in the past decade. Here are the comparative revenues of Arsenal at the peak of Emirates financing, and Spurs last year:
As you can see, Tottenham’s revenue is nearly £60 million higher, due to more commercial income and TV money (and that number will spike in future accounts with the new TV deal).
On the one hand, Spurs are taking on a bigger finance package — £350m versus £260m. On the other hand, Spurs are doing it from a stronger financial position — £196m revenue versus £137m.
The ability of Spurs to control financing costs and maximise revenues during the construction phase will ultimately determine the amount that is ringfenced to be spent on transfers and wages.
Capital expenditure
What shouldn’t be forgotten amid the talk of the massive new financial burden is that, for years now, Spurs have been investing heavily in both the stadium project and the training centre.
In the meeting with the THST in May this year, Daniel Levy stated that £150 million had been invested in the stadium project to date. Per the last accounts, the “cumulative” spend on the stadium (professional fees and “enabling works”) was stated to be £59 million, up from £40.9 million in the previous year. On top of that £59 million are property acquisitions, professional fees/other costs for the previous design that will have been written off, and construction costs in the six-week period between when Spurs gained the final green light and the board-to-board meeting.
As for the training centre, upon opening, it was capitalised at £27.5 million — in line with the £30 million price tag that is generally put about for the wonderful facility.
This £177.5 million capital expenditure has taken place over the past nine financial years (prior to 07/08 there was none). The average spend is about £20m per year, although of course it is far from a straight line. This investment has been funded by a combination of equity contributions, bank loans and club profits.
As an aside, I was curious to see how much money has been put in by ENIC to fund this sort of expenditure in the past decade, and how much has come from loans/profits.
This stuff gets hard to track as the club accounts are pretty complex. But from what I can make of it, in 2014 there was a £40m injection, while in 2010 there was a £15m injection plus a further £18.4m “investment in group companies”. This refers to the many subsidiaries that are mostly focused on property, so it would be reasonable to suggest this was for property purchases.
From my chats with people who know about this stuff (OK, that’ll be @ztranche),this equity contribution has been in the form of loans converted into preference shares.
The combined equity contribution is £73.4m, meaning the rest — £104 million or so — has been funded by loans and from profits. This is equity contribution is fairly modest, given the size of Joe Lewis’s Tavistock Group portfolio and the way the value of the club is going to soar once the stadium is complete. I’d compare this level of investment to adding a conservatory to your house to increase the value, rather than being a sugar daddy and sticking a helipad on the roof. But the money was found, and the investment now will help the club in years to come (and help “Uncle Joe” cash in, if and when he sells).
Overall, while not on the level of the stadium financing costs once the £350m loan kicks in, this £177.5m is not an inconsiderable amount of capital investment in the period. It will have given Spurs experience in managing its balance sheet to ensure not all the TV money is pissed away on agents and transfer fees. There is an adjustment coming, but won’t be like Spurs are accelerating from 0 to 60mph — we’ve already been cruising along at 30mph for a while now.
Final thought
The next five years is about finding the right balance between funding the stadium and funding a competitive team. It’ll be hugely challenging, and even if Spurs get it “right”, events out of the club’s control — luck, relative performance of others, macroeconomy, you name it — may mean it looks like the club got it “wrong”.
Underinvestment in the playing squad could have a negative impact on the viability of the stadium project, just as overinvestment could. It is safe to assume Spurs will be on the cautious side of this spectrum — the unofficial target of a 45 percent wages-turnover ratio hints as much.
But, building a new stadium doesn’t mean the club must put away the chequebook for a few years — in fact, the club must not. A drift back towards mid-table would be counterproductive in terms of both lost revenues, and the potential loss of Champions League calibre players that would harm the effort to sell tickets and hospitality packages in the new stadium when it opens.
I don’t want to see the club hide behind the stadium project as an excuse for not sufficiently strengthening the playing squad. The fact that Spurs were prepared to overpay on deadline day to secure a player like Moussa Sissoko shows the money is there, and the club is prepared to spend it. Likewise, continued investment in Hotspur Way through the construction of player accommodation shows the bigger picture isn’t being ignored, and the club is not being stretched beyond its limits by the stadium scheme.
The data I have gathered shows, in my opinion, that Spurs are well positioned for the huge leap that is now being taken. Years of pragmatism in the transfer market, and stringent cost controls, mean Spurs are as well prepared as they could be for the jump in stadium-related spending that is coming.
The spike in Premier League money, improvements in performance under Mauricio Pochettino and emergence of a clutch of homegrown talents are perfectly timed and give Spurs a little more leeway, arguably, than Arsenal had when building the Emirates. Of course, the Premier League TV deal has an inflationary impact on transfers and wages, which makes finding value harder.
Investing big bucks during boom years on capital projects such as training centres and stadium upgrades is exactly what a football club should be doing from a business perspective. Personally, I am very happy with what is being attempted and fully supportive. Some readers will disagree — that is your right.
For Daniel Levy, the new stadium is his vision and the defining project of his chairmanship. He has skin in the game — as the owner of a significant portion of the club, his net worth will soar if the stadium project is completed successfully.
The incentives for him to get things right are clear. But finding the right balance will be hugely challenging, and involve much guesswork. It’s going to get interesting, folks.
https://thespursreport.wordpress.co...itive-through-the-stadium-construction-phase/
The balancing act: Can Spurs find a way to remain competitive through the stadium construction phase?
4 Replies
If it didn’t already feel real, the sight of the new stadium starting to rise up from the ground illustrates that a new era is finally dawning on Spurs. The next five years promise to be one of the most exciting, and most risky, periods in the club’s history.
Spurs are borrowing at least £350 million from banks, plus securitising future commercial and matchday revenues, in order to fund the stadium project and associated development.
The debt load will surpass what Arsenal took on to build the Emirates a decade ago, and will only be topped by Manchester United, who last year paid around £35 million in financing and £15 million in dividend payments for the privilege of being owned by the Glazer family.
Having spent a decade wading through the planning process and acquiring the land, now the club has the challenge of delivering a 61,000-seater stadium in a densely populated part of London on a tight timeframe, and to budget.
Things appear to be on track at this early stage, but an extraordinarily challenging few years await. The reward is clear though — New White Hart Lane promises to be a world-class stadium, and a true sporting cathedral that is everything the dreary Olympic Stadium will never be.
I have previously written about the stadium financing issue in great detail. In this post, I am going to take a look at the broader state of the club’s finances, and the challenges that lie ahead through the stadium construction phase.
Moving away from pragmatic player trading
A look through the recent financial history of Spurs reveals a number of distinct eras, layered on top of each other like sedimentary rock.
From 2001 to 2007, you have the “Early ENIC” years, in which Daniel Levy inherited the mess from Alan Sugar and piled on more mess as he tried to get to grips with the intricacies of Premier League chairmanship.
From around 2007, the “Wheeler Dealer” era truly began. This was a period of frenzied transfer activity that gradually pushed Spurs from mid-table to the fringes of Champions League contention, but without any sense of stability or sustainability beyond the confidence that more bargains would be found, and more mega fees extracted. This era came to a shuddering halt with the failure of the Bale money splurge, and the realisation that Spurs were never going to be able to compete with the moneybags elite when needing to sell as well as buy.
Since 2014, a new era has emerged, with a more prudent approach to player trading and a greater focus on cost controls. How much this is connected to the stadium funding, or the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino, is unclear. Certainly, you suspect Andre Villas-Boas was supposed to be ambitious young manager to lead Spurs through the tricky stadium construction phase, but there was a problem with a beanie hat and not everything works out.
Pochettino has made a virtue out of having a young, hungry and therefore relatively cheap squad, and the narrow band into which most of the player salaries reportedly fall is seen as a contributing factor to squad unity. Likewise, the club has had the incentive to ensure its accounts are glistening as it struck agreements on financing — a little money saved now could mean a lower rate of interest on the £350 million stadium loan.
Tottenham has been a consistently profitable club in the past decade, but has been reliant on player trading (profit on disposal of intangible assets, as it is known) to achieve this, as the following chart shows:
In the past decade, the club is £152 million in profit. However, in that time, accounting profit on player trading is £295 million — without player trading, the club would have theoretically lost £143 million. Of course it’s not nearly that simple, but it illustrates the degree that Spurs have needed to sell in order to buy.
When Levy referred to “pragmatic player trading” in the club’s rather panicky statement to reassure disgruntled fans in September 2015, it didn’t sound right to me due to the suggestion of a continuation of the “buy low, sell high” era that had already started to pass. “Prudent player trading” would have been a better phrase — no need to sell players the manager wants to keep, but limits on what can be spent and a more cautious approach to acquisitions.
What the stadium financing phase needs is as great a degree of stability as is possible in the anarchic environment of Premier League football. Player trading is the biggest uncertainty of them all in football’s financial landscape. Now that Pochettino has cleared out the flotsam inherited from the Franco Baldini era, fans can expect the “churn” to reduce in transfer windows to come.
Cost controls in action
If you read any analysis of THFC finances from recent years, you’ll see some variant on the following phrase: “Daniel Levy runs a tight ship”.
There are many stories of these cost controls in action — my personal favourite was Mido being told to run across the tarmac to ensure he got a seat with extra legroom on a budget airline flight to London after being bought from Roma.
For a couple of months a year, this gets frustrating. The club’s approach to transfers is akin to dental surgery — deals are done painfully and slowly. Contract negotiations seem to drag on endlessly, key targets are missed, players leaving the club are left in limbo while the market is scoured for someone desperate enough to pay the premium.
Part of this, undoubtedly, is personality driven, and there appears a genuine relish in tough negotiations and brinkmanship. But part of this is necessity — with matchday revenues at their limit, and the club unable for various reasons to match the commercial growth of the richer clubs, it has become increasingly important to find value in the transfer market and control player costs with the stadium financing ahead.
I want to illustrate “where the money goes” at Spurs, and demonstrate what these cost controls actually look like.
.
I’ve gathered data from the past 10 years for revenue and the two major outgoings, namely wages and transfer spend.
(For transfer spend I will use the figure for amortisation. Amortisation is an accounting method whereby the cost of buying players is spread over the lengths of their contracts. There’s an explanation at the bottom of this piece, but essentially amortisation is an annual figure that shows how much the club is actually spending on transfers. The advantage of this is that, while most transfer fees are undisclosed, the amortisation figure is listed in the accounts.)
Here is a chart:
This gives you a picture of how revenue and wages are rising, but transfer spending has actually been quite flat.
However, if you combine wages and amortisation, something interesting happens:
As you can see, wages plus amortisation tracks revenue remarkably closely from 2007-2014, to the point that it is almost a mirror. It is only in 2010 (financial year) when the gap becomes close. You can see the balance-sheet management in play to ensure spending remained at the desired level.
Why am I so confidently proclaiming a new financial era? Look at 2014. For the first time, revenue starts to diverge, and there is every indication that the divergence will grow starker over the next two financial years.
In the next accounts, the following senior players will come off the books, or be added:
OUT: Paulinho, Holtby, Capoue, Kaboul, Stambouli, Chirches, Soldado, Lennon, Adebayor.
IN: Wimmer, Trippier, N’Jie, Alderweireld, Son,
While there have also been a number of new contracts, and there are hints some of Adebayor’s contract pay-off may have been factored into the 2015 accounts, in all likelihood the wage bill is going to be level or even lower in the 2016 accounts. Meanwhile, the strong league performance means TV money will increase. In the 2017 accounts, we’ll have both the new Premier League TV deal kicking in, and Champions League revenue, to counterbalance a series of new contracts and the signings made in the past window.
My prediction is that revenue and first-team spending will continue to diverge in the next two years. This puts Spurs in opposition to most other Premier League clubs, which are frantically offloading the new TV money on transfer fees and wages as fast as it is pouring in.
As it stands, here are the combined wages and amortisation for the four clubs arguably “closest” to Spurs financially (United are on a different planet, and Chelsea and City are billionaire playthings, so a comparison isn’t worthwhile):
Arsenal — £244.1m
Liverpool — £227m
Tottenham — £139.4m
Everton — £97m
West Ham — £94.3m
In previous years, Spurs have been all alone in “sixth” place in spending on wages (among several other indicators of club “size”) — we will start to see other clubs narrowing the gap. Some may interpret this as a lack of ambition, but ultimately Spurs have a £750 million stadium scheme to fund, which seems pretty ambitious to me.
The growing gap between revenue and first-team spending means more funds that can be rolled into the stadium project. Spurs appear to be positioning themselves to absorb the spike in financing costs that is to come.
In short, since 2014 Spurs have been shifting to a more sustainable model that relies less on big transfer fees to balance the books. The emergence of home-grown stars like Harry Kane, smart acquisitions like Dele Alli and Eric Dier, and the strong management of Mauricio Pochettino have turbocharged this shift. Sometimes you need a bit of luck.
Learning from Arsenal
Over the next five years, the period of peak financing, Spurs need to strike a balance between funding stadium construction, and remaining competitive on the pitch.
Over the next two seasons in particular, the financial benefits Spurs can accrue from being competitive (Champions League money, greater share of British TV money, improved receipts from Wembley),relative to the amount of money that can be saved, justify continued investment in the playing squad. A competitive and appealing Spurs team will greatly help the club sell the increased number of tickets and long-term hospitality packages that is the rationale underpinning the whole project.
Levy has repeatedly stated that there is no need to sell players to fund the stadium, including at the last board-to-board meeting with the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust. This isn’t just a statement of confidence in the funding package for the stadium, but also recognition of the need to ensure Spurs field a strong team on opening day of the 2018/19 season.
However, there is a difference between not needing to sell players, and having limits on what can be spent to secure new ones. The extent to which Spurs can compete for new players over the next five years will depend on how much Spurs will have to spend to finance construction. Spurs will be taking on huge debt — at least £350 million — but the key will be controlling the amount that is spent each year on interest payments and repayment of principal.
(Why do I keep saying five years? As previously reported, the £350 million loan will be a five-year loan, which will then be refinanced — per the Viability Report for the project submitted during the planning process. Until I hear otherwise, I will assume the basic funding plan is the same.)
As the only other club to have built and financed a comparable project, the best example for what lies ahead is Arsenal. I don’t want to go into too much detail as the comparison isn’t perfect, but there are a few points worth making.
Arsenal, notoriously, felt the squeeze during construction, creating a need for parsimony that some fans argue Arsene Wenger has never really shaken off. Spurs have the great advantage of learning from Arsenal’s experience. From my understanding of what I have read, Arsenal ploughed ahead without all the required funding in place, which made it more expensive and at one stage forced construction to stop. Spurs can’t afford such a delay given the tight time schedule imposed by the need to play away from White Hart Lane.
I’ve attempted to gather data for the finance costs paid out by Arsenal, to demonstrate, not so much the amounts, as the “profile” — how finance costs will peak and then reduce and flatten to a tidy annual sum. This is extremely hard — Arsenal have refinanced their debt load on several occasions, making it hard to track. The chart below gives the club’s stated figures for interest charges in the period, and debt payments due in the coming year (repayment of principal).
Arsenal raised debt for both the Ashburton Grove stadium project, and the redevelopment of Highbury — likewise, Spurs will be funding property development (on the “southern development land” on the stadium site and at 500 White Hart Lane) as well as stadium construction. I can’t be sure all the debt payments relate to stadium/property development, so take the figures with a pinch of salt. But, it is a consistent measure.
The 2007 figure isn’t right, as I can’t find the “repayment of principal” number due to refinancing, frustratingly. But for the first four years, you can see how total financing costs were between £35m and £45m — quite a burden. From 2008, things levelled out, and Arsenal continues to spend around £19m a year on its Emirates “mortgage”.
Spurs can expect a similar profile to this. For five years, repayments and interest will be high, but then the bank loan will be refinanced into a long-term debt package at a lower rate of interest. Arsenal’s debt is split about 80-20 between fixed-rate and floating-rate bonds, at 5.8 percent and 6.6 percent interest respectively. More than any aspect of this whole project, I expect Daniel Levy to get the best possible terms on this sort of financial jiggery-pokery — he has years of experience.
We won’t know how much Spurs are spending on financing costs (I could ask, but I will get a polite note stating the commercial sensitivity of the topic, I guarantee) until the accounts covering the financing period are published — we’ll have to wait for the 2016 accounts, published in April/May of 2017. Any attempt to put a figure on it on my part would be conjecture. But it will be substantial.
One final point of comparison with Arsenal is the shift in the broader financial environment of a Premier League football club in the past decade. Here are the comparative revenues of Arsenal at the peak of Emirates financing, and Spurs last year:
As you can see, Tottenham’s revenue is nearly £60 million higher, due to more commercial income and TV money (and that number will spike in future accounts with the new TV deal).
On the one hand, Spurs are taking on a bigger finance package — £350m versus £260m. On the other hand, Spurs are doing it from a stronger financial position — £196m revenue versus £137m.
The ability of Spurs to control financing costs and maximise revenues during the construction phase will ultimately determine the amount that is ringfenced to be spent on transfers and wages.
Capital expenditure
What shouldn’t be forgotten amid the talk of the massive new financial burden is that, for years now, Spurs have been investing heavily in both the stadium project and the training centre.
In the meeting with the THST in May this year, Daniel Levy stated that £150 million had been invested in the stadium project to date. Per the last accounts, the “cumulative” spend on the stadium (professional fees and “enabling works”) was stated to be £59 million, up from £40.9 million in the previous year. On top of that £59 million are property acquisitions, professional fees/other costs for the previous design that will have been written off, and construction costs in the six-week period between when Spurs gained the final green light and the board-to-board meeting.
As for the training centre, upon opening, it was capitalised at £27.5 million — in line with the £30 million price tag that is generally put about for the wonderful facility.
This £177.5 million capital expenditure has taken place over the past nine financial years (prior to 07/08 there was none). The average spend is about £20m per year, although of course it is far from a straight line. This investment has been funded by a combination of equity contributions, bank loans and club profits.
As an aside, I was curious to see how much money has been put in by ENIC to fund this sort of expenditure in the past decade, and how much has come from loans/profits.
This stuff gets hard to track as the club accounts are pretty complex. But from what I can make of it, in 2014 there was a £40m injection, while in 2010 there was a £15m injection plus a further £18.4m “investment in group companies”. This refers to the many subsidiaries that are mostly focused on property, so it would be reasonable to suggest this was for property purchases.
From my chats with people who know about this stuff (OK, that’ll be @ztranche),this equity contribution has been in the form of loans converted into preference shares.
The combined equity contribution is £73.4m, meaning the rest — £104 million or so — has been funded by loans and from profits. This is equity contribution is fairly modest, given the size of Joe Lewis’s Tavistock Group portfolio and the way the value of the club is going to soar once the stadium is complete. I’d compare this level of investment to adding a conservatory to your house to increase the value, rather than being a sugar daddy and sticking a helipad on the roof. But the money was found, and the investment now will help the club in years to come (and help “Uncle Joe” cash in, if and when he sells).
Overall, while not on the level of the stadium financing costs once the £350m loan kicks in, this £177.5m is not an inconsiderable amount of capital investment in the period. It will have given Spurs experience in managing its balance sheet to ensure not all the TV money is pissed away on agents and transfer fees. There is an adjustment coming, but won’t be like Spurs are accelerating from 0 to 60mph — we’ve already been cruising along at 30mph for a while now.
Final thought
The next five years is about finding the right balance between funding the stadium and funding a competitive team. It’ll be hugely challenging, and even if Spurs get it “right”, events out of the club’s control — luck, relative performance of others, macroeconomy, you name it — may mean it looks like the club got it “wrong”.
Underinvestment in the playing squad could have a negative impact on the viability of the stadium project, just as overinvestment could. It is safe to assume Spurs will be on the cautious side of this spectrum — the unofficial target of a 45 percent wages-turnover ratio hints as much.
But, building a new stadium doesn’t mean the club must put away the chequebook for a few years — in fact, the club must not. A drift back towards mid-table would be counterproductive in terms of both lost revenues, and the potential loss of Champions League calibre players that would harm the effort to sell tickets and hospitality packages in the new stadium when it opens.
I don’t want to see the club hide behind the stadium project as an excuse for not sufficiently strengthening the playing squad. The fact that Spurs were prepared to overpay on deadline day to secure a player like Moussa Sissoko shows the money is there, and the club is prepared to spend it. Likewise, continued investment in Hotspur Way through the construction of player accommodation shows the bigger picture isn’t being ignored, and the club is not being stretched beyond its limits by the stadium scheme.
The data I have gathered shows, in my opinion, that Spurs are well positioned for the huge leap that is now being taken. Years of pragmatism in the transfer market, and stringent cost controls, mean Spurs are as well prepared as they could be for the jump in stadium-related spending that is coming.
The spike in Premier League money, improvements in performance under Mauricio Pochettino and emergence of a clutch of homegrown talents are perfectly timed and give Spurs a little more leeway, arguably, than Arsenal had when building the Emirates. Of course, the Premier League TV deal has an inflationary impact on transfers and wages, which makes finding value harder.
Investing big bucks during boom years on capital projects such as training centres and stadium upgrades is exactly what a football club should be doing from a business perspective. Personally, I am very happy with what is being attempted and fully supportive. Some readers will disagree — that is your right.
For Daniel Levy, the new stadium is his vision and the defining project of his chairmanship. He has skin in the game — as the owner of a significant portion of the club, his net worth will soar if the stadium project is completed successfully.
The incentives for him to get things right are clear. But finding the right balance will be hugely challenging, and involve much guesswork. It’s going to get interesting, folks.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
Brilliant article, thank you, I find all this fascinating and a real insight about what the whole bigger picture is all about. A lot of people in the other place could learn a lot from this.
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Its starting to look like rawk when you look in from the outside.The bickering and misinformation about sissoko is staggering,most seem unaware of his position,the possible financing and yet announce to the world their ineptitude publically and loudly.
TBH I look around for information,content that is new to me,a bit of a laugh&some informed opinion.May be slow here ATM as it gets going,but never let it turn it a shitstorm of uninformed opinionated drivel that wastes your time sorting through to find the decent stuff to read.
Oh yeah it was an interesting article!!
Flump
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
I am of the opinion that the stadium will be paid for without borrowing. I mentioned in the other place I think that I had a brief convo with a guy who works for the builders Mace at the ground and without him knowing I was a yid he said Levy had done really well in getting the whole thing paid for by the NFL.
I don't know if there is any concrete numbers that have been confirmed regarding costing and who's paying. It's just what I heard.
I don't know if there is any concrete numbers that have been confirmed regarding costing and who's paying. It's just what I heard.
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
click on to make it full size,easier to understand then. 
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Good read on the stadium and NFL
http://www.espn.co.uk/american-fb/s...ottenham-building-new-soccer-stadium-nfl-mind
London calling: Tottenham's new soccer stadium has NFL in mind
Is this the future home of an NFL franchise? Tottenham's new soccer stadium is being built with an eye toward luring an American football team to London. Tottenham Hotspur FC/Tottenham Hotspur FC
It was the chairman's idea.
How could he get the NFL, one of the largest global brands in all of sports, to agree to hold regular-season games in a Premier League stadium? It had never been done.
Maybe the NFL thought Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy was, as he said, "a little bit mad" in 2012 when he suggested the two agree to hold NFL games in his club's new 61,000-seat stadium beginning when it opens in 2018. But the NFL listened.
Levy proposed equipping the stadium with a retractable pitch -- a grass soccer field over a synthetic surface for NFL games -- which would make it possible to hold two games in the same stadium on the same day. Over time, Levy also agreed to configure the stadium so the sight lines would be as good for NFL games as they would be for soccer games and to build a dedicated NFL-sized locker room and NFL-sized medical and media facilities.
"We worked together," Levy said, "because it needed to be viewed as a combined joint soccer and NFL stadium. In fact, the way we designed the whole experience is one side of the stadium is a dedicated soccer entrance and the other side is a dedicated NFL entrance.
"If it ever got to a stage where the NFL decided it wanted to have a permanent team in London, this stadium could literally be, whatever the team was, it would be their stadium as opposed to an NFL team feeling they're renting Tottenham's stadium."
That is a big reason why Mark Waller, the NFL's executive vice president of international, told ESPN.com earlier this year that he could see the league putting a team in London by 2020 "if the ownership decided that was something we wanted to do."
The NFL has been building a fan base in England since it started its International Series there in 2007. The league has held 14 regular-season games in London -- all at Wembley Stadium -- and will hold three more there this season, including one at Twickenham Stadium, home of England's national rugby team.
Starting in 2018, the NFL will hold at least two games at Tottenham's as-yet-named stadium for a 10-year period, although Levy said, "We've encouraged them to engage with us in a wider way."
If the NFL decides it wants to base a team in London, Levy said the Spurs would like to host it.
"We would welcome very much close cooperation with the NFL and a dedicated team," Levy said. "Obviously a decision is entirely theirs whether they do bring a team to the U.K., and where it would be located is something that would be talked about. But yes, we would be very much welcome to that scenario."
When Levy became chairman for the Spurs in 2001, he had three objectives: improve the quality of the team, build a world-class training facility and build a new stadium.
When the stadium, which will be adjacent to Tottenham's current White Hart Lane home, is complete, Levy will have achieved all three. Last season, the Spurs finished third in the Premier League, their highest finish of Levy's tenure. And a couple of years ago they moved to a new training facility, where they soon will break ground on an addition for player housing.
But the stadium and the accompanying neighborhood revitalization project -- both of which are known as the Northumberland Development Project -- are Levy's baby. The project includes the construction of new homes, a hotel, a medical facility and a grocery store, among other things.
"I have lived and breathed this project from day one," the 54-year-old Levy said. "It is absolutely my ambition to make this work. When I first started talking about it internally at the club, again I think people around me thought I was mad as well. I guess it's my tenacity to get it done because there were many times with the NFL where there wasn't going to be an arrangement. We just kept going back and saying, 'What about this? What about that?'
"When we first went to them, we went to them with the idea of a joint stadium in some shape or form without going through all the details at that stage. As we sat down and we went through all the operations, we worked out, 'What does the NFL need? What does soccer need?' Basically we had a checklist of all the various things we wanted to achieve, and then at the end of the day it was the best solution."
Levy said he researched stadiums in the United States, and while he said he didn't want to "give away any trade secrets," the major difference between venues there versus in England is the scale. "They're enormous," Levy said. So while Tottenham's video boards will be the largest in a European stadium, they won't touch the size of some in the U.S.
And although Levy looked at the retractable grass field at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, home of the Cardinals, there were logistical differences there, too. That field retracts outside the indoor stadium, where it can be exposed to sunlight. At the Tottenham site, where land is at a premium, the grass field will retract under the stands and be exposed to artificial light.
But unlike Wembley Stadium, the Spurs' new venue won't need to be reconfigured to accommodate an NFL field. So the turnaround time from hosting a soccer match on the grass field to an NFL game on the synthetic surface will be two hours.
"One of the idle thoughts we have at the moment is, would you really be able to play an NFL game and an EPL game on the same day as a doubleheader?" Waller said. "It wouldn't be absolutely out of the question. I don't think you'd want to do it on a regular basis, but on a unique feature, that might be a really interesting idea."
Said Levy: "I don't think it's something we'd want to try our first game, but that is certainly realistic. How exciting the idea of having the two biggest leagues in the world from a television perspective -- fantastic! -- play on the same day."
While the NFL likes to cite a string of statistics that shows how well it is trending in England -- such as that it has sold out every game at Wembley -- Levy is a bit more conservative in his assessment of whether England can support a full-time NFL franchise.
It starts with kids.
"Kids in school in England don't think about NFL," Levy said. "They think about soccer, and to a much, much less extent rugby and cricket. You wouldn't put the NFL in that list at the moment, and therefore one has to be cautious about the timing of the decision and how that is done.
"I think it's possible and I think it can work, otherwise we wouldn't have invested what we've invested in our stadium, and we wouldn't have entered into the arrangement with the NFL. I just think that everyone needs to have their feet on the ground, and just because you sell out three games of 80,000 or 90,000 people [doesn't mean] that a franchise is an automatic success."
One NFC front office executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he worries about issues beyond the size of the fan base. He wonders if commissioner Roger Goodell and the league are being overly aggressive with their overseas ambitions during a time when player safety is being emphasized.
"I would say 2020 is probably the realistic goal in Roger's mind and the owners' minds," he said. "There's been so much talk about international. My biggest concern is we're trying so hard to go international in so many places too fast that too many bad things can happen. They're talking about playing in China. Are you kidding me? It's a bad idea. There are enormous questions about London that haven't been answered, but it's 'player safety, player safety, player safety.' "
Regardless of the timeframe, Levy emphasized two things would help put a U.K. franchise in position to succeed. One is the continued engagement of fans, young and old. The other is ensuring that the stadium experience is "a real NFL experience," because if it's not, not only will the fans attending the game know it, so will the ones watching on television.
Tottenham is committed to making the stadium experience special, and if and when the NFL is ready to move a team to London, it will be waiting.
"Clearly we wouldn't both be putting all this into this stadium if there wasn't the prospect of one day a team eventually coming to London," Levy said. "But there are certainly no guarantees that A) a team comes to London, and B) they have to use our stadium.
"I think we're all putting the effort in in the hopes that they will do it."
http://www.espn.co.uk/american-fb/s...ottenham-building-new-soccer-stadium-nfl-mind
London calling: Tottenham's new soccer stadium has NFL in mind
Is this the future home of an NFL franchise? Tottenham's new soccer stadium is being built with an eye toward luring an American football team to London. Tottenham Hotspur FC/Tottenham Hotspur FC
It was the chairman's idea.
How could he get the NFL, one of the largest global brands in all of sports, to agree to hold regular-season games in a Premier League stadium? It had never been done.
Maybe the NFL thought Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy was, as he said, "a little bit mad" in 2012 when he suggested the two agree to hold NFL games in his club's new 61,000-seat stadium beginning when it opens in 2018. But the NFL listened.
Levy proposed equipping the stadium with a retractable pitch -- a grass soccer field over a synthetic surface for NFL games -- which would make it possible to hold two games in the same stadium on the same day. Over time, Levy also agreed to configure the stadium so the sight lines would be as good for NFL games as they would be for soccer games and to build a dedicated NFL-sized locker room and NFL-sized medical and media facilities.
"We worked together," Levy said, "because it needed to be viewed as a combined joint soccer and NFL stadium. In fact, the way we designed the whole experience is one side of the stadium is a dedicated soccer entrance and the other side is a dedicated NFL entrance.
"If it ever got to a stage where the NFL decided it wanted to have a permanent team in London, this stadium could literally be, whatever the team was, it would be their stadium as opposed to an NFL team feeling they're renting Tottenham's stadium."
That is a big reason why Mark Waller, the NFL's executive vice president of international, told ESPN.com earlier this year that he could see the league putting a team in London by 2020 "if the ownership decided that was something we wanted to do."
The NFL has been building a fan base in England since it started its International Series there in 2007. The league has held 14 regular-season games in London -- all at Wembley Stadium -- and will hold three more there this season, including one at Twickenham Stadium, home of England's national rugby team.
Starting in 2018, the NFL will hold at least two games at Tottenham's as-yet-named stadium for a 10-year period, although Levy said, "We've encouraged them to engage with us in a wider way."
If the NFL decides it wants to base a team in London, Levy said the Spurs would like to host it.
"We would welcome very much close cooperation with the NFL and a dedicated team," Levy said. "Obviously a decision is entirely theirs whether they do bring a team to the U.K., and where it would be located is something that would be talked about. But yes, we would be very much welcome to that scenario."
When Levy became chairman for the Spurs in 2001, he had three objectives: improve the quality of the team, build a world-class training facility and build a new stadium.
When the stadium, which will be adjacent to Tottenham's current White Hart Lane home, is complete, Levy will have achieved all three. Last season, the Spurs finished third in the Premier League, their highest finish of Levy's tenure. And a couple of years ago they moved to a new training facility, where they soon will break ground on an addition for player housing.
But the stadium and the accompanying neighborhood revitalization project -- both of which are known as the Northumberland Development Project -- are Levy's baby. The project includes the construction of new homes, a hotel, a medical facility and a grocery store, among other things.
"I have lived and breathed this project from day one," the 54-year-old Levy said. "It is absolutely my ambition to make this work. When I first started talking about it internally at the club, again I think people around me thought I was mad as well. I guess it's my tenacity to get it done because there were many times with the NFL where there wasn't going to be an arrangement. We just kept going back and saying, 'What about this? What about that?'
"When we first went to them, we went to them with the idea of a joint stadium in some shape or form without going through all the details at that stage. As we sat down and we went through all the operations, we worked out, 'What does the NFL need? What does soccer need?' Basically we had a checklist of all the various things we wanted to achieve, and then at the end of the day it was the best solution."
Levy said he researched stadiums in the United States, and while he said he didn't want to "give away any trade secrets," the major difference between venues there versus in England is the scale. "They're enormous," Levy said. So while Tottenham's video boards will be the largest in a European stadium, they won't touch the size of some in the U.S.
And although Levy looked at the retractable grass field at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, home of the Cardinals, there were logistical differences there, too. That field retracts outside the indoor stadium, where it can be exposed to sunlight. At the Tottenham site, where land is at a premium, the grass field will retract under the stands and be exposed to artificial light.
But unlike Wembley Stadium, the Spurs' new venue won't need to be reconfigured to accommodate an NFL field. So the turnaround time from hosting a soccer match on the grass field to an NFL game on the synthetic surface will be two hours.
"One of the idle thoughts we have at the moment is, would you really be able to play an NFL game and an EPL game on the same day as a doubleheader?" Waller said. "It wouldn't be absolutely out of the question. I don't think you'd want to do it on a regular basis, but on a unique feature, that might be a really interesting idea."
Said Levy: "I don't think it's something we'd want to try our first game, but that is certainly realistic. How exciting the idea of having the two biggest leagues in the world from a television perspective -- fantastic! -- play on the same day."
While the NFL likes to cite a string of statistics that shows how well it is trending in England -- such as that it has sold out every game at Wembley -- Levy is a bit more conservative in his assessment of whether England can support a full-time NFL franchise.
It starts with kids.
"Kids in school in England don't think about NFL," Levy said. "They think about soccer, and to a much, much less extent rugby and cricket. You wouldn't put the NFL in that list at the moment, and therefore one has to be cautious about the timing of the decision and how that is done.
"I think it's possible and I think it can work, otherwise we wouldn't have invested what we've invested in our stadium, and we wouldn't have entered into the arrangement with the NFL. I just think that everyone needs to have their feet on the ground, and just because you sell out three games of 80,000 or 90,000 people [doesn't mean] that a franchise is an automatic success."
One NFC front office executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he worries about issues beyond the size of the fan base. He wonders if commissioner Roger Goodell and the league are being overly aggressive with their overseas ambitions during a time when player safety is being emphasized.
"I would say 2020 is probably the realistic goal in Roger's mind and the owners' minds," he said. "There's been so much talk about international. My biggest concern is we're trying so hard to go international in so many places too fast that too many bad things can happen. They're talking about playing in China. Are you kidding me? It's a bad idea. There are enormous questions about London that haven't been answered, but it's 'player safety, player safety, player safety.' "
Regardless of the timeframe, Levy emphasized two things would help put a U.K. franchise in position to succeed. One is the continued engagement of fans, young and old. The other is ensuring that the stadium experience is "a real NFL experience," because if it's not, not only will the fans attending the game know it, so will the ones watching on television.
Tottenham is committed to making the stadium experience special, and if and when the NFL is ready to move a team to London, it will be waiting.
"Clearly we wouldn't both be putting all this into this stadium if there wasn't the prospect of one day a team eventually coming to London," Levy said. "But there are certainly no guarantees that A) a team comes to London, and B) they have to use our stadium.
"I think we're all putting the effort in in the hopes that they will do it."
Dorset
The Voice Of Reason
Founding Member
That looks like it is going to be very high, I don't do very high, I had to get my seat changed at Twickenham once because it was very high and I went all funny. I demand an assurance from Levy that I can buy a ticket close to the ground, even the upstairs at the old Lane used to be a bit too high for me sometimes.click on to make it full size,easier to understand then.
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
The nearest comparison I have seen is the etihad for rake and height,I have been in the 2nd tier there wasnt too bad,the new 3rd tier looks a bit steep and far away,@SteveCoys was up there last year I think,how was it stevo?
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Tottenham Hotspur @SpursOfficial 9m9 minutes ago
Today we've installed the rakers from ground floor to level 2 - north-west corner of the new stadium taking shape!
Today we've installed the rakers from ground floor to level 2 - north-west corner of the new stadium taking shape!
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Meanwhile at anfields new stand,check this beauty out,I kid you not!
Havocc
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Quite nice to think Spurs may have the best Stadium in the UK, and possibly Europe
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Hello dude,good to see you!!!
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
One Hotspur Executive Members and ST Holders will be the first to have the opportunity to secure premium seats.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
Another first as ever if the NGL tie up goes through....very proud to support this club
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Too many images to copy/paste this but interesting figures on avg attendances last season.We are currently in 40th place in europes rankings but the new stadium will put us up to around 6th if we fill it.
http://stadiumdb.com/news/2016/09/10_ranking_europes_most_popular_clubs_by_attendance
http://stadiumdb.com/news/2016/09/10_ranking_europes_most_popular_clubs_by_attendance
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Yid
Moderator
Founding Member
This may seem a ridiculous question and im prepared to take the flack for it....
Does this new stadium have capacity for expansion?
If this shit keeps going on its current trajectory we will require additional seats.
Either that or we turn the White Heart Wall into a standing terrace and add a few thousand more that way.
I literally can't help myself think in those lofty terms like a 61k stadium will not be big enough for us eventually.
Does this new stadium have capacity for expansion?
If this shit keeps going on its current trajectory we will require additional seats.
Either that or we turn the White Heart Wall into a standing terrace and add a few thousand more that way.
I literally can't help myself think in those lofty terms like a 61k stadium will not be big enough for us eventually.
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Also getting the licence and safety certs isnt straightforward,west ham are currently 9k fewer than they could cos of the local authority.I dont know if celtic gained any extra attendance with their new safe standing section?but if they could squeeze a few more in with standing it wouldnt be much of an increase if any.
Cant wait for the wheel of doom with 25k more seats to sell,oh joy!!
Yid
Moderator
Founding Member
So if we can't add tiers..... we have to dig down...!!!
Is the astronomy or grass on wheels..... I'd imagine the astronomy for NFL games?
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
My god its taking shape quickly now.
thats some stunning progress since;
thats some stunning progress since;
Liam
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
This place is gonna the big dogs gonads! I can't wait to get into the stadium now and we're still two seasons away from it.
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
One of two things are likely to happen in my view....
1. We can expand in the way United and City have done over the years and recently.
2. Levy will increase prices to choke off some demand
We'll need to fill 61,000 seats first though....and that will take some doing regularly in the first instance. We're not Real Madrid quite yet.
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
The Times report Spurs have opened talks with a Qatar company over naming rights for the new stadium.
Qatar Investment Company currently fund Barcelona, however talks are said to have now intensified with Spurs
Qatar Investment Company currently fund Barcelona, however talks are said to have now intensified with Spurs
skiathospurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...er-naming-rights-for-new-ground-a3344646.html
Tottenham seek record-breaking £400m-plus deal over naming rights for new ground
Tottenham will seek record sponsorship revenue from a new naming rights deal that looks certain to be one of the most significant in English football.
As they prepare to occupy their new ground, ideally from the summer of 2018, Spurs have approached numerous top-level organisations in an attempt to agree a deal.
Standard Sport understands Spurs are looking for a deal that will yield more than the £400million sponsorship arrangement between Manchester City and Etihad Airways, agreed in 2011.
Arsenal’s original naming deal with Emirates, signed in 2004, was worth more than £100m and was due to run until the end of the 2020-21 season.
In 2012, the Gunners signed a £150m extension to their shirt sponsorship deal with the airline, worth £30m per year until the end of the 2018-19 season. That agreement also ensured Arsenal’s home would be known as Emirates Stadium until 2028.
Discussions with potential partners are thought to be at a very early stage, with no preferred contender identified, although it is understood Qatar Investment Authority are among those interested. Tottenham went to tender only recently and continue to assess their options.
The scale of the funding sought reflects the size of the project. The overall costs for the 61,000-seat project could run way beyond £400m to £750m, as Spurs try to finance their plans while remaining competitive in both domestic and European football.o that end, chairman Daniel Levy has signed a deal with the NFL to stage a minimum of two American football games per season at the new ground. Plans are in place for a retractable pitch suitable for NFL, as well as dressing rooms to accommodate the larger playing squads and coaching staff typical of American sport.
Tottenham seek record-breaking £400m-plus deal over naming rights for new ground
Tottenham will seek record sponsorship revenue from a new naming rights deal that looks certain to be one of the most significant in English football.
As they prepare to occupy their new ground, ideally from the summer of 2018, Spurs have approached numerous top-level organisations in an attempt to agree a deal.
Standard Sport understands Spurs are looking for a deal that will yield more than the £400million sponsorship arrangement between Manchester City and Etihad Airways, agreed in 2011.
Arsenal’s original naming deal with Emirates, signed in 2004, was worth more than £100m and was due to run until the end of the 2020-21 season.
In 2012, the Gunners signed a £150m extension to their shirt sponsorship deal with the airline, worth £30m per year until the end of the 2018-19 season. That agreement also ensured Arsenal’s home would be known as Emirates Stadium until 2028.
Discussions with potential partners are thought to be at a very early stage, with no preferred contender identified, although it is understood Qatar Investment Authority are among those interested. Tottenham went to tender only recently and continue to assess their options.
The scale of the funding sought reflects the size of the project. The overall costs for the 61,000-seat project could run way beyond £400m to £750m, as Spurs try to finance their plans while remaining competitive in both domestic and European football.o that end, chairman Daniel Levy has signed a deal with the NFL to stage a minimum of two American football games per season at the new ground. Plans are in place for a retractable pitch suitable for NFL, as well as dressing rooms to accommodate the larger playing squads and coaching staff typical of American sport.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
Knowing Levy he will something like this off....however I wouldn't be surprised if it's an American brand rather than Middle East, because of the NFL deal. We'll see....good luck Danny Boy.
Yid
Moderator
Founding Member
Dont they lover egg chasing also though...