The new architect's view of the west stand is great. I particularly like the beautiful tree laden car park rather than the brown shale. A cantilever west stand as high as the East? Can our pricing policy and lack of supporters really justify this ambition? It does look good, but can it be justifiable? http://www.leedsunited.com/news/20120506/the-casino-bid-more-detail_2247585_2759547 Our grounds too big for us?
It's easily justifiable if we're in the PL. We would fill a 50,000 seater in the PL IMO (although think this would be slightly smaller), but surely getting there needs to be the priority? I do like the idea of bringing the West stand up to the level of the East though, give the stadium some symmetry and finally get that mess of a stand refurbished.
"as part of the ambitions of turning Elland Road into a stadium capable of hosting world class matches and events." Don't need it capable of this until we have world class matches to host. Club needs to get it sorted, forget this until we're in the Premier League. Or at the very least, if it needs doing now, pay for it yourself you stingy old ****.
Simon - at the prices being charged, I still do not think we will get many sell-outs if we are in the Prem for our current stadium. Plus the last stand for every match to be filled is the West (alongside East middle) precisely because the prices are so much more higher. My prediction is we would not sell 30,000 for matches against Wigan, Wolves, Bolton, Fulham, QPR, Blackburn, Swansea, Villa, Stoke, Norwich, WBA, Everton, Southampton, Reading, Cardiff, Blackpool, Birmingham. That only leaves the few games a season against the clubs that people believe are worthy of it. All moot though - we need a squad to get us in there first, then one to compete. But until ticket prices come down substantially, I won't be there. With plans to build build build, that aint gonna happen. But if you are losing £5m in turnover (17%) and you only made profits on the higher turnover by selling players in previous years, all this says to me is that we are being set up for another admin, but this time, without a possibility of a safety net.
I firmly believe that redeveloping the ground is vital to any future success. However the grounds ownership is a worry. Plus with Ken's empire at Chelsea about to be knocked down, he is going to want to build something at Leeds Look at Arsenal, or either Manchester club. their ground development was vital for image as well as income. No kid in China dreams of coming to Elland Road and he is not desperate for his dad to buy him a shirt, that's a part of what makes Scum their vast amounts of money. It was a good marketing ploy when they branded the stadium "the theatre of dreams" as it gives them more options. We might not like it but that is modern football, if we can get a new stand without costing us players then we should get behind it. Although a Casino is not my cup of tea, I can see a situation where we spilt the ground into 4 parts: West stand: Adults only (Casino, Bars etc) East Stand: (Families, family restaurants, face painting, mascots) South Stand: Day trippers and away supporters North Stand: Members only If we get it right, we will also develop the ticket barriers to support contact less technology, so you can buy a ticket on your mobile without queuing. We could get this funded by the casino owner as it could form a App that allows you to place a bet on the game in the same way. The best stadiums are cashless as it makes sure every penny is accounted for and speeds up half time. PS. Looking at the pictures we need to hope they are not final, as we need to join the South & West stands.
Nope, he can't "save our club" again after a second administration, he'd be out of the fit and proper persons test. Since the only viable option as we're told often enough is that bates is the only man who can ever run Leeds United well, that means he'll do us all a favour and liquidate the club after the second administration. We couldn't possibly have a club without him in charge, that would lead to wreck and ruin which is much worse. ****ing absolute cretin.
Relax, the council will most likely not sanction any Casino at Elland Road. After what happened over Thorpe Arch I doubt they like working with Ken. The cynic in me wonders why we keep building up a ground we don't own, but then I remember that the next owners of the club will be forced to pay rent to an unknown owner in the British Vigin Islands and I realise why...
OldPeacock - I don't agree your arguments are correct. The two clubs you mentioned needed to expand because they had waiting lists for their season tickets and were losing out on guaranteed income. ManU already had an international business strategy that was completely irrelevant to improving OT - it was already one of the best stadia in England - and their strategy centred around being the best football team and attracting support through that in Asia. In addition, ManU take their full squad out to China or Korea or somewhere else in Asia every year for a tournament solely to sell the club and make more money. Enhancing the stadium for them was a must in order to maximise income - there was then a further knock-on benefit in marketing the stadium as the best. Same with Arsenal, but their international appeal is much less. They need to work on that. Us? We only just fill half our stadium. And we are a second rate team. Frankly, any ideas around building the capacity and the infrastructure without getting into the Prem is farcical, and business suicide.
It's just the completely pointless dream of a senile old man with a god complex. That's all it is, which is why it frustrates me.
Elmo Its not the capacity for me its the image for the club. Leeds is a growing city that needs a better stadium than Elland Road currently offers. The ground will help us attract investment and hopefully a better class of owner. PS. Love the new song.... [video=youtube;RWF86D_UNxc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RWF86D_UNxc#t=24s[/video]
The ground will help us attract **** all when we're languishing in the second tier. bates doesn't want buying out, he wants investment which, regardless of how attractive Elland Road is, isn't going to happen while bates is in charge because investors find him insufferable and see that his business model is flawed.
We half fill our stadium as a mid-table Championship team. As a competitive PL team we regularly neared capacity.
I actually watched it! That is me dancing at 1:15! Then I took a more critical eye. Sesame Street is all about teaching children numbers, words and grammar and the like - so am I really really not impressed with the subtitles stating (0:40) "Kid's look at these crayons" Where the hell did that apostrophe come from! I will never trust these people with my children again! Man, I am such a sad nerd
We won't fill at the prices charged. Bates has turned too many away, especially the hardcore seasonticket holders, we are in a huge downturn which will take years to redress, the boom for Leeds came from an influx of people from other areas of England (but they already supported their own team), and no-one wants to go to Beeston for a night out other than to watch a game!
In which case we can build a bigger West Stand and improve all the facilities we like when we're a competitive PL team. Until then we've got more than enough money to compete. This is just a sinkhole for money that we already had.
We won't fill it with our current strategy. The highest we can ever hope to manage is mid table Premier League and promotion would take a miracle. The excuses for not competing in the second tier when we've got more money than anyone else have seen to that.
Most important issue - the West Stand is a disgrace and desperately needs to be revamped. The purpose of the casino is because a specialist partner will run it and therefore fund some of the costs of the new stand. Leeds will also get a percentage of the casino profits, so not a bad shout. Everything depends on Leeds getting the one and only casino license for the city, if it doesn't happen no new stand. Expect the same will apply to the hotel - run by a specialist, for example let's say Holiday Inn - so again a portion of the costs will be funded and profit shared. As for Man Utd and their "Evil Empire", you can't use them as a model because the club has been funded by massive debts that came to the fore when the club was sold to the Glazers. Suddenly there was no hiding how deep in trouble Scum were financially. They borrowed and borrowed to build their stadium, to fund a team....their profits now go towards servicing their debt, and it can't continue in this manner for another ten seasons. They are going to have to pay the piper sooner rather than later, so it will be interesting to see how they go about doing this. The banks got tough with them once before when they were forced to sell Ronaldo simply because Real went to their financiers and offered the eighty million up front. Fergie only saw twenty million, the rest went straight to the bank. Arsenal had a similar problem with Fabregas, they needed the money to help fund their stadium debt. When the financial fair play comes in, clubs like Scum will be in a bit of trouble, as the rules are you may only carry a certain amount of debt for the first few seasons and if you are over you may not compete in Europe. After the grace period clubs need to be debt free and this is a big ask for Scum with the amount of dough they have borrowed. The one good thing about Bates is our club is debt free. The one bad thing is he is reluctant to spend profits on the team and sticks religiously to his budget. I am hoping that he increases the budget for Colin, let's see. As for the West Stand...our ground desperately needs a refurb, and if a casino license helps then let's have it.
Billys - I don't think we are any longer debt-free; the information you cite is already 12 months old. In fact, the most recent information shows that we are likely to be in debt by an inordinate amount - lost revenue from less bums on seats, more loss from the loss-making companies, lost the season ticket sales for next two seasons to cover the cost of building a museum (thought we already played in one, according to some) plus took out another loan to cover costs of building. We have less money coming in, Bates is building a cost infrastructure that guarantees our costs increase instead of reduce, and the only way we can do this is to sell our better players and not replace them. We will not be promoted with that attitude. Man U and Arseanl are able to do what they are doing because they are stable in the Prem and have plenty of other income by selling what they do best: football! not casinos or hotels - they are secondary, not the main strategy of their clubs
Billy, you're still clinging on to this bizarre idea that bates is running a tight ship. The only evidence to suggest he's running a tight ship is that he told you he's running a tight ship. The rest of the evidence suggests we're building debt, increasing costs, letting money leak out of the club and only covering it by suspicious activity (preference shares, £1 million moved from outro to make us cash positive then moved back) and selling players without replacing them. The club is heading towards ruin, and it's because of terrible business practices. These "additional revenue streams" are a pointless venture and will continue making losses until we're a success. The fact they will be making losses hinders our chances of success and therefore makes them even more pointless. In the unlikely event that we have a team able to compete next season, I still expect them to underperform as a result of the negative atmosphere around a football club that puts football as a second priority. harveys comments suggests that they are expecting to be in the Championship for a long time. Warnock has been hired to make it look like they want to get us promoted, but they obviously don't. I'd even imagine we're being held back intentionally until all the building plans are finished just so bates can turn around and say "look, it's working, it provided the income required to get out of the Championship, I was right, lets all celebrate and bow down to my genius". If we get promoted before then it will prove that his warped vision isn't needed and that we had the resources to go up all along.
