West Ham and the Olympic Stadium

One Olympic stadium, lightly used.

Building cost £486 million
Conversion to premier league ground cost £272 million
Total £758 million

To you sir, £15 million down payment then £2.5 million a year.

Sweet deal.

Go on then, what’s your better idea for it?

Is that what we do? Spend 750M and then look for a good use for it?. That’s some forward thinking! 😆

Are West Ham paying for it’s future upkeep.

Better they use it than let it crumble like most Olympic venues have done in the past. I think we’ve actually got a very good record on ‘legacy’ use of these venues.

Nice of the taxpeyer to fund the new West Ham Stadium, I’m amazed that they are only paying £2.5m a year!

Go on then, what’s your better idea for it?

Oh, I don’t don’t know, charge something at least half way close to a commercial rate. It’s not like West Ham are exactly hard up with all that lovely sky deal money sloshing around.

Or save the £272 million and have a real, proper (read good) national athletics stadium. £272M would have paid for a shed load of upkeep over the years to stop is crumbling.

Or save the £272 million and have a real proper (read good) national athletics stadium.

Which would lose millions every year. And if they kept capacity as originally built it would be a big task to fill at all.

They’d be lucky to fill it twice a year, at least West Ham will fill it 20 odd times a year, plus other events.

I agree they’ve got it pretty cheap though.

Gold and Sullivan are such lovely characters as well.

Or save the £272 million and have a real proper (read good) national athletics stadium.

That will rarely get more than 5000 people in it.

I really don’t know what we could do with it but it seems wrong to basically gift it to West Ham.

I don’t think anyone was forced to sell the stadium to West Ham…

Total £758 million

But the benefit to the UK for hosting the Olympics in the first place should be partially deducted from that total too…

Without googling, didn’t other London Premiership clubs bid and lose?

Are West Ham paying for it’s future upkeep.

It appears not. All maintenance and also all improvements needed to meet future legislation changes will be paid for by the LLDC and Newham borough council and in addition West Ham are entitled to request 10% of the rent is also spent on improvements as they, the tenants, see fit.

I agree something worthwhile needed to be done with it and an athletics stadium would have been empty more that it was full but we (the tax payer in one form or another) will it appears still be paying to stop it crumbling whilst a profitable incumbent reaps the reward for a peppercorn rent.

What did/do Man City pay for the Commonwealth games standium they are using ?

Overall it seems highly cushy deal for West Ham (Spurs fan 😉 Leighton Orient fans are very upset too)

For having won England’s only World Cup, West Ham should have been given it free of charge.

Or save the £272 million and have a real proper (read good) national athletics stadium.

For the few thousand people (if that!) who’d actually turn up to watch an athletics meeting?

I presume what they’re doing is the same as they did with the big Council Pitch they built for the commonwealth games in Manchester. Hoping it’ll be a catalyst for renewal and bring in much needed investment in a deprived area. In the case of Wastelands some rather rich overseas investors took an interest (after the war criminal), and other stuff has happened on the back of it.

Its still East Manchester though, so is absolutely ****ing grim! Quite fitting for the new(ish) occupants 😀

It does seem like West Haaaaaaaam have effectively been given a new stadium

If you were to go out and try and lease a football stadium what would be the going rate though?

Presumably the lease cost is based on some real world costs for other buildings of this size and use. And LLDC still own the stadium and ground so the stadium hasn’t been given to West Ham.

Man City stadium background…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-city/8257210/How-Manchester-City-won-the-stadium-lottery.html

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2011/oct/04/manchester-city-council-stadium-naming-rights

What did/do Man City pay for the Commonwealth games standium they are using ?

IIRC the big difference was that the stadium was designed to be converted for football, from the outset.

Man City stadium background…

I think what that telegraph article makes you realise is how mind numbingly large the construction plus ‘repurposing’ costs of the Olympic stadium are in comparison to Manchester’s Commonwealth equivalent. I know a decade plus divides them but £150m for manchester and £750m for London are a big difference. MC are paying more for their stadium than WH will be, though not a lot more admittedly.

As the article said, Man City were relegation minnows back then; I wonder if we’ll see a world level West Ham in a decade off the back of this?

Zippy, that is comedy gold. I am using that at every possible future opportunity

I don’t don’t know, charge something at least half way close to a commercial rate

THIS

Whilst its difficult to see what could be done for th best – and the decision is still under legal appeal – IIRC it s the full release under FOI of the “negotiations” between them and London

Its basically a free stadium and I feel certain a more commercial deal could have been driven, There were competing bids as Spurs were also in. I find it hard to believe this was the most money they could get from the £near billion pound asset.

I wonder if it would have been cheaper to use one of the already available stadiums in London for the Olympics seeing as it’s a one off event 🙄

Outrageous spunking of public money when there are already facilities that would cost a fraction of that to adapt for 1 summers use.

And to think of the cuts banded around by the Tories as absolutely necessary over the same period.

At least we had a an absolute monster of a stadium (absolutely necessary) to watch someone jump over a bar.

I wonder if we’ll see a world level West Ham in a decade off the back of this?

It’s a sitter…. if they aren’t, I’ll be mighty surprised.

It’s the easiest ground to get to from Canary Wharf, Central and City of London…. let alone being 10min from City airport… add the Wesfield centre (shops, hotels, casino bars restaurants etc)…. in other words ….a corporate wonderland 🙄

Or course you could still have a corner late in the game, with one of the best headers of the ball in the opponent’s box and decide hit it long for Mark Noble to try, TRY, and hit a screamer … please… it aint the playground.

But I’m a bitter Spurs fan… it should have been ours. 😆

Having said that the fans are a looooong way from the pitch I wonder about the atmosphere.

One of the non-negotiable conditions was that it had to continue to be capable of being used as an athletics stadium as this was a representation that had been made to the IOC in the bid document. That really tied their hands, Spurs weren’t willing to meet this condition – I think they suggested financing an athletics only stadium – West Ham were left as the only viable bidder. If you don’t have competing bidders, you will struggle to get a good price.

There is a big issue with how much the IOC expects a host city to build for a short period of usage, London has done better than most, but reform is required.

I got accused of sour grapes last time i gave an opinion on this but the facts are black & white. West Ham and the Porn Barons have got state funding to take them into the next century to compete in a completey unfair footing.

The government built a white elephant stadium that was incapable of being anything near a legacy for atheletics in the future.

The government put it out to tender for clubs from football (and i think rugby) to apply to use it

West Ham won……………..as per the above posts and costs which are into the £100’s millions

But what were the alternatives?

1) Knock it down – Just call it quits and admit a huge mistake was made. Would it have cost £100’s of millions to knock down and was the land actually worth something?

2) Spurs realised it was totally unsuitable for a football ground and offered to strip it to a shell, transport all the running facilities to Crystal Palace (The tru home of Athletics) and build them a true Athletics stadium which was sustainable and where it needed to be. You know, a bit like the legacy was supposed to be in the first place.
They would then rebuild the olympic stadium into something more suitable for Football

3) Leyton Orient (My preferred option) – Why were they overlooked. For the £100’s millions i would rather see us bring a new super power along than see the Porn Barons and that woman who likes to be on TV get richer. Could even of tied in a couple of clubs or a rugby club.

But no, they have sold their soul to West Ham who i cant see putting anything like an infrastructure in place (Manchester City are investing Billions into the area). They may not have bought that stadium but they have invested in the area. West Ham have invested less into the stadium than they Paid for Andy Carroll

So they pay 2.5 mill per year, but have running costs paid for that experts estimate could be pretty much..2.5 million a year. Then they get half of stadium naming rights which are around 5-10 million per year. So basically they are actually making money out of this deal…

I dont think it would have been hard to negotiate a slightly better deal out of this..its half of what man city pay for a better stadium in london, and city pay bills as well

Hopefully a competitor challenges this as a state funded advantage. Those two smut peddalers must be crying with laughter at this deal…

City pay slightly more for a smaller and much cheaper stadium. But the big difference is where the responsibility lies for the ongoing costs, for Manchester it is the club, for London it is the tax payers.

The **** land is worth far more than the revenue from this deal, it is a dodgy as ****, no wonder they fought so hard to keep it secret, there is criminality in the heart of this deal and bojo is up to his armpits in it.

THey’ll be making a million per game minimum. Ridiculous deal!