Manchester United officials looking at plans to expand Old Trafford capacity to 88,000 | Scrapped?

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I doubt the money being set aside for possible stadium expansion/upgrade would be the same money we were planning to use on player recruitment. And even if it was the same money and this is true it will probably only delay any work on the stadium by a few months to a year at most.

This doesn't make any sense surely stadium improvements would be carried out through bank loans and player purchases would be done through the clubs cash reserves? 2 different money pots.

Can't believe you're the only two people to point out that this article is fundamentally flawed, just click-bait BS.

It's not even a question of "pots" of money, they're completely separate areas of the accounts which work in completely different ways. No way one impacts on the other in the way the article makes out.
 
Can't believe you're the only two people to point out that this article is fundamentally flawed, just click-bait BS.

It's not even a question of "pots" of money, they're completely separate areas of the accounts which work in completely different ways. No way one impacts on the other in the way the article makes out.

Yeah it's nonsense, but then it's the Daily Mail so it was bound to be.
 
It's also complete nonsense because we're the richest club in the world, record revenue and profits, and yet we can't match the likes of Spurs and upgrade our stadium?

If Spurs can afford to build a new stadium, I'm sure we could afford to re-roof, re-skin and extend OT...
 
Building a new stadium adjacent to OT makes the most sense from a purely objective perspective. Less constraints on design and could be truly state of the art and the highest capacity.

The ''problem" with that is the attachment we have with Old Trafford itself.

Paying over the odds to expand such an old stadium doesn't make an awful lot of sense though.
 
I'd like to see the numbers but personally I can't imagine an expansion is ever going to be fiscally attractive.

Even if the capacity increased by 13,000 and this was skewed as much as possible towards the more lucrative corporate seating... I can't imagine the expected annual increase in sales would be more than around £15m. If the cost would be even a conservative £225m you'd be looking at a 15 year pay-back. That's before even considering the climate in 15 years time... Will the way people watch football change which might reduce the demand for tickets? Will the trend continue of the cost of tickets reducing (comparatively) as commercial/TV revenue increases?

Even Spurs stadium which they're in desperate need for is only particularly viable because of the commercial doors that they believe it will open to them. Increasing their annual match day revenue by £50m at a cost of £850m with a 17 year pay back isn't exactly good business. They believe however that the increase will have at least the same financial benefit again in terms of their commercial revenues.

United would have absolutely no commercial benefits to expanding the current stadium.

Majority of those increased seats will be top floors hence probably low tier season tickets. Corporate suits will be improved somewhat but doubt it will increase # of box substantially or raise price significantly. Don't know price of season ticket if I assume GBP 500 times 13000 then no more than 7m p.a., which will take 100 years to pay back 700m construction cost, which hasn't include interest payment nor loss of revenue during construction. I am pretty sure this has no bearing with players acquisition, it simply doesn't make business sense. I say just budget 100-200m on renovation and improve on existing facility.
 
Building a new stadium adjacent to OT makes the most sense from a purely objective perspective. Less constraints on design and could be truly state of the art and the highest capacity.

The ''problem" with that is the attachment we have with Old Trafford itself.

Paying over the odds to expand such an old stadium doesn't make an awful lot of sense though.
Cannot see the Glazers putting that kind of money down.
 
That'd be pretty stupid if there wasn't separate funds set aside for expansion.

With managers like Mourinho I imagine every summer will feature a spending spree, so it'll be pushed forward ad infinitum.
 
Majority of those increased seats will be top floors hence probably low tier season tickets. Corporate suits will be improved somewhat but doubt it will increase # of box substantially or raise price significantly. Don't know price of season ticket if I assume GBP 500 times 13000 then no more than 7m p.a., which will take 100 years to pay back 700m construction cost, which hasn't include interest payment nor loss of revenue during construction. I am pretty sure this has no bearing with players acquisition, it simply doesn't make business sense. I say just budget 100-200m on renovation and improve on existing facility.

I don't think it would cost close to £700m and I imagine they would renovate the existing lower tiers at the same time to increase the amount of corporate seats there. However I agree with you that it makes zero fiscal sense.

Even building an entirely new stadium would make no commercial sense. Even if we found a commercial partner willing to pay a huge figure of say £25m per season, along with an ambitious increase in match day revenue of £20m per annum, the interest on the borrowing would out-way the revenue increase.

I still believe Spurs fans are in for a shock for this exact reason. Their match day revenue will increase by £50m which will be fantastic, but this will be almost wholly swallowed by interest payments. Therefore the only real benefit will be in their commercial opportunities. These have been hugely bigged up by the board, but they still haven't found a stadium naming rights partner as they're looking for a figure that isn't and I believe they'll struggle to get more than £10-15m per annum for this.

I think they believe the difference in non-broadcasting revenue between themselves and Arsenal of exactly £100m will be instantly bridged by this move, ignoring the difference between the clubs in terms of historic success and prestige. My view is this is fantasy and you only have to look at their revenue in comparison to Liverpool's for a better example of how a stadium isn't a commercial golden ticket. Liverpool have a somewhat small and old stadium, but still have a great commercial revenue of £139m, compared to Spurs £72m.

Their match day revenue will bring Spurs up to Liverpool in terms of total revenue, but at a cost of a huge interest bill which will mean the money available for salaries and transfers will still be dwarfed by the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea & Liverpool (let alone the Manchester clubs).
 
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Latest: United's current formation and tactics are too narrow to require any stadium expansion.
 
I heard this was scrapped as they couldn't import enough prawns for all the prawn sandwiches they would need to satisfy the clientele.
 
I don't think it would cost close to £700m and I imagine they would renovate the existing lower tiers at the same time to increase the amount of corporate seats there. However I agree with you that it makes zero fiscal sense.

Even building an entirely new stadium would make no commercial sense. Even if we found a commercial partner willing to pay a huge figure of say £25m per season, along with an ambitious increase in match day revenue of £20m per annum, the interest on the borrowing would out-way the revenue increase.

I still believe Spurs fans are in for a shock for this exact reason. Their match day revenue will increase by £50m which will be fantastic, but this will be almost wholly swallowed by interest payments. Therefore the only real benefit will be in their commercial opportunities. These have been hugely bigged up by the board, but they still haven't found a stadium naming rights partner as they're looking for a figure that isn't and I believe they'll struggle to get more than £10-15m per annum for this.

I think they believe the difference in non-broadcasting revenue between themselves and Arsenal of exactly £100m will be instantly bridged by this move, ignoring the difference between the clubs in terms of historic success and prestige. My view is this is fantasy and you only have to look at their revenue in comparison to Liverpool's for a better example of how a stadium isn't a commercial golden ticket. Liverpool have a somewhat small and old stadium, but still have a great commercial revenue of £139m, compared to Spurs £72m.

Their match day revenue will bring Spurs up to Liverpool in terms of total revenue, but at a cost of a huge interest bill which will mean the money available for salaries and transfers will still be dwarfed by the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea & Liverpool (let alone the Manchester clubs).

700m construction cost is indeed possible. Those expert would only tell you what is possible or not, don't care whether it is reasonable. They will probably say they can build a new stadium on the Moon. The difference with expanding a 30K seats stadium to 70K is that you are not simply adding more seats, you are adding Corporate suits, better changing room and other facilities which was not considered 50 years ago. Adding a few seats to a modern stadium doesn't give you that much extra advantage. If they say OT is behind the City stadium by a decade, then simply renovate various parts to modernise it.
 
I don't see any financial basis for stadium expansion, unless it's combined with some other projects like hotel building.

That said, the pressure on the stadium is a bit more than that. It is ageing. The expansion of the disabled facilities can only be done at the cost of overall seat numbers, and has had to be in pitchside positions. The impact on the atmosphere as well as revenue can't be discounted.

The price of the hospitality suites may not rise much if we rebuild, but they will become less attractive as they age if we don't. Some of them are bought with an eye on corporate entertaining more than football - too dowdy and they lose that.

The ground does need investment, a lot of it, just to keep it in good shape. I guess the question is what's cost effective to do and whether that calculation means they can also do some things that increase revenue - more seats, more facilities, more non-matchday use or whatever.
 
Would love a standing section like at Dortmund’s ground to improve the atmosphere.
 
Would love a standing section like at Dortmund’s ground to improve the atmosphere.

New skin.
New roof.
New infrastructure - escalators etc
Expanded South Stand with top of the line exec facilities, including a Spurs/City style tunnel view exec suite.
Full safe-standing Stretford End.

That would turn OT into the cream of the crop of stadia. If the club are really smart they should build a shopping & restaurant area into the rebuild.
 
I don't see any financial basis for stadium expansion, unless it's combined with some other projects like hotel building.

That said, the pressure on the stadium is a bit more than that. It is ageing. The expansion of the disabled facilities can only be done at the cost of overall seat numbers, and has had to be in pitchside positions. The impact on the atmosphere as well as revenue can't be discounted.

The price of the hospitality suites may not rise much if we rebuild, but they will become less attractive as they age if we don't. Some of them are bought with an eye on corporate entertaining more than football - too dowdy and they lose that.

The ground does need investment, a lot of it, just to keep it in good shape. I guess the question is what's cost effective to do and whether that calculation means they can also do some things that increase revenue - more seats, more facilities, more non-matchday use or whatever.


The club owns a lot of ground around the stadium now, doesn't it? I wonder if the purpose of that is to develop some kind of Manchester United 'village' eventually; a series of attractions designed both to maximise income on matchdays but also generate income on non-matchdays.
 
I don't see any financial basis for stadium expansion, unless it's combined with some other projects like hotel building.

That said, the pressure on the stadium is a bit more than that. It is ageing. The expansion of the disabled facilities can only be done at the cost of overall seat numbers, and has had to be in pitchside positions. The impact on the atmosphere as well as revenue can't be discounted.

The price of the hospitality suites may not rise much if we rebuild, but they will become less attractive as they age if we don't. Some of them are bought with an eye on corporate entertaining more than football - too dowdy and they lose that.

The ground does need investment, a lot of it, just to keep it in good shape. I guess the question is what's cost effective to do and whether that calculation means they can also do some things that increase revenue - more seats, more facilities, more non-matchday use or whatever.

Agree with all you said except 1 thing. Don't use the stadium for non-matchday for the sake of making more money, last time when they rent it out for rugby match, it was horrible for months.
 
The stadium looks very run down, it started to give the look of those 90's stadiums.

My uncle pays £85k a season for a 8 man corporate box and tbh its not worth it at all compared to the corporate boxes as Emirates, Wembley and new Spurs stadium.
 
The stadium looks very run down, it started to give the look of those 90's stadiums.

My uncle pays £85k a season for a 8 man corporate box and tbh its not worth it at all compared to the corporate boxes as Emirates, Wembley and new Spurs stadium.

Yeah. I know someone who gave up his box a couple of years back in favour of a set of posh season tickets with the option for food/drink - on the basis it was easier to impress clients by taking them to the match as a comfy casual thing (if they actually liked football) then heading off to somewhere flasher to dine. It just didn't have the wow to do it for non-football fans.

Which appeals to me on one level :lol: but it's not so great if you think of the easy money that the club starts to miss if we lose that big deal tag.
 
I don't think it would cost close to £700m and I imagine they would renovate the existing lower tiers at the same time to increase the amount of corporate seats there. However I agree with you that it makes zero fiscal sense.

Even building an entirely new stadium would make no commercial sense. Even if we found a commercial partner willing to pay a huge figure of say £25m per season, along with an ambitious increase in match day revenue of £20m per annum, the interest on the borrowing would out-way the revenue increase.

I still believe Spurs fans are in for a shock for this exact reason. Their match day revenue will increase by £50m which will be fantastic, but this will be almost wholly swallowed by interest payments. Therefore the only real benefit will be in their commercial opportunities. These have been hugely bigged up by the board, but they still haven't found a stadium naming rights partner as they're looking for a figure that isn't and I believe they'll struggle to get more than £10-15m per annum for this.

I think they believe the difference in non-broadcasting revenue between themselves and Arsenal of exactly £100m will be instantly bridged by this move, ignoring the difference between the clubs in terms of historic success and prestige. My view is this is fantasy and you only have to look at their revenue in comparison to Liverpool's for a better example of how a stadium isn't a commercial golden ticket. Liverpool have a somewhat small and old stadium, but still have a great commercial revenue of £139m, compared to Spurs £72m.

Their match day revenue will bring Spurs up to Liverpool in terms of total revenue, but at a cost of a huge interest bill which will mean the money available for salaries and transfers will still be dwarfed by the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea & Liverpool (let alone the Manchester clubs).
I agree with this...something screwy has gone on at Arsenal since they moved to the Emirates and i think the revenues are just not adding up to what they anticipated.

Given borrowing is at an all time low level of interest if we were going for such capital investment it would have started by now.

A rolling refurb is the most likely option
 
I agree with this...something screwy has gone on at Arsenal since they moved to the Emirates and i think the revenues are just not adding up to what they anticipated.

Given borrowing is at an all time low level of interest if we were going for such capital investment it would have started by now.

A rolling refurb is the most likely option

Don’t arsenal have the highest match day income of any team in Europe?
 
Don’t arsenal have the highest match day income of any team in Europe?

Yes, also due to the fact that Arsenal's season ticket is most expensive in the world. But Arsenal is doing badly on commercial revenue, and only in past couple of years that they start touring the world on summer pre-season.
 
The club owns a lot of ground around the stadium now, doesn't it? I wonder if the purpose of that is to develop some kind of Manchester United 'village' eventually; a series of attractions designed both to maximise income on matchdays but also generate income on non-matchdays.
I love to see that comes to fruition, the surrounding is spacious enough without too much demolition of buildings.
 
I don't think it would cost close to £700m and I imagine they would renovate the existing lower tiers at the same time to increase the amount of corporate seats there. However I agree with you that it makes zero fiscal sense.

Even building an entirely new stadium would make no commercial sense. Even if we found a commercial partner willing to pay a huge figure of say £25m per season, along with an ambitious increase in match day revenue of £20m per annum, the interest on the borrowing would out-way the revenue increase.

I still believe Spurs fans are in for a shock for this exact reason. Their match day revenue will increase by £50m which will be fantastic, but this will be almost wholly swallowed by interest payments. Therefore the only real benefit will be in their commercial opportunities. These have been hugely bigged up by the board, but they still haven't found a stadium naming rights partner as they're looking for a figure that isn't and I believe they'll struggle to get more than £10-15m per annum for this.

I think they believe the difference in non-broadcasting revenue between themselves and Arsenal of exactly £100m will be instantly bridged by this move, ignoring the difference between the clubs in terms of historic success and prestige. My view is this is fantasy and you only have to look at their revenue in comparison to Liverpool's for a better example of how a stadium isn't a commercial golden ticket. Liverpool have a somewhat small and old stadium, but still have a great commercial revenue of £139m, compared to Spurs £72m.

Their match day revenue will bring Spurs up to Liverpool in terms of total revenue, but at a cost of a huge interest bill which will mean the money available for salaries and transfers will still be dwarfed by the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea & Liverpool (let alone the Manchester clubs).

I doubt Spurs' interest payments will be close to £50m per annum, but the larger point is that your £50m estimated increase in match-day football revenues relates to around only 30 days each year, whereas our new stadium complex is designed to be multi-purpose and will be in use - and thus generating income - almost every day of the year.

This is a key advantage: making the most use of a hugely expensive asset, rather than having it sit empty and unused for the vast bulk of the average week. But it's an advantage that won't be possible to re-create at Old Trafford, since it was mainly designed with just football matches in mind.

I also think we'll get more than £10-£15m per year from naming rights ... but that remains to be seen. Of course United could get a huge sum for selling naming rights, but then your income is already much larger than Spurs.
 
I don't understand why its an either/or situation with a club as rich as United. Spend money on transfers and expand the stadium, the ticket and player sales will help fund both.
 
I don't think it would cost close to £700m and I imagine they would renovate the existing lower tiers at the same time to increase the amount of corporate seats there. However I agree with you that it makes zero fiscal sense.

Even building an entirely new stadium would make no commercial sense. Even if we found a commercial partner willing to pay a huge figure of say £25m per season, along with an ambitious increase in match day revenue of £20m per annum, the interest on the borrowing would out-way the revenue increase.

I still believe Spurs fans are in for a shock for this exact reason. Their match day revenue will increase by £50m which will be fantastic, but this will be almost wholly swallowed by interest payments. Therefore the only real benefit will be in their commercial opportunities. These have been hugely bigged up by the board, but they still haven't found a stadium naming rights partner as they're looking for a figure that isn't and I believe they'll struggle to get more than £10-15m per annum for this.

I think they believe the difference in non-broadcasting revenue between themselves and Arsenal of exactly £100m will be instantly bridged by this move, ignoring the difference between the clubs in terms of historic success and prestige. My view is this is fantasy and you only have to look at their revenue in comparison to Liverpool's for a better example of how a stadium isn't a commercial golden ticket. Liverpool have a somewhat small and old stadium, but still have a great commercial revenue of £139m, compared to Spurs £72m.

Their match day revenue will bring Spurs up to Liverpool in terms of total revenue, but at a cost of a huge interest bill which will mean the money available for salaries and transfers will still be dwarfed by the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea & Liverpool (let alone the Manchester clubs).

You're been a bit pessimistic with those figures, they could achieve £40m minimum in naming rights. I do think a decision to build a new stadium would rest on whether they'd be confident there would be additional demand for executive tickets & boxes etc. I'm sure a new stadium would provide additional income for example in the form of a hotel etc.
 
You're been a bit pessimistic with those figures, they could achieve £40m minimum in naming rights. I do think a decision to build a new stadium would rest on whether they'd be confident there would be additional demand for executive tickets & boxes etc. I'm sure a new stadium would provide additional income for example in the form of a hotel etc.

£40m?! Per annum?!
 
£40m?! Per annum?!

Yes.

AON pay about £20m a year to sponsor training ground and kit and that was agreed 5 years ago. I don't see any reason why United wouldn't achieve £40m a year for naming rights for a ground.
 
Yes.

AON pay about £20m a year to sponsor training ground and kit and that was agreed 5 years ago. I don't see any reason why United wouldn't achieve £40m a year for naming rights for a ground.

Even if we do get 40m naming right, it is still not enough to pay for interest alone. The quote on construction is a ridiculous 700m which would probably end up as 1b when completed. Putting on a loan of say 800m would means 50m p.a. on interest alone. The additional 12K seats would only give you 6m p.a. on additional revenue, add a few more Exe box and you won't get 10m max.

I think the Board was mis-led on the construction cost, it would be far more economical to renovate existing facility without adding seats. Say you throw in 200m to renovate and you could pay it back within a few years. And you can still get your 40m naming right without the expansion.
 
I would love to see these internal plans. 105,000 seats (more with safe standing) and clad in red and black sounds bloody awesome!
 
Will need to increase the capacity if we plan to keep our advantages over the London clubs. Chelsea/Arsenal and Spurs will gain ground with 60k seaters at London prices.
 
Sooner this happens the better, along with a full internal upgrade. Maybe I'm being finicky, but the whole stadium feels very dated and practically no different to what I remember 20 years ago as a child. The toilets are a particular pet peeve of mine. They're disgusting and I make sure that I go to the toilet before I leave for a game and don't drink too much while I'm out just so that I don't need to visit them.

I realise the toilets are a very long way down the list of priorities for Manchester United and that's fine but it's just one example of a stadium that internally is behind the times.
 
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