One of the challenges in making a profit, or at least not making too big a loss, in football is the stadium. You have a substantial capital asset which across the year is used about once a fortnight. There are options, of course. You can put shops and small businesses under the cantilevered stands: Utrecht is a good example. You can rent out your suites for meetings and conferences, but that is a competitive business and you need a high quality, well located facilities. Pop concerts or other events tend to mess up the pitch and are proba
One of the challenges in making a profit, or at least not making too big a loss, in football is the stadium. You have a substantial capital asset which across the year is used about once a fortnight. There are options, of course. You can put shops and small businesses under the cantilevered stands: Utrecht is a good example. You can rent out your suites for meetings and conferences, but that is a competitive business and you need a high quality, well located facilities. Pop concerts or other events tend to mess up the pitch and are probably more trouble than they are worth.
One option that has become very popular is sharing with a rugby club. But does this route conceal hidden snags? Apart from the effect on the pitch, or the risk of the rugby club getting in the driving seat, could fans switch codes? Sharing with a rugby club could lead to over investment in a new stadium which seems to be a big part of the story at Wycombe Wanderers where Chairboys fans are concerned about the proposed move to Booker.
The whole issue is looked at in an article by Roget Titford in the latest issue of When Saturday Comes. He hails from Reading and is concerned that a football town is becoming tainted by growing signs of rugby, although when the constitution of the club was drawn up it mentioned eight sports which included croquet, but not rugby. He comments, ‘The pessimist in me sees a rival sport in a growing, high-profile, TV-endorsed league and a non-local virtually relegation-proof club being invited to enjoy our stadium and tantalise our potential fanbase as we battle away in football’s under-publicised second tier.’
Titford has found 14 clubs that are currently sharing with egg chasers and another dozen that have done so at one time or another. Another dozen or so have had experience of staging rugby in the modern era. The biggest sub-sector is where a new stadium incorporates both games from the start, examples including Cardiff, Hull and Wigan. The money can be attractive: £600,000 a year in the case of Reading.
Titford’s worst example of the potential downsides is Stockport County where Sale Sharks now own Edgeley Park and County. Sale Sharks won’t change their name or acknowledge Stockport and some fans think that the football club would be better off elsewhere. At Huddersfield Town a fan is quoted as saying that Ken Davy, chair of both football and rugby clubs, ‘tried to push his first sporting love, the Huddersfield Giants, down the reluctant throats of most Terriers fans.’
Perhaps it’s easier when the football club is clearly in the driving seat . Bristol Rovers took over Bristol RFC’s ground in 1998 after the rugby club got into serious difficulty. The sharing arrangement seems to have worked well.
So as far as sharing is concerned, is there a real risk of switching codes? When Coventry City weren’t doing so well, a lot of Sky Blues fans switched to the Skydome and starting supporting table topping ice hockey outfit Coventry Blaze. Now that City are doing better, it’s possible to go to the Ricoh on Saturday afternoon and to the Skydome on Sunday evening, the family friendly time when most hockey games are held.
Titford contacted other WSC correspondents and they thought that the crossover support for both football and rugby is currently small. My view is that it is likely to stay that way. Most football fans have little time for ‘egg chasers’ and in the south at least rugby union appeals to a rather different segment of the market. Plenty of football fans are middle class these days, reflecting a changing society, but they often come from working class backgrounds and football can be a way of staying in contact with their origins. Being able to have a drink at your seat is unlikely to change a fan’s outlook.