You keep mentioning the costs to build the OS in the first place, well, it was built for a very successful Olympics, that was the main purpose, the money for that is sunk cost, it was budgeted for the Olympics and nothing else. The post-match use is a different matter and if people had acted with a bit of common sense and foresight we wouldn't need to talk about conversion costs which have spiralled near 300 million, in Manchester common sense prevailed, all of which contributed to modest conversion costs.
The LLDC had one question to answer: Do we want to keep the OS with an athletics legacy or knock it down? Once the decision had been made they needed to spend money to turn it into a proper multi purpose arena. If we can agree that 10 million income for the LLDC is a very decent start and that the rent is index-linked plus the naming rights are likely to raise more money in the future rather than less (most of which will go back to the LLDC in the first 20 years at least unlike Man City who pocket the lot for a modest increase in rent) then the question really is: What is a fair deal ?
One that doesn't make West Ham (or any other anchor concessionaire who might have moved in) benefit financially at all ? (The truth is no club in the world would have signed a deal like that.) One that gives the anchor concessionaire only little financial benefit ? (Again, apparently the LLDC simply didn't find a club willing to move under those terms.)
Or one that will allow the LLDC not only to recoup the conversion costs over time (and even the original building costs, but of course you won't buy that) but even make regular and substantial profits 20 or 30 years down the line ? This is what's going to happen and that's why it is not state aid. If you are a long-term investor (99 year lease) and make a decent profit over the 99 years (even after spending another 280 million in the process) it is a deal a private company would have made as well. Look up the Coventry City case and you'll see what I'm talking about.
I know the deal still sounds ridiculous what with the new TV deal and all. But again, look at the bigger picture. A government spending 280 million on the conversion of a stadium that will earn money over 99 years is a drop in the ocean compared to many other projects where your government (like many others) spends/wastes money to the tune of billions, not millions. The media may try to make it look as if West Ham are responsible for hospitals or schools closing down, that indeed would be a very simplistic way to look at it, don't you think?
If a club offers to buy a player from you for 5 million (unlikely, I know), would your club hierarchy or fanbase go all altruistic and say "Nah, he ain't worth that really, come on, you can have him for 1 million ?" Don't kid yourselves. You do have a problem with West Ham (a club only a few miles away from you) getting this massive chance to improve (by sheer luck of the OS being on our patch) and taking it too.
Would the deal be better if the LLDC got 20 million a year ? 30 ? 50 ? Would you have prefered no conversion at all with no anchor concessionaire from the Premier League and the OS having to spend 4 or 5 million a year anyway to keep the place from rotting away ? Or indeed one where the OS is bulldozed down (500 million building costs gone in a flash) - good use of taxpayers' money that...
The deal is ridiculous because it costs the tax payer more than they receive. The revenues might be £10m, fanciful in my view and certainly not all down to West Ham, unless you think stadium sponsorship would be zero without you, for example, but if it doesn't cover costs, including opportunity cost, then where's the positive?
There's been a lot said about getting the best deal for the taxpayer but this isn't it. This is the best deal the LLDC's negotiators could achieve through lack of ability, lack of business acumen, and being hamstrung by ludicrous demands for athletics.
They'd have been better off with Tottenham's bid. Or demolishing it and selling for development.
GEE and gavros. It will take nigh on 27 years to recoup what the taxpayer has spent on conversion even before the West ham deal moves on to pay off the national debt.
GEE you say that over 99 years the deal may also recoup the costs of building the stadium in the first place...you may be right, that after 99 years there might just about be a break even point, but there will have been no benefit to the taxpayer in the interim.
The beneficiaries will be the likes of Coe and Boris who can say they have created a 'legacy' (lets see how that pans out).
GEE you also say in one of your posts that money gets wasted here there and everywhere, and this particular waste is no big deal in the scheme of things. I disagree, it is a big deal for West Ham, and would also be a big deal if every other football club got £270million of free money. One single private business has been manouvered into place by the desire to have a legacy situation for the Olympic Stadium that glorifies Boris and Coe and Brady and whoever. It has never been about generating income for the taxpayer, but come back and tell me I'm wrong when you have evidence of specific taxpayer benefit...trouble is in 20 years I will have been long dead.
Maybe GEE and gavros you see it all as your birthright. After all the East End has been traditionally poor and downtrodden, it has been the first settling point for generations of incomers, it took the brunt of the Blitz, it has lost the docks and things made in Dagenham, other posh areas have has too much for too long and now it is the turn of the East End.
I reckon gavros and GEE you should continue to do what you're effectively doing, laughing at us mugs, jabbing the finger, smirking and high fiving when the door shuts, and doing a little dance of glee. It is distasteful that you and others on KUMB come on to try to say that despite it being good for West Ham it is actually as wholesome as brown bread and natural yoghurt.
Eastenders like to see themselves as lor luvva duck, knees up muvva brahn, authentic salt of the earth types, but actually you are now becoming salt in the wound types, and for that West Ham United will forever be despised by a lot of people.
Maybe you should start singing the song of your mates Millwall, but at least Millwall are honest in their degree of pretentiousness, West Ham United have shared in vomiting over the rest of us and pretending they're spraying us with perfume.
GEE, one question: do you not think at the very least WHU might have been asked to contribute the proceeds from the sale of Upton Park to the conversion?
As you say, West Ham didn't want to buy it, they wanted the tax payer to buy it for them. And you seriously can't see that as an open and shut case of state aid? If West Ham had come in with an offer of £400 million, plus selective usage of facilities on non-match days then nobody could have complained. Even at £300 million they would have got a deal. But instead they wanted the skintest borough in London to pay the lion's share of any purchase and get to won it for a fraction of the cost.
West Ham offered a contribution of £200 million in 2006 for a multipurpose stadium that could incorporate football and athletics but then then OPLC board including Tessa Jowell, Seb Coe and Ken Livingstone threw out their proposal and decided on a 25k seat athletics stadium legacy. In retrospect this was understood to not be much of a legacy at all and they decided to keep it as a large stadium, hence where we are now. Perhaps West Ham could have offered more up front but you have to realise that part of the deal is that the club has no external debts when the tenancy starts as per the now LLDC's demands so it was recognised that the club need to backload payments.
As for Newham's contribution, the Council always wanted to be part of the deal anyway so as to gain access to the stadium. The £40 million is drawn from a Treasury contingency fund and is nothing to do with current spending, so it's simply not true that its a choice of hospitals or football. The rate of interest Newham pays is drawn from the government bond market, where rates are very low (the 10 year gilt is currently just over 2%) and Newham gets a guaranteed return of 6% on its investment, so its making money on interest spread even before you take into account everything else it gets, including 75% of employees from the Borough, 250 days use of the community track, 10 days use of the stadium, 100,000 event tickets for resident and a very generous fund from stadium revenues to go into sport and culture in the local community worth £250,000 per year (10% of West Ham's rent).
Of course I didnt need to tell you that as you've read Schedule 4 of the contract.
If you really think the glory and iconic status of the OS alone (without Premier League football in there) would be attractive enough for a global sponsor to spend some serious money on naming rights, then I suppose it doesn't really leave any foundation for debate. You seem to think the LLDC could demand 15 million in rent a year plus a club coming in willing to pay for the entire conversion costs upfront when reality is very different.
There was a tender process to find an anchor concessionaire for 99 years, a tender process which was open to everyone. So why didn't the LLDC find a club willing to pay 15 million a year rent and pay for the whole conversion costs ? Maybe they didn't, because there simply wasn't.
The whole OS saga has been managed very badly from start to finish which is why the conversion costs spiralled. I understand the anger about the inept negotiating skills of the LLDC, then again their negotiating position was poor to begin with. Are you suggesting that the Charlton Supporters Trust would have been able to negotiate a significantly better deal for the taxpayer then from the same bad negotiating position ?
Straw man arguments butter no parsnips with me, although I doubt many could have done a worse job than the LLDC have done.
I've said several times that for me any negotiations should have started with the proceeds from the sale of Upton Park as a contribution towards the capital costs of conversion. It is extraordinary that this isn't the case, especially when comparing to Manchester.
The bid that Tottenham put forward would have cost them more than the cost of converting the stadium has cost. It would, however, have cost the tax payer nothing. To suggest it's unrealistic to ask a Premier League club to make a greater contribution to the conversion of a stadium primarily to accommodate them is proved untrue by that very fact. Arsenal rebuilt their stadium, Chelsea are looking to do the same with theirs - are you suggesting they should budget only £15m to achieve that?
Where West Ham differed is that they accepted the athletics compromise, one that I doubt will last 99 years. This left them the only Premier League football club prepared to offer a bid compliant with the ludicrous provisions required by Coe. They exploited this with an extraordinarily weak LLDC negotiating team to obtain a contract that effectively means they are paid by the taxpayer to take a place in the stadium for the next century.
The realistic alternative was to raze the stadium, which given the lack of realistic legacy planning in its design was always the best option. The Tottenham bid proves there was a better option for the taxpayer, for athletics and no doubt for local regeneration given that the Council would likely be a lot better off.
GEE and gavros. It will take nigh on 27 years to recoup what the taxpayer has spent on conversion even before the West ham deal moves on to pay off the national debt.
Right. So again you're thinking only about the base rental. Here's another scenarios for you to consider:
The last Premier League National Fan Survey was in 2008, and that showed that on average fans spend £11 on match day (based on the question “At any one home league match, on average, how much do you spend on matchday items in total in the ground?”):
Some of that was on betting, which I dont think will be in the stadium so lets go with a prudential figure of £7 per fan excluding betting. In today's money that's about £8.20. There are 56,600 normal seats in the stadium, and working on the assumption of 25 games, that tallies up to £11,603,000. The revenue share of this is £8,272,100 for the LLDC and £3,330,900 for West Ham. Lets assume that £6 mil sponsorship rumour is correct, so under the contract £5 million goes to the LLDC, and then lets assume in our first season West Ham finish 6th in the league, which triggers a position payment of £275,000.
All in all, along with the basic rent, that would add up to £16,047,100 for E20 LLP gross in season 1.
GEE and gavros. It will take nigh on 27 years to recoup what the taxpayer has spent on conversion even before the West ham deal moves on to pay off the national debt.
Right. So again you're thinking only about the base rental. Here's another scenarios for you to consider:
The last Premier League National Fan Survey was in 2008, and that showed that on average fans spend £11 on match day (based on the question “At any one home league match, on average, how much do you spend on matchday items in total in the ground?”):
Some of that was on betting, which I dont think will be in the stadium so lets go with a prudential figure of £7 per fan excluding betting. In today's money that's about £8.20. There are 56,600 normal seats in the stadium, and working on the assumption of 25 games, that tallies up to £11,603,000. The revenue share of this is £8,272,100 for the LLDC and £3,330,900 for West Ham. Lets assume that £6 mil sponsorship rumour is correct, so under the contract £5 million goes to the LLDC, and then lets assume in our first season West Ham finish 6th in the league, which triggers a position payment of £275,000.
All in all, along with the basic rent, that would add up to £16,047,100 for E20 LLP gross in season 1.
So in what year in the future will the taxpayers initial spend (not the stadium, but conversion and stuff) be paid off? Still looking about 15 years according to your speculation...that's supposed to be good is it? Whilst we're on the subject of speculation, what happens when the LLDC goes bust?
So in what year in the future will the taxpayers initial spend (not the stadium, but conversion and stuff) be paid off? Still looking about 15 years according to your speculation...that's supposed to be good is it? Whilst we're on the subject of speculation, what happens when the LLDC goes bust?
Yes, it is supposed to be good, because after year 15 its all gravy.
Yes, I do actually think West Ham could and probably should have spent the sale proceeds from the Boleyn on a bigger upfront contribution towrads conversion, but it's not up to me to decide and not up to you either. I'm sure this came up in the negotiations and like in a game of poker (Hearn once compared all this stuff to a game of football really) maybe the West Ham team bluffed their way into getting a pretty decent deal.
But that is not the main point. I know you don't like to hear it, but I am still convinced this is driven by football tribalism. You keep saying how it would have been best to sell it all to Spurs, let them bulldoze the OS and start afresh. Are you saying this because it would have given quite a bit of money back to the taxpayer quickly without having to wait out 20 years or so before break even is reached ? Or is it because you would have been happy to see any other club in there rather than West Ham from just around the corner ?
Rest assured, knowing the negotiating skills of the LLDC and Levy, that Spurs would have agreed a very cheap price to buy the OS (do you think Levy would have been willing to pay market price ? Judging by his transfer dealings who loves to make lowball offers). Spurs would have exploited their negotiating position just as West Ham did - and in a way Spurs have benefitted from all this themselves by getting some useful public money for their own stadium project in the process.
It's also not about being gleeful, or doing high-fives and mocking dances. It's about trying to see some sense here. You accuse me and other West Ham fans of creating dreamland scenarios, yet you keep claiming several scenarios which apparently all would have been better for the taxpayer and funnily enough none of those include West Ham playing there.
The one scenario where West Ham would still play there you seem to envisage terms and levels of rent and income shares that no sensible club would have subscribed to under the circumstances in the real world. I don't envy the poor sods at the LLDC tasked with finding an anchor concessionaire under the circumstances, keeping the running track and all - what chance did they realistically have of finding a willing anchor concessionaire who would shower them with money despite being only allowed to rent the place, not owning it ? And subsequently not being able to profit from other events in the OS, or full naming rights income and catering profits ?
The trenches though are too deep really, you won't convince us that our club acted unlawfully or immorally here and we won't convince you that it is a decent deal for both West Ham and the taxpayer. Do I see the good OS deal as our birthright ? Certainly not.
On the other hand our club has been through a lot of crap, especially in the last ten years or so. In that respect I don't mind Lady Luck smiling on us for a change. May the same happen to your club again very soon with hopefully a takeover happening quickly now.
But that's for you guys to discuss, it's your club to sort out. Good luck with that!
So in what year in the future will the taxpayers initial spend (not the stadium, but conversion and stuff) be paid off? Still looking about 15 years according to your speculation...that's supposed to be good is it? Whilst we're on the subject of speculation, what happens when the LLDC goes bust?
Yes, it is supposed to be good, because after year 15 its all gravy.
What a stupid question.
It is stupid to ask what happens when the LLDC goes bust?
From what you post you have no idea, but condemn the question for being asked?
Yes, I do actually think West Ham could and probably should have spent the sale proceeds from the Boleyn on a bigger upfront contribution towrads conversion, but it's not up to me to decide and not up to you either. I'm sure this came up in the negotiations and like in a game of poker (Hearn once compared all this stuff to a game of football really) maybe the West Ham team bluffed their way into getting a pretty decent deal.
But that is not the main point. I know you don't like to hear it, but I am still convinced this is driven by football tribalism. You keep saying how it would have been best to sell it all to Spurs, let them bulldoze the OS and start afresh. Are you saying this because it would have given quite a bit of money back to the taxpayer quickly without having to wait out 20 years or so before break even is reached ? Or is it because you would have been happy to see any other club in there rather than West Ham from just around the corner ?
Rest assured, knowing the negotiating skills of the LLDC and Levy, that Spurs would have agreed a very cheap price to buy the OS (do you think Levy would have been willing to pay market price ? Judging by his transfer dealings who loves to make lowball offers). Spurs would have exploited their negotiating position just as West Ham did - and in a way Spurs have benefitted from all this themselves by getting some useful public money for their own stadium project in the process.
It's also not about being gleeful, or doing high-fives and mocking dances. It's about trying to see some sense here. You accuse me and other West Ham fans of creating dreamland scenarios, yet you keep claiming several scenarios which apparently all would have been better for the taxpayer and funnily enough none of those include West Ham playing there.
The one scenario where West Ham would still play there you seem to envisage terms and levels of rent and income shares that no sensible club would have subscribed to under the circumstances in the real world. I don't envy the poor sods at the LLDC tasked with finding an anchor concessionaire under the circumstances, keeping the running track and all - what chance did they realistically have of finding a willing anchor concessionaire who would shower them with money despite being only allowed to rent the place, not owning it ? And subsequently not being able to profit from other events in the OS, or full naming rights income and catering profits ?
The trenches though are too deep really, you won't convince us that our club acted unlawfully or immorally here and we won't convince you that it is a decent deal for both West Ham and the taxpayer. Do I see the good OS deal as our birthright ? Certainly not.
On the other hand our club has been through a lot of crap, especially in the last ten years or so. In that respect I don't mind Lady Luck smiling on us for a change. May the same happen to your club again very soon with hopefully a takeover happening quickly now.
But that's for you guys to discuss, it's your club to sort out. Good luck with that!
I have bolded a couple of bits of your post.
As I have repeatedly said, go on and be gleeful because of your encounter with 'lady luck', but don't come here and try to pretend it is lucky for the rest of us.
Incidentally I can't recall any Charlton fan saying the West Ham United should not play at the Olympic Stadium, but to use a word you're fond of, it ought to be 'fair'.
It is manifestly not 'fair', you have been visited by lady luck, and I don't blame you and gavros for your high fives because your club has fallen into a pot of jam.
As for us sorting out our own club, we are trying as best we can and know how, but we are not looking for favours or sympathy...to that end it is distasteful for any West ham United fan to think or say that when we played at the Boelyn ground you were doing us a favour. We paid our way and then some, it was not an act of charity on your part, so you and yours might reflect on how irritating and patronising it is for you lot to repeat this myth.
seth plum said: GEE and gavros. It will take nigh on 27 years to recoup what the taxpayer has spent on conversion even before the West ham deal moves on to pay off the national debt.
Could be 53 years if they get relegated next season and don't get promoted again.
The groundshare at the Boleyn was before my time at West Ham, so I can't say anything about that. Anything me and Gavros may say though will continue to be misinterpreted by some of you as being patronising, irritating and mocking anyway, so I can only again wish you best of luck for your future and a potential takeover from better owners soon.
Do with those best wishes what you deem fit, up to you!
GEE and gavros. It will take nigh on 27 years to recoup what the taxpayer has spent on conversion even before the West ham deal moves on to pay off the national debt.
Right. So again you're thinking only about the base rental. Here's another scenarios for you to consider:
The last Premier League National Fan Survey was in 2008, and that showed that on average fans spend £11 on match day (based on the question “At any one home league match, on average, how much do you spend on matchday items in total in the ground?”):
Some of that was on betting, which I dont think will be in the stadium so lets go with a prudential figure of £7 per fan excluding betting. In today's money that's about £8.20. There are 56,600 normal seats in the stadium, and working on the assumption of 25 games, that tallies up to £11,603,000. The revenue share of this is £8,272,100 for the LLDC and £3,330,900 for West Ham. Lets assume that £6 mil sponsorship rumour is correct, so under the contract £5 million goes to the LLDC, and then lets assume in our first season West Ham finish 6th in the league, which triggers a position payment of £275,000.
All in all, along with the basic rent, that would add up to £16,047,100 for E20 LLP gross in season 1.
So in what year in the future will the taxpayers initial spend (not the stadium, but conversion and stuff) be paid off? Still looking about 15 years according to your speculation...that's supposed to be good is it? Whilst we're on the subject of speculation, what happens when the LLDC goes bust?
Unfortunately, you miss one important fact - LDDC does get 70% of the revenue, but that not gross revenue, which is what you're using for you're caculcations. It's 70% of the revenue paid to them by the caterers. its going to be well short of your $8m. By the time caterers costs and profit are taken into account, they'll be lucky to see a million.
I didn't miss any fact, that's why I said 'gross'. Obviously there's costs involved with food but to think that a gross of over £8 million would net down to less than £1 million for E20 LLP is ludicrous.
GEE and gavros. It will take nigh on 27 years to recoup what the taxpayer has spent on conversion even before the West ham deal moves on to pay off the national debt.
Right. So again you're thinking only about the base rental. Here's another scenarios for you to consider:
The last Premier League National Fan Survey was in 2008, and that showed that on average fans spend £11 on match day (based on the question “At any one home league match, on average, how much do you spend on matchday items in total in the ground?”):
Some of that was on betting, which I dont think will be in the stadium so lets go with a prudential figure of £7 per fan excluding betting. In today's money that's about £8.20. There are 56,600 normal seats in the stadium, and working on the assumption of 25 games, that tallies up to £11,603,000. The revenue share of this is £8,272,100 for the LLDC and £3,330,900 for West Ham. Lets assume that £6 mil sponsorship rumour is correct, so under the contract £5 million goes to the LLDC, and then lets assume in our first season West Ham finish 6th in the league, which triggers a position payment of £275,000.
All in all, along with the basic rent, that would add up to £16,047,100 for E20 LLP gross in season 1.
And you're all forgetting the operational and opportunity costs. Revenues aren't profit. Until there's a profit on the deal, nothing goes towards repaying the capital on the stadium.
GEE and gavros. It will take nigh on 27 years to recoup what the taxpayer has spent on conversion even before the West ham deal moves on to pay off the national debt.
Right. So again you're thinking only about the base rental. Here's another scenarios for you to consider:
The last Premier League National Fan Survey was in 2008, and that showed that on average fans spend £11 on match day (based on the question “At any one home league match, on average, how much do you spend on matchday items in total in the ground?”):
Some of that was on betting, which I dont think will be in the stadium so lets go with a prudential figure of £7 per fan excluding betting. In today's money that's about £8.20. There are 56,600 normal seats in the stadium, and working on the assumption of 25 games, that tallies up to £11,603,000. The revenue share of this is £8,272,100 for the LLDC and £3,330,900 for West Ham. Lets assume that £6 mil sponsorship rumour is correct, so under the contract £5 million goes to the LLDC, and then lets assume in our first season West Ham finish 6th in the league, which triggers a position payment of £275,000.
All in all, along with the basic rent, that would add up to £16,047,100 for E20 LLP gross in season 1.
So in what year in the future will the taxpayers initial spend (not the stadium, but conversion and stuff) be paid off? Still looking about 15 years according to your speculation...that's supposed to be good is it? Whilst we're on the subject of speculation, what happens when the LLDC goes bust?
Unfortunately, you miss one important fact - LDDC does get 70% of the revenue, but that not gross revenue, which is what you're using for you're caculcations. It's 70% of the revenue paid to them by the caterers. its going to be well short of your $8m. By the time caterers costs and profit are taken into account, they'll be lucky to see a million.
And in fact the caterers pay the operator who in turn take their share...
Also, if West Ham have committed to 100,000 tickets going to Newham each season, whilst you might attribute an opportunity cost to that equivalent to the value of the lowest category games they will be available for, that West Ham have never earned a penny from them doesn't make it a cost to West Ham, nor does it make it their contribution to E20. It was never theirs to give, just like the stadium sponsorship.
West Ham arent committed to 100,000 free tickets. As im sure youre aware from Schedule 4 b (iv):
Access to events for residents of the London Borough of Newham, both as spectators and attending community events, including the provision to NU for distribution to Newham residents of up to 100,000 event tickets to be provided by Stadium users. Such tickets must be for professional sport or music events taking place at the Stadium.
Under 9. Concessionaire Covenants it says:
(k) comply with the Community Plan (when agreed) and offer up to 100.000 General Admission Tickets each Football Season to residents of the London Borough of Newham and/or community groups, clubs, charities and similar organisations, subject to appropriate controls being in place to contractually restrict any on-sale and the terms of an agreement to be entered into between the Concessionaire and the London Borough of Newham
But this is clearly a sub-set of Schedule 4 b (iv) and the 'upto' part suggests that if no other events were taking place (professional sport or music) then the full burden would fall on West Ham. But we know that cant be the case as UKA have their big yearly event in there every year and there will be numerous other pro sporting events and concerts.
And that strengthens the point that for all the bluster about how West Ham are generously donating tickets, it will actually be a contractual requirement that means, again, the tickets in question aren't really available to West Ham in the first place.
Although in reality it's all 'to be agreed', and if this contract is any indication of how well the LLDC will do for the taxpayer...
I didn't miss any fact, that's why I said 'gross'. Obviously there's costs involved with food but to think that a gross of over £8 million would net down to less than £1 million for E20 LLP is ludicrous.
So what do you think it is? If it he markup is 100%, then net revenue to the operator is 4m. Let them skim 1m profit. The gross revenue for the terms of this contract will be 3m. So that's somewhere just north of 2m. Which is a long way short of the 8m you suggested.
But the gross revenue you're talking about is all going to be contingent on the deal they can negotiate with the catering operators (Deleware North, etc).
Given what we've seen so far, how confident are you in their abilities to get a good deal ?
So what do you think it is? If it he markup is 100%, then net revenue to the operator is 4m. Let them skim 1m profit. The gross revenue for the terms of this contract will be 3m. So that's somewhere just north of 2m. Which is a long way short of the 8m you suggested.
But the gross revenue you're talking about is all going to be contingent on the deal they can negotiate with the catering operators (Deleware North, etc).
Given what we've seen so far, how confident are you in their abilities to get a good deal ?
You dont go from net back to gross again, so lets qualify that from a gross of £8 million to a net of £3 million as you suggest, which isnt 'just north' of £2 million - it's £1 million more (just to be clear).
So going back to the original calculation, and taking your number as gospel, again we get to (excluding the idea of consistent top ten finish or any other performance related payments) £2.5 + £3 + £5 + = £10.5 million. The LLDC mentioned in one of it's minutes that the cost-to-benefit analysis with regards to what to do with the stadium post games was done over a 25 year basis. So taking the above figure on a PV basis equals £262.5 million plus the unknown extra revenues that having a 60k stadium brings over and above the originally planned 25k stadium, which everyone, including Barry Hearn, said would lose money every year (the amount touted is £5 million per year = -£210 million over the 25 year horizon including conversion, which was originally scheduled to cost about £90 million). Is it not inconceivable that the result of this analysis showed that the decision to go with what they went for was clearly better for the taxpayer than the alternative?
Just to spell it out again, the decision is a 25k which provides a net cost of -£210 million, versus what we have now = 262.5 - £272 = -£9.5 million plus the revenue from events over and above what the stadium would earn over and above the alternative. And then of course taking it beyond the 25 year horizon and looking at the 99 year tenancy its clear that West Ham's tenure contributes significantly to the public purse.
You are at liberty of course to entertain an alternative scenario where West Ham spend a few years (given the clubs history, at maximum about 5 of the 25) out of the Premier League, which effects rent and potentially stadium naming rights but still the two alternatives are miles away in terms of benefit-to-cost analysis. And of course you can fall back on the argument against the best interest of the public purse (which is ostensibly what this entire thing was about) to justify not having West Ham there, by which time by your own standards you've already lost the thread of everything you've been claiming to be for.
I do this admittedly with some distaste because it's a fact that a club's fortunes are more than that, it more often comes down to good management at board and manager level (as you unfortunately are witnessing now), but simply to point out that the claims about this being a 'terrible deal for the taxpayer' are false.
How hard is this? 3m is the gross after the concession operator takes their cut. The first 500k goes straight to LDDC, so that leaves 2.5m split 70/30. So 2.25m to LDDC.
We can argue about the assumptions becuse I'm pretty sure neither of us are stadium operators But I'm pretty sure your original number was wildly overstated.
Gavros, if you think the deal is as how you say it is then why didn't the LLDC just release it in full the first time of asking? After all it's such a good deal, how on earth could it jeopardise future rental agreements (although I doubt another team could play there with all the claret & blue in and around the place)
Then you have the publication of the deal potentially damaging the commercial opportunities to sell further events at the OS at better rates and the deal gets worse again for the taxpayer.
It's easy of course blaming all those simpletons and crap negotiators at the LLDC. Then again it might be wise to acknowledge the role that several other clubs and individuals (included people from this site) have played in ading to the problems for the LLDC to make the OS a profitable investment.
You keep on making these assertions, and you keep on challenging people on this site to read the contract.
I would like to recommend that you read, firstly the Information Commissioner's decision notice of September 2015, and the Tribunal decision last Monday. I assume you would accept that neither of these bodies are populated by people who "hate" West Ham? (In fact the three women who made up the Tribunal cheerfully admitted they know sod all about football).
In both cases the assertions you make above were the central ones they had to test to determine if they were true, before asking whether the public interest outweighed the harm caused by disclosure.
In both cases, these people decided that those assertions were not proven, despite the ability of the LLDC to call on top quality lawyers, consultants, whoever, at unlimited expense, to make their case.
Their case was thrown out, rejected, completely, by both bodies. Neither body even needed to consider the public interest test. It was a double 4-0 to us, home and away.
Are you really coming on here to argue that these people are wrong, and you are right? Really?
One thing that has been lost in all of this is logic. There is a ridiculous argument around blaming the original design. But why did the stadium ever have to be a football ground? The legacy that helped secure the games was not West Ham's. The money that has been spent converting the stadium is a subsidy to West Ham as the stadium was built successfully for a purpose. It's next role should have been primarily around athletics. It could have easily kept itself financially neutral through concerts and other sporting events including major athletics competitions in the future and around that be used as an inspiration to youth athletes to perform in. That is a legacy by the way! That wouldn't have required £272 million less of tax payers money. But that is if you are interested in people and when you sign up to a legacy you mean it. I think Seb Coe and the original committee believed it when the Olympics was won and the greedy then rub their hands and see the opportunities for them. A village idiot could have easily worked out a plan that was cheaper for tax payers that had nothing to do with football! So why couldn't Boris Johnson and the LLDC? This is a scandal. The argument seems to have developed a focus on who would the best football team to occupy the stadium be - a football team didn't need to occupy the stadium and it wasn't designed to occupy the stadium. It was a stadium I was proud of, it now makes me want to vomit!!!!
West Ham can get future success, but they will have achieved it from nicking tax payers money. Football is a joke and a once proud club has become a joke. I am sad for the West Ham that clearly is no more.
Comments
There's been a lot said about getting the best deal for the taxpayer but this isn't it. This is the best deal the LLDC's negotiators could achieve through lack of ability, lack of business acumen, and being hamstrung by ludicrous demands for athletics.
They'd have been better off with Tottenham's bid. Or demolishing it and selling for development.
GEE you say that over 99 years the deal may also recoup the costs of building the stadium in the first place...you may be right, that after 99 years there might just about be a break even point, but there will have been no benefit to the taxpayer in the interim.
The beneficiaries will be the likes of Coe and Boris who can say they have created a 'legacy' (lets see how that pans out).
GEE you also say in one of your posts that money gets wasted here there and everywhere, and this particular waste is no big deal in the scheme of things. I disagree, it is a big deal for West Ham, and would also be a big deal if every other football club got £270million of free money. One single private business has been manouvered into place by the desire to have a legacy situation for the Olympic Stadium that glorifies Boris and Coe and Brady and whoever. It has never been about generating income for the taxpayer, but come back and tell me I'm wrong when you have evidence of specific taxpayer benefit...trouble is in 20 years I will have been long dead.
Maybe GEE and gavros you see it all as your birthright. After all the East End has been traditionally poor and downtrodden, it has been the first settling point for generations of incomers, it took the brunt of the Blitz, it has lost the docks and things made in Dagenham, other posh areas have has too much for too long and now it is the turn of the East End.
I reckon gavros and GEE you should continue to do what you're effectively doing, laughing at us mugs, jabbing the finger, smirking and high fiving when the door shuts, and doing a little dance of glee. It is distasteful that you and others on KUMB come on to try to say that despite it being good for West Ham it is actually as wholesome as brown bread and natural yoghurt.
Eastenders like to see themselves as lor luvva duck, knees up muvva brahn, authentic salt of the earth types, but actually you are now becoming salt in the wound types, and for that West Ham United will forever be despised by a lot of people.
Maybe you should start singing the song of your mates Millwall, but at least Millwall are honest in their degree of pretentiousness, West Ham United have shared in vomiting over the rest of us and pretending they're spraying us with perfume.
West Ham offered a contribution of £200 million in 2006 for a multipurpose stadium that could incorporate football and athletics but then then OPLC board including Tessa Jowell, Seb Coe and Ken Livingstone threw out their proposal and decided on a 25k seat athletics stadium legacy. In retrospect this was understood to not be much of a legacy at all and they decided to keep it as a large stadium, hence where we are now. Perhaps West Ham could have offered more up front but you have to realise that part of the deal is that the club has no external debts when the tenancy starts as per the now LLDC's demands so it was recognised that the club need to backload payments.
As for Newham's contribution, the Council always wanted to be part of the deal anyway so as to gain access to the stadium. The £40 million is drawn from a Treasury contingency fund and is nothing to do with current spending, so it's simply not true that its a choice of hospitals or football. The rate of interest Newham pays is drawn from the government bond market, where rates are very low (the 10 year gilt is currently just over 2%) and Newham gets a guaranteed return of 6% on its investment, so its making money on interest spread even before you take into account everything else it gets, including 75% of employees from the Borough, 250 days use of the community track, 10 days use of the stadium, 100,000 event tickets for resident and a very generous fund from stadium revenues to go into sport and culture in the local community worth £250,000 per year (10% of West Ham's rent).
Of course I didnt need to tell you that as you've read Schedule 4 of the contract.
The last Premier League National Fan Survey was in 2008, and that showed that on average fans spend £11 on match day (based on the question “At any one home league match, on average, how much do you spend on matchday items in total in the ground?”):
http://www.premierleague.com/content/dam/premierleague/site-content/News/publications/fan-surveys/national-fan-survey-2007-08.pdf
Some of that was on betting, which I dont think will be in the stadium so lets go with a prudential figure of £7 per fan excluding betting. In today's money that's about £8.20. There are 56,600 normal seats in the stadium, and working on the assumption of 25 games, that tallies up to £11,603,000. The revenue share of this is £8,272,100 for the LLDC and £3,330,900 for West Ham. Lets assume that £6 mil sponsorship rumour is correct, so under the contract £5 million goes to the LLDC, and then lets assume in our first season West Ham finish 6th in the league, which triggers a position payment of £275,000.
All in all, along with the basic rent, that would add up to £16,047,100 for E20 LLP gross in season 1.
Still looking about 15 years according to your speculation...that's supposed to be good is it?
Whilst we're on the subject of speculation, what happens when the LLDC goes bust?
What a stupid question.
But that is not the main point. I know you don't like to hear it, but I am still convinced this is driven by football tribalism. You keep saying how it would have been best to sell it all to Spurs, let them bulldoze the OS and start afresh. Are you saying this because it would have given quite a bit of money back to the taxpayer quickly without having to wait out 20 years or so before break even is reached ?
Or is it because you would have been happy to see any other club in there rather than West Ham from just around the corner ?
Rest assured, knowing the negotiating skills of the LLDC and Levy, that Spurs would have agreed a very cheap price to buy the OS (do you think Levy would have been willing to pay market price ? Judging by his transfer dealings who loves to make lowball offers).
Spurs would have exploited their negotiating position just as West Ham did - and in a way Spurs have benefitted from all this themselves by getting some useful public money for their own stadium project in the process.
It's also not about being gleeful, or doing high-fives and mocking dances. It's about trying to see some sense here. You accuse me and other West Ham fans of creating dreamland scenarios, yet you keep claiming several scenarios which apparently all would have been better for the taxpayer and funnily enough none of those include West Ham playing there.
The one scenario where West Ham would still play there you seem to envisage terms and levels of rent and income shares that no sensible club would have subscribed to under the circumstances in the real world.
I don't envy the poor sods at the LLDC tasked with finding an anchor concessionaire under the circumstances, keeping the running track and all - what chance did they realistically have of finding a willing anchor concessionaire who would shower them with money despite being only allowed to rent the place, not owning it ? And subsequently not being able to profit from other events in the OS, or full naming rights income and catering profits ?
The trenches though are too deep really, you won't convince us that our club acted unlawfully or immorally here and we won't convince you that it is a decent deal for both West Ham and the taxpayer.
Do I see the good OS deal as our birthright ? Certainly not.
On the other hand our club has been through a lot of crap, especially in the last ten years or so.
In that respect I don't mind Lady Luck smiling on us for a change.
May the same happen to your club again very soon with hopefully a takeover happening quickly now.
But that's for you guys to discuss, it's your club to sort out.
Good luck with that!
From what you post you have no idea, but condemn the question for being asked?
What a stupid response.
As I have repeatedly said, go on and be gleeful because of your encounter with 'lady luck', but don't come here and try to pretend it is lucky for the rest of us.
Incidentally I can't recall any Charlton fan saying the West Ham United should not play at the Olympic Stadium, but to use a word you're fond of, it ought to be 'fair'.
It is manifestly not 'fair', you have been visited by lady luck, and I don't blame you and gavros for your high fives because your club has fallen into a pot of jam.
As for us sorting out our own club, we are trying as best we can and know how, but we are not looking for favours or sympathy...to that end it is distasteful for any West ham United fan to think or say that when we played at the Boelyn ground you were doing us a favour. We paid our way and then some, it was not an act of charity on your part, so you and yours might reflect on how irritating and patronising it is for you lot to repeat this myth.
GEE and gavros. It will take nigh on 27 years to recoup what the taxpayer has spent on conversion even before the West ham deal moves on to pay off the national debt.
Could be 53 years if they get relegated next season and don't get promoted again.
Anything me and Gavros may say though will continue to be misinterpreted by some of you as being patronising, irritating and mocking anyway, so I can only again wish you best of luck for your future and a potential takeover from better owners soon.
Do with those best wishes what you deem fit, up to you!
"Over and out"
Also, if West Ham have committed to 100,000 tickets going to Newham each season, whilst you might attribute an opportunity cost to that equivalent to the value of the lowest category games they will be available for, that West Ham have never earned a penny from them doesn't make it a cost to West Ham, nor does it make it their contribution to E20. It was never theirs to give, just like the stadium sponsorship.
Access to events for residents of the London Borough of Newham, both as spectators and attending community events, including the provision to NU for distribution to Newham residents of up to 100,000 event tickets to be provided by Stadium users. Such tickets must be for professional sport or music events taking place at the Stadium.
Under 9. Concessionaire Covenants it says:
(k) comply with the Community Plan (when agreed) and offer up to 100.000 General Admission Tickets each Football Season to residents of the London Borough of Newham and/or community groups, clubs, charities and similar organisations, subject to appropriate controls being in place to contractually restrict any on-sale and the terms of an agreement to be entered into between the Concessionaire and the London Borough of Newham
But this is clearly a sub-set of Schedule 4 b (iv) and the 'upto' part suggests that if no other events were taking place (professional sport or music) then the full burden would fall on West Ham. But we know that cant be the case as UKA have their big yearly event in there every year and there will be numerous other pro sporting events and concerts.
Although in reality it's all 'to be agreed', and if this contract is any indication of how well the LLDC will do for the taxpayer...
But the gross revenue you're talking about is all going to be contingent on the deal they can negotiate with the catering operators (Deleware North, etc).
Given what we've seen so far, how confident are you in their abilities to get a good deal ?
So going back to the original calculation, and taking your number as gospel, again we get to (excluding the idea of consistent top ten finish or any other performance related payments) £2.5 + £3 + £5 + = £10.5 million. The LLDC mentioned in one of it's minutes that the cost-to-benefit analysis with regards to what to do with the stadium post games was done over a 25 year basis. So taking the above figure on a PV basis equals £262.5 million plus the unknown extra revenues that having a 60k stadium brings over and above the originally planned 25k stadium, which everyone, including Barry Hearn, said would lose money every year (the amount touted is £5 million per year = -£210 million over the 25 year horizon including conversion, which was originally scheduled to cost about £90 million). Is it not inconceivable that the result of this analysis showed that the decision to go with what they went for was clearly better for the taxpayer than the alternative?
Just to spell it out again, the decision is a 25k which provides a net cost of -£210 million, versus what we have now = 262.5 - £272 = -£9.5 million plus the revenue from events over and above what the stadium would earn over and above the alternative. And then of course taking it beyond the 25 year horizon and looking at the 99 year tenancy its clear that West Ham's tenure contributes significantly to the public purse.
You are at liberty of course to entertain an alternative scenario where West Ham spend a few years (given the clubs history, at maximum about 5 of the 25) out of the Premier League, which effects rent and potentially stadium naming rights but still the two alternatives are miles away in terms of benefit-to-cost analysis. And of course you can fall back on the argument against the best interest of the public purse (which is ostensibly what this entire thing was about) to justify not having West Ham there, by which time by your own standards you've already lost the thread of everything you've been claiming to be for.
I do this admittedly with some distaste because it's a fact that a club's fortunes are more than that, it more often comes down to good management at board and manager level (as you unfortunately are witnessing now), but simply to point out that the claims about this being a 'terrible deal for the taxpayer' are false.
We can argue about the assumptions becuse I'm pretty sure neither of us are stadium operators But I'm pretty sure your original number was wildly overstated.
You wrote
Then you have the publication of the deal potentially damaging the commercial opportunities to sell further events at the OS at better rates and the deal gets worse again for the taxpayer.
It's easy of course blaming all those simpletons and crap negotiators at the LLDC. Then again it might be wise to acknowledge the role that several other clubs and individuals (included people from this site) have played in ading to the problems for the LLDC to make the OS a profitable investment.
You keep on making these assertions, and you keep on challenging people on this site to read the contract.
I would like to recommend that you read, firstly the Information Commissioner's decision notice of September 2015, and the Tribunal decision last Monday. I assume you would accept that neither of these bodies are populated by people who "hate" West Ham? (In fact the three women who made up the Tribunal cheerfully admitted they know sod all about football).
In both cases the assertions you make above were the central ones they had to test to determine if they were true, before asking whether the public interest outweighed the harm caused by disclosure.
In both cases, these people decided that those assertions were not proven, despite the ability of the LLDC to call on top quality lawyers, consultants, whoever, at unlimited expense, to make their case.
Their case was thrown out, rejected, completely, by both bodies. Neither body even needed to consider the public interest test. It was a double 4-0 to us, home and away.
Are you really coming on here to argue that these people are wrong, and you are right? Really?
West Ham can get future success, but they will have achieved it from nicking tax payers money. Football is a joke and a once proud club has become a joke. I am sad for the West Ham that clearly is no more.
Another one of those dreadfully biased anti- Hammers media reports. I think the point is we should all be grateful and it could've been worse.