It's much use as an asset though is it? You can't realise the asset without selling the ground which kind of defeats the object.

You could use it as security for a mortgage or loan but why a club would want to raise the large sums of money that would require the bank to be demanding such security I am not sure.

The land belongs to the Council they are the landlords .

Think about the longevity aspect. In X amount of years time, Warrington/whoever need to move on, they can sell the land to fund further development.

Secondly, as you quite rightly point out, it provides security for borrowing for whatever reason. Better to have the facility than not. As for jaws1, I assume they are not referring to Warrington

content.yudu.com/Library/A1u54o/ ... chure-2012 if any of you are interested in organising an event at the new stadium

content.yudu.com/Library/A1u54o/ ... chure-2012 if any of you are interested in organising an event at the new stadium

The council own the land for Saints ground?

Nope.

Some people seem very determined to get the Council involved in this. They can't seem to accept that Saints own the stadium. The land is leasehold, 999 year lease, but that's nothing unusual in a commercial context. The land is owned by the developer, Langtree.

But Saints don't own the ground, and as such the land isn't an asset as they can't sell it if they wanted to?

In the same way that I'd your house is leasehold you don't own the land but you do own and can sell the property is on the land

Saints own the stadium, yes, but not the land it is built on, no, although of course they could buy out the freehold at a later date. But that's common practice in both the commercial and residential sectors. Saints are free to sell the stadium just as my parents are free to sell their house even though the land belongs to someone else.

6,790 for your last home game, all these figures about your new stadium and capacity are a little brave???????????

remember it's called the dw stadium not the IL stadium. even if wigan ath are relegated, they will still be in the fourth richest league in world football........a lot higher revenues than super league generate lads!!!! and better stadiums and still higher fan bases than ANY super league clubs.

be careful what you wish for

That's a little ironic given the turnout of Wigan fans for their playoff against the Dragons. But never mind. Short memories and all that.

Saints had an average of 11,000 at Knowsley Road for a few years prior to its demolition and so we can expect at least that at our new stadium. Since the capacity of our new stadium is only around 500 more than at Knowsley Road, I can't see capacity being an issue.

You might also wanna have a look at the 17k average plus the fact all the playoff attendances were poor. What was your average at Widnes this season btw, are they all crawling back out of the woodwork now you've got a new shiny stadium?

i am refering to the warriors mate V the french. they had 7 crowds of 13k 2 of 12k (1 against us) and the famous 6,790. so maybe a 15k all seater is more app. good fri game is at dw every 2 years and the big 1. thats it.whats the point in spending an extra x million when its only gonna be full 1 good friday in every 2 years and 20k on once a season for the big one!!!!!!!!!

how can you average 17k when you looks at those figures??????

The average was 16,377.

dw saint is RODALLEGABOMB from Cockney latics

who the hell/what is he/that???????? quite a witty name though. better than my boring one

He's also DAVE WHELAN STADIUM that was banned from RLFANS last year, which means he's got ONE POST to improve his poor trolling or he'll be the same way.

Dave Whelan wanted to do this. He even had a model of it in the old JJB shop across from what was BHS. It's a crying shame that it never happened.

Think the figures I'd seen closer to 17k must have included the WCC as well. My mistake, cheers

I'd love to see us co-own the stadium and not be classed as tenants.

We can't afford and don't need a new ground

I like where it is, it's central and easy for most people to access. And for me personally, in summer when the weather is good, I can walk in 30 mins or so. If not, I can drive and get home within 10 minutes. I have a great view from my season ticket seats, and when we play Saints/Wire/Leeds the atmosphere is always really good. It's up to the fans to make the stadium a home, and this season I feel we are really getting somewhere, particularly with the effort from the flag fund/Brigantes. Financially, it wouldn't make sense to build another stadium just for us to use on our own, not only the building costs but the running costs. It is frustrating that we sometimes have to change our fixtures for the Latics but it's not the end of the world.

^^

This.

The days of owning and maintaining a multi-million pound sports stadium that is only used for 15 days a year are well and truly behind all but the truly rich. I'm quite happy with our arrangement at the moment, even if it means we have to change the date of a couple of games. What does annoy me though is the slowness of the club to announce these changes - the home game with Salford being a prime example from last season where the official announcer at the end of the Wakefield game even said the game would be on the Friday night!

(and before anyone tells me that was a month prior, I know, but the Sky/ESPN fixtures for the premier league had been announced by then and it was known the Latics were playing on Sat at 3pm)

i love how deluded SaintsFan is. Personally, I couldn't give two hoots whether Saints own the brownfield site, or the already outdated stadium built on it (no undersoil heating? Come on!)... But what I do find amusing is the willingness to forget that the council part funded the stadium, and if you consider how long the residents of St Helens have been inconvenienced by road-works and the likes for the new stadium, it's tremendously unlikely that planning permission was granted without some back-hander somewhere.

No chance the council are paying for use of a room in that stadium.

As for the notion that the stadium has entertainment facilities that will always be open, that would be corporate suicide, and is very unlikley to last in the long term.

The advantages of sharing a stadium (vs the disadvantages of Saints pipedream):

Half (or less) of the Gas Bills each qtr.
Half (or less) of the Electricity Bills each qtr.
Half (or less) of the Water Bills each qtr.
Half (or less) council tax each qtr.
Half (or less) the oil price each qtr.

AND, as a tenant, we're not liable for any fines from the EU/UK Government for not meeting Carbon Emission targets. A big plus, because they can be extremely high!

All this, before we've even gone into paying staff to clean the chewing gum out of the bogs, to stewards, the grounds keepers et al.

The thought that "oh, we have refreshment outlets in our concourse, so we'll get the income from there" is complete tosh. Refreshments have to be purchased in advance. If the PLC purchase food and drink for 10'000 people in an "occasional use" facility, and only 4'000 turn up, that's a heck of a lot of food waste going in the bin. But, wait, it's not an occasional use facility, the board room can be rented, the Keiron Cunningham room can be rented (or whatever they call it)... Really, corporate visitors do not eat the crap that comes out of the outlets of these stadiums, they're bought in, and generally included in the price of the room (which you gotta take, electricity, gas, food, water, etc etc etc out of the cost). There's very little revenue generated from hiring out one or two rooms, that's why DW has 8 suites (plus Rigalettos who are renting the space), Reebok Stadium in Bolton has 8, rather plushy suites, and a hotel attached... They're sources of income which make a stadium a profitable business, not 1 room... Saints new stadium will look all plushy for the 1st game or two, beyond that, as people use it, things will get broken and take longer and longer and longer to repair... In 10 years time, DW Stadium will still be a class venue, St Helens Council stadium will be falling into disrepair.

Would I want a stadium built for Wigan RL? Once, yes, but when you look at the costs of keeping that stadium, no. If we reached a point where DW stadium could be bought by Wigan RL or IL, which would I prefer? IL to own, Wigan RL as tennants still. RL has 14 weeks a year to turn a profit in a stadium... need I say more.