LS Tenancy Could Save Irons

The long term financial implications for the Barclays Premier League due to the Covid-19 pandemic are almost impossible to assess, because as yet no one knows when or even if an innoculation against this dreadful disease will be available, without which there will be NO supporters at football matches for some considerable time, many months, possibly years!

The decision to leave the much loved Boleyn Ground has rankled huge traits of the Irons fan base, but slowly the 'White Elephant' that is the London Stadium started to feel more like a football ground as opposed to an athletics stadium. The transition was to be enhanced by the 'squaring off' of the pitch behind each goal area to bring the fans closer to the pitch, that has obviously been put on hold for the time being.

There isn't one Premier League club that actually relies on gate income as the club's main source of income, gate receipts and catering profits being considered as the 'icing on the cake', the huge TV revenues are what clubs need to prosper and rely upon. If and when spectators are allowed to return there is a very likely prospect that only one in ten supporters will actually be allowed in to games initially. We have seen a draft document detailing exactly how the return of 'crowds' is being envisaged, season ticket holders would only be allowed to attend matches where social distancing can be maintained, for the London Stadium this would mean a total capacity of around 6000 fans.

While clubs will still receive TV money, the exact amount is unclear because no one has the data available as to how many subscribers around the World want to see games played in virtual silence. If the Bundesliga re-start is anything to go by then there will be significant numbers of people electing not to watch the 'sterile' games.

So the bean counters at clubs are trying to calculate the best business plan to move forward, the primary details of any business restart are to cut costs, to cut their cloth according to their respective incomes. Despite the huge amount of TV money clubs receive, there are those who rely on gate revenues for their Stadia more than others, despised local rivals Tottenham Hotspur appear to be hardest hit on account of the fact that their 'new' stadium was massively delayed due to unforeseen engineering difficulties and Government red tape, the club were relying on Baseball and American football fixtures to help pay off the vast amount of money required for the stadium's construction.

Being saddled with the cost of the new stadium during this pandemic is probably the manifestation of Daniel Levy's worst nightmare, the loan repayments and running costs don't go away just because the stadium is not in use. For once a West Ham United mistake, and there have been many many of them in the past, might have unintentionally protected the very existence of the club, as the Irons are only 'anchor' tenants at the London Stadium, the vast majority of the day to day running costs are paid by the LDDC which of course means the tax payer at the end of the day.

Irrespective of the moral aspect, the actuality is that West Ham should be able to 'ride out the storm' with less collateral damage than other clubs because of the low cost of being anchor tenants, in fact there is a strong possibility that if David Sullivan looks down the back of his Theydon Bois sofa he might be able to pick up a couple of bargains from clubs less well financed. Who Knows, what started out as an embarrassing dead weight might yet turn out to be the club's salvation. -Ed