Nonish - Aberdeen New Stadium

"...the project was estimated at £45m five years ago but had risen because of inflation and increased material costs"

Opportunity cost of not building when we first got promoted is an additional £30M plus lost income.
 
Kudos said:
"...the project was estimated at £45m five years ago but had risen because of inflation and increased material costs"

Opportunity cost of not building when we first got promoted is an additional £30M plus lost income.
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And if we'd built it in 1975 we could have built it for £30k. Probably.
 
Not sure how grounds are funded, I expect most are grants, loans, LA chipping in, and a fair wedge from the owner. Either way it's a lot to ask an owner to invest when the return wouldn't be realised for decades. I'd rather Max buy our stadium back, but then it still wouldn't be "ours" necessarily.

I am peeling the onion a little, but interestingly only 5 months ago the chairman was saying that they were thinking to reduce capcity from old to new ground because it would save them money and made sense based on attendance.

Dave Cormack: New Aberdeen stadium '2025-26 season at earliest' - BBC Sport
 
Neil Dawson said:
I think the reference was to the £600m we banked from the PL and subsequent parachute payments Rob. Not buying Jordan Ibe would have paid for the training ground.

In 1975 if we needed to break even we just put the programme price up 10p
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I know what the reference was. I'm glad we had 5 years in the Prem, even with Jordon Ibe.
 
It's been done to death this topic and people still come out with "we banked £600m" and oversimplified rubbish about the signings that didn't work out.

We didn't 'bank' £600m but we did make a load of profit from selling players after we got relegated. This offset the financial impact of relegation more than a new ground would have done and only came about because we took risks signing potential like Jordon Ibe.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
It's been done to death this topic and people still come out with "we banked £600m" and oversimplified rubbish about the signings that didn't work out.

We didn't 'bank' £600m but we did make a load of profit from selling players after we got relegated. This offset the financial impact of relegation more than a new ground would have done and only came about because we took risks signing potential like Jordon Ibe.
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RobTrent said:
I know what the reference was. I'm glad we had 5 years in the Prem, even with Jordon Ibe.
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I think this is like the entertainment v results debate it’s been ‘done to death’ because it’s very polarised
and subjective.

Personally I’d rather have invested on an infrastructure and a longer term strategy and foregone some of the latter PL years. I totally get and respect people that preferred the five years/No training ground/no stadium but phenomenal memories scenario. We all have different priorities in life.
 
The club were investing in infrastructure (training ground as starters ) I just don't think they thought they'd get relegated or even factored it in , add COVID of course.

People seem to think you can just 'magic up' infrastructure overnight but planning etc takes time. If you look at the timeline for the training ground the process commenced not long after PL promotion, within 18 months or so. The plan was always to 'consolidate' in the PL.
 
Aberdeen v Man U (friendly to do with tall ships or something? in 1991 was my first experience of an all seater stadium - although there were people sat in the aisles in places so attendance figure might be iffy!

Wierdly Neil, during out time in the top tier I can only remember you constantly banging on about our failed transfer policy, hopelessly wrong backroom staff but most of all conceding too many goals!

Seems I don't remember much as I seem to think quite a few other posters kept going on about a legacy from that income. Not me, I wanted a bigger ground and the "just outscore them" style entertainment, which was wrong.
 
Neil Dawson said:
I think this is like the entertainment v results debate it’s been ‘done to death’ because it’s very polarised
and subjective.

Personally I’d rather have invested on an infrastructure and a longer term strategy and foregone some of the latter PL years. I totally get and respect people that preferred the five years/No training ground/no stadium but phenomenal memories scenario. We all have different priorities in life.
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It's not about my priorities, I'm a fan so I want a bigger ground but then that's very easy for me to say because I'm not going to pay for it. Whatever way you look at it investing in a stadium when you don't have land to sell and can't offset the build costs with residential/commercial space isn't a good investment. £80m+ to earn an extra few million a year IF you don't get relegated.

The guy who puts his money where his mouth is chose to invest in players... and they kept the club in the division for five season, yielding hundreds of millions of extra income and then still had resale value when we got relegated. A new ground wouldn't have resale value on relegation. In fact it probably wouldn't produce much more income than what we have now.

Btw if you accept that investing in infrastructure and not players would have probably meant fewer seasons in the top flight how come you trot out the £600m+ line?
 
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For all we know the board could have recommended that for the business, investing in a stadium would be a good idea. Obviously the club couldn't afford it, so it would have been mainly the owners funds. Are we complaining that Maxim is too cheap or wanted to take the PL money and run or?
 
SlowDownDerek said:
It's not about my priorities, I'm a fan so I want a bigger ground but then that's very easy for me to say because I'm not going to pay for it. Whatever way you look at it investing in a stadium when you don't have land to sell and can't offset the build costs with residential/commercial space isn't a good investment. £80m+ to earn an extra few million a year IF you don't get relegated.

The guy who puts his money where his mouth is chose to invest in players... and they kept the club in the division for five season, yielding hundreds of millions of extra income and then still had resale value when we got relegated. A new ground wouldn't have resale value on relegation. In fact it probably wouldn't produce much more income than what we have now.

Btw if you accept that investing in infrastructure and not players would have probably meant fewer seasons in the top flight how come you trot out the £600m+ line?
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It’s the whole package though… attracting players, Cat A academy building a larger fan base, attracting a future sale, owning the stadium you are in. Given the choice of 75m of players or 75m of that set up I’d go for the set up. I refer to the c600m because that’s what it ended up being without us investing a penny in the infrastructure. Obviously in my scenario it wouldn’t have got to 600m
 
TrevorMorganFanClub said:
Aberdeen v Man U (friendly to do with tall ships or something? in 1991 was my first experience of an all seater stadium - although there were people sat in the aisles in places so attendance figure might be iffy!

Wierdly Neil, during out time in the top tier I can only remember you constantly banging on about our failed transfer policy, hopelessly wrong backroom staff but most of all conceding too many goals!

Seems I don't remember much as I seem to think quite a few other posters kept going on about a legacy from that income. Not me, I wanted a bigger ground and the "just outscore them" style entertainment, which was wrong.
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I’d reply to this but genuinely can’t tell if you are being ironic or not!
 
Neil Dawson said:
It’s the whole package though… attracting players, Cat A academy building a larger fan base, attracting a future sale, owning the stadium you are in. Given the choice of 75m of players or 75m of that set up I’d go for the set up. I refer to the c600m because that’s what it ended up being without us investing a penny in the infrastructure. Obviously in my scenario it wouldn’t have got to 600m
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How realistic is a Cat A academy and even if it was does it really provide value for money? We've shown that out existing set up is good enough to produce decent players and we know that Saints and Chelsea dominate in our catchment area. How many hundreds of millions would it take to compete? Of course we'd all like a larger ground but as I say it would require the owner to take a massive hit. Easy for us to criticise him for not spunking £100m+ on a ground.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
It's not about my priorities, I'm a fan so I want a bigger ground but then that's very easy for me to say because I'm not going to pay for it. Whatever way you look at it investing in a stadium when you don't have land to sell and can't offset the build costs with residential/commercial space isn't a good investment.
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Combined losses of £75m over the last four years suggest the other route isn't great, either!
 
AFCBfan said:
Combined losses of £75m over the last four years suggest the other route isn't great, either!
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Tbf I don't really think it's an either/or. Look at Brighton, you just have to add £150m debt on top to the other debts that come with running a football club.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
It's been done to death this topic and people still come out with "we banked £600m" and oversimplified rubbish about the signings that didn't work out.

We didn't 'bank' £600m but we did make a load of profit from selling players after we got relegated. This offset the financial impact of relegation more than a new ground would have done and only came about because we took risks signing potential like Jordon Ibe.
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Thank god for that "investment" in players or else we might be £140M in debt ...oh wait.
 
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