Supporters Trust Demands Meeting with Board

  • The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...

    Get involved!

Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports

Sort by date Sort by reaction score
AlabamaSpur said:
you can't build a lasting league on that. Plus NFL Europe was awful football. Its not like top players would go play there. It would be a developmental league.
Click to expand...
Yeah that’s what I mean, people come from America to watch their American teams.

Anyway, I don’t think it’s even on the table to try NFL Europe again, it would be an NFL team(s) located in Europe if anything.

MemphisWill said:
Its not just 2 games a year, the NFL plans to play, in essence, a full home schedule in London each season. Covid has set them back, but in 2019 they hosted 4 games. They simply do it with rotating teams, which is legally and functionally a much better way for them to handle it than a full-time London club. And every game is an immense sellout, and will likely carry on doing so.
Click to expand...

It’s never even been proposed as more than 4, whereas a home schedule including preseason is 10.

I think you’re right that they’d like to get to a full home schedule of European games, but with the recent announcement of discussions in Germany I doubt that would ever all occur at NWHL. The market isn’t there for that level of inventory.
 
MemphisWill said:
Its not just 2 games a year, the NFL plans to play, in essence, a full home schedule in London each season. Covid has set them back, but in 2019 they hosted 4 games. They simply do it with rotating teams, which is legally and functionally a much better way for them to handle it than a full-time London club. And every game is an immense sellout, and will likely carry on doing so.



The last pre-covid year the NFL hosted 4 London games, which required flying 8 NFL teams and their full equipment to London and arranging accommodations and practice/meeting facility for 8 teams. That's basically the same cost as a full season's away schedule.

Theres a lot of reasons I doubt the NFL ever has a full-time London team, but suffice it that cost isn't one. The NFL makes ridiculous gobs of money, and on merchandise alone a London team would pay for everyone's travel costs. You're talking about 1 team who's entire "local" market would basically be 65M people.
Click to expand...
But that staggered the cost among teams, not just one. Put it this way... I think London has as good a chance to get an NFL team as New York has to get an EPL team.
 
FightingIllini said:
Yeah that’s what I mean, people come from America to watch their American teams.

Anyway, I don’t think it’s even on the table to try NFL Europe again, it would be an NFL team(s) located in Europe.



It’s never even been proposed as more than 4, whereas a home schedule including preseason is 10.

I think you’re right that they’d like to get to a full home schedule of European games, but with the recent announcement of discussions in Germany I doubt that would ever all occur at NWHL. The market isn’t there for that level of inventory.
Click to expand...
They won't all be at Spurs, that was never the plan anyway. They will be split between Spurs, Wembley, and maybe another stadium that can accommodate it in the future.

Spurs will probably end up with 3-4 games a season, I imagine. The fixation on the NFL is also a bit overboard, as the design of the stadium's capabilities wasn't solely to accommodate the NFL. It allows any manner of in-season events to be hosted without disrupting or impacting the schedule/playing surface. The Joshua fight being one. Concerts and other entertainment events can be held, even the same day as a match in some cases. As we get "back to normal" these events will reduce the stadium costs for the football club...which was always the intent.
 
AlabamaSpur said:
But that staggered the cost among teams, not just one. Put it this way... I think London has as good a chance to get an NFL team as New York has to get an EPL team.
Click to expand...
The NFL pays for the travel costs for international games, not the teams. The NFL is mostly a single-entity league, the finances don't work in the way you're positing. The league plays matches in London for the financial benefit of the whole league, and finances that operation equally from all teams.
 
MemphisWill said:
The NFL pays for the travel costs for international games, not the teams. The NFL is mostly a single-entity league, the finances don't work in the way you're positing. The league plays matches in London for the financial benefit of the whole league, and finances that operation equally from all teams.
Click to expand...
And the hypothetical London franchise has always been thought to involve bootstrapping from the league both financially and competitively. Which is another reason it won’t happen.
 
FightingIllini said:
And the hypothetical London franchise has always been thought to involve bootstrapping from the league both financially and competitively. Which is another reason it won’t happen.
Click to expand...
Eh, everyone is focused on the costs as if there's any way an NFL team basically representing a market of 70M people could possibly lose money. A London NFL team would be massively profitable.

The reasons the NFL won't locate a team permanently in London all have to do with labor practices and the legality of it - namely, the fact that the NFL can only operate the way they do in the US because they were granted an anti-trust exemption from the US Congress. For starters locating a club permanently in the UK would make guaranteed contracts a necessity, a business practice the league's owners have no interest in.
 
MemphisWill said:
Its been well documented that the NFL contract alone pretty much covered the extra expense of the dual field and additional locker rooms. In the scope of the project, the additional cost wasn't that great. It comes with the added benefit of allowing the field to be turned over rapidly for in-season events without worrying about damage to the playing surface. The additional revenue the stadium produces is used to service stadium debt - debt that the football club doesn't have to pay, then.

Never ceases to amaze me how much some fans fixate on the dual-purpose nature of the stadium as if it in any way negatively impacts the club. I know several people greatly enjoyed the Joshua fight at the stadium, didn't negatively impact the club whatsoever. And setting the stadium up with such capabilities hasn't taken a penny out of the football club.

Find a better complaint.
Click to expand...
I’m all for it, but what was the cost? How much did it add to the delay, and what was the cost of that?
 
Zomb said:
I’m all for it, but what was the cost? How much did it add to the delay, and what was the cost of that?
Click to expand...
As someone that works in the AEC industry, I'll give you my take. The cost was minimal, we're not talking about a standalone project or an addition, so mobilization costs are basically nil, labour costs are there but shared between other tasks that would have been required regardless so they're lessened. You're really looking at OEM costs for the equipment specifically required for the operation of the dual field...in a project of this size I'll ball park it at 10%, 15% in a stretch. The locker rooms, etc. are basically a null cost, you'd have fit that space for some purpose anyway.

As far as the delay, as I remember it the delays were mostly caused by difficulties with labour and inspections during finishes and health and safety checks. There's no reason to believe the dual purpose scheme contributed in any substantial way to the delays.

And here's the long and short of it - in the long run any costs or delays needed to incorporate these systems is inconsequential. You're talking about a facility that will be operational for 50+ years. How much revenue will the stadium generate on 50 years of NFL games, concerts, boxing matches, etc.?

When you're talking about £1B structures you're talking about life-cycle cost/benefit over decades, not the micro-scale of weeks or months.
 
Guys, our stadium is the fucking shiznit.

Some of you guys need to stop pretending that the design is compromised and ill suited for football.
 
MemphisWill said:
This is simply not true. The biggest delay factor in the overall project from inception to opening was land acquisition. Thankfully someone torched the steel works finally.
Click to expand...
Stadium construction was massively delayed once started and ended up over 1 billion overall - these are all facts
 
MemphisWill said:
Eh, everyone is focused on the costs as if there's any way an NFL team basically representing a market of 70M people could possibly lose money. A London NFL team would be massively profitable.

The reasons the NFL won't locate a team permanently in London all have to do with labor practices and the legality of it - namely, the fact that the NFL can only operate the way they do in the US because they were granted an anti-trust exemption from the US Congress. For starters locating a club permanently in the UK would make guaranteed contracts a necessity, a business practice the league's owners have no interest in.
Click to expand...
The second paragraph stuff is easily dealt with by incorporating and headquartering the team in the US, which is what they want to do anyway. This would be an American franchise making 8 business trips to London a year.

And only baseball has an antitrust exemption, the NFL doesn’t. There’s some legislation around collective TV negotiations but that’s not really germane.

Logistics, team competitiveness, and the sustainability of the market are the concerns. All correct concerns. It would be a huge headache, free agents would avoid it like the plague, and the ticket demand wouldn’t last.

But hey, both because the NFL is dumb and it would be funny to see them faceplant and also because it would redound to Spurs benefit I hope they try it.
 
Zomb said:
It’s not mate - the question is where will it be reinvested? The football club or further infrastructure
Click to expand...

I would guess (and this is just a guess) it sits on the balance spreadsheet which is then used as security for property deals or further loan restructuring deals.

Are the loans against Spurs or ENIC? Not sure. But if the club ever sells we will find out pretty much everything one transfer window into the new ownership what ENIC have been up to all this time.

One thing I'd like to know is are the players considered registered assets or not on the ledger. If so, it would explain why players like Dele and Winks are over valued by Levy. It's almost worth having 100M of assets on the scorecard rather than sell for 20M if you're trying to hoover up property loans rather than pay unconditional.
 
VirginiaSpur said:
Guys, our stadium is the fucking shiznit.
Some of you guys need to stop pretending that the design is compromised and ill suited for football.
Click to expand...
It's not ill suited for soccer. Nobody has claimed that.
But it was built primarily for NFL, with the aim of eventually landing a permanent NFL franchise.

These are ENIC's words. Not mine. It's not even up for debate. It's what they said and it's what they meant.

If and when that happens, Tottenham Hotspur FC will very much become the bridesmaid. The anchor tennant servicing the debt while ENIC achieve their stated goal.

I can understand you and others from across the pond being a little naive on the subject.
But how some of the British based fans are still burying their heads in the sand and pretending not to see the blinding obvious is staggering beyond belief.

We're being played like kippers.
 
John Thomas said:
But it was built primarily for NFL, with the aim of eventually landing a permanent NFL franchise.
Click to expand...
My recollection of the quote was something like “designed and built from inception with the NFL in mind” or something like that. You have the original link?

John I have great respect for your postings, but I do think your maximalism allows weaker arguments to overshadow stronger ones at times.
 
FightingIllini said:
My recollection of the quote was something like “designed and built from inception with the NFL in mind” or something like that. You have the original link?

John I have great respect for your postings, but I do think your maximalism allows weaker arguments to overshadow stronger ones at times.
Click to expand...

No I don’t think so.

The nfl stuff was designed after the initial blueprints. Particularly the moving the pitch.

it’s why it doubled the cost and was 2 seasons late, it’s also why Mace wasn’t fined for their huge overrun despite having a contract with the most punitive fines ever seen on a stadium build for late delivery.

Levy made a great fanfare of this at the time. But once he started micromanaging the contract had changed so much it was worthless.
 
John Thomas said:
Here you go mate

Tottenham’s new stadium to offer NFL a ‘permanent home’ in London - SportsPro
Click to expand...
I pretty well nailed it

“It is an NFL stadium and that’s the key message. From the very start during the design phase, we have had the NFL in mind. The anchor tenant is Tottenham Hotspur, but this is designed to be a permanent home for the NFL outside the US.”

And the point of saying that, of course, is to distinguish it from Wembley and Twickenham, both of which host NFL games somewhat awkwardly.

Kaneson said:
it’s also why Mace wasn’t fined for their huge overrun despite having a contract with the most punitive fines ever seen on a stadium build for late delivery.
Click to expand...
Now this I’d be more interested in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom