Coventry Wasps?

westisbest wrote:December

Telegraph wrote:
Wasps have been at Adams Park since 2002. Yet for every £1 taken there, they receive only 15p. The Daily Telegraph understands that turnover at the Ricoh is £14 million. The new partnership, with football on 25 weekends, rugby on 16-18, should see that rise to £21 million, the highest in the Premiership. They are here to stay.

mid_gen wrote:Shame to see it happen, but reading about it, it doesn't seem like there were any other feasible options.

Any ex-Wasps fans are more than welcome down the Stoop

SecretFly wrote:Considering the Wasps got to where they are by having the support of fans from a certain area.

Bathman_in_London wrote:I notice that the new sponsor of Wasps is Jaguar Land Rover, who of course have their plant pretty nearby (also the Brand got a free one, which is nice for him). Some sort of tie up with the company could be a good way to get a core fan base without having to do much except offer discounted/free tickets.

Hugh Godwin: Wasps didn't have to send themselves to Coventry
The club were invited in as partners in a new stadium near London
Hugh Godwin Author Biography

Sunday 12 October 2014

There was a chance for Wasps to return near to where they were born and bred, but they decided against it. A Centre of Sports Excellence is being planned for Borehamwood, about 10 miles north of Wasps' old home (now a housing estate) in Sudbury, near Wembley.

The Premiership club were invited in as partners by the landowners, Legal & General, and the local Hertsmere Borough Council, with a 15,000-seater stadium worth £22 million and a hotel on site for added revenue. But Wasps wanted to own and control it. End of deal.

Another option was to continue ground-sharing with a football club, as Wasps and half-a-dozen others have done since rugby's Year Zero of 1995, when the sport went open and a little old clubhouse and homely single grandstand wouldn't cut it for a "customer experience".

Among the many sports clubs jockeying for position around London, in some of the world's most expensive real estate, Brentford FC have a stadium planned near Chiswick. Again, Wasps could not see the point. They wanted a better business plan.

So Wasps are off to Coventry, led by two men who have been involved with the club for barely two years: Derek Richardson, the Irish owner, and Nick Eastwood, the former Rugby Football Union financial director, who is chief executive.

There is another Wasps, of course – the amateur rugby club based in Acton, west London, who are already looking for new tenants to use the training facilities currently being rented by the professionals. For the avoidance of confusion, let's call the amateurs Wasps and the professionals Pro Wasps.

Eastwood has spent the week explaining the decision, unapologetically after the fact. Richardson, who is said to dislike the limelight, has yet to present himself to the press; perhaps he will do so when Leinster, where his rugby heart is said to lie, visit Coventry in January. Even though Pro Wasps are taking on a £13.4m loan at the Ricoh Arena to add to their existing losses, and they will need to spend on training facilities, marketing and the playing squad, they are confident in their gamble.

It is a trifecta based on rising TV revenues, a crowd ready and waiting in the Coventry area, and ancillary revenue streams at the Arena making the whole thing workable. In this Sky Blue thinking, Eastwood is predicting to break even in "three or four years".

If it comes across as ad hoc – Pro Wasps' first match at Coventry is in mid-December – then it is only in keeping with the knee-jerk nature of English rugby. Year Zero 1995 was when a coherent plan for the professional game might have been made. All we got was a mad rush to jam as many competitions into the season as possible – and if the players are smashed to smithereens, make sure there are doctors at every match to pick up the pieces.

The Rugby Football Union favour light-touch regulation. Nominally the governing body, the RFU describe the Premiership clubs as "independent". They have had nothing to say on the Coventry move other than to confirm, if anyone asked, that as long as Pro Wasps keep their academy licence in the London area, they are not flouting the regulation designed to stop a club being bought in one place and parachuted into another, treading on others' toes and avoiding the tedious hard work of fighting upwards through the leagues.

So while Pro Wasps move to Coventry, we have Pro London Welsh playing in Oxford with very few Welshmen, and Pro London Irish, similarly, employing a cosmopolitan squad in Reading. There is no Premiership club in the rugby hotbed of Cornwall; Pro Sale Sharks have lost supporters, not gained them, by moving 20 miles from Stockport to Salford, but still they strive with a vision of representing the North-west. In Leeds, we have Yorkshire Carnegie: a club or a county?

English rugby is what you might call an unplanned economy, but perhaps we should take solace in it reflecting the glory of the game itself, forever teetering between the ordered and the chaotic.

English rugby is what you might call an unplanned economy, but perhaps we should take solace in it reflecting the glory of the game itself, forever teetering between the ordered and the chaotic.

bedfordwelsh wrote:Trev,

Are you in the minority or majority, I have a few Wasps friends and they are a bit in between at the moment.  They have said they are willing to give it a go but a lot will depend on travelling and kick off times etc.

Coleman wrote:I read on another forum some weeks back that they were planning on giving away 10,000 tickets. Any idea if that's true? If so. . . Silly to ask but is that per game?

mbernz wrote:

Coleman wrote:I read on another forum some weeks back that they were planning on giving away 10,000 tickets. Any idea if that's true? If so. . . Silly to ask but is that per game?

They're offering a total of 12,000 free tickets to local schools and clubs for their first two AP games (LI & Sale) and first LV game (Cardiff).

http://www.wasps.co.uk/news/article/2014/11/13/wasps-make-12-000-tickets-available-for-schools-and-rugby-clubs

GLove39 wrote:

mbernz wrote:

Coleman wrote:I read on another forum some weeks back that they were planning on giving away 10,000 tickets. Any idea if that's true? If so. . . Silly to ask but is that per game?

They're offering a total of 12,000 free tickets to local schools and clubs for their first two AP games (LI & Sale) and first LV game (Cardiff).

http://www.wasps.co.uk/news/article/2014/11/13/wasps-make-12-000-tickets-available-for-schools-and-rugby-clubs

So most of the tickets are freebies, and even then the 'Ricoh' will only just be over half full.
It'll be interesting to see what attendances are like in a years time or so once the freebies dry out.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:Got enough money to lay a new "temporary" pitch, or so the BBC are reporting.

Then they are going to rip it up and lay a hybrid similar to HQ.

Who would have thought 20 years ago that a Championship  level soccer ground pitch would not be good enough to play rugby on?

Sin é wrote:According to the Independent, Wasps didn't have to go to Coventry.

Hugh Godwin: Wasps didn't have to send themselves to Coventry
The club were invited in as partners in a new stadium near London
Hugh Godwin Author Biography

Sunday 12 October 2014

There was a chance for Wasps to return near to where they were born and bred, but they decided against it. A Centre of Sports Excellence is being planned for Borehamwood, about 10 miles north of Wasps' old home (now a housing estate) in Sudbury, near Wembley.

The Premiership club were invited in as partners by the landowners, Legal & General, and the local Hertsmere Borough Council, with a 15,000-seater stadium worth £22 million and a hotel on site for added revenue. But Wasps wanted to own and control it. End of deal.

Another option was to continue ground-sharing with a football club, as Wasps and half-a-dozen others have done since rugby's Year Zero of 1995, when the sport went open and a little old clubhouse and homely single grandstand wouldn't cut it for a "customer experience".

Among the many sports clubs jockeying for position around London, in some of the world's most expensive real estate, Brentford FC have a stadium planned near Chiswick. Again, Wasps could not see the point. They wanted a better business plan.

So Wasps are off to Coventry, led by two men who have been involved with the club for barely two years: Derek Richardson, the Irish owner, and Nick Eastwood, the former Rugby Football Union financial director, who is chief executive.

There is another Wasps, of course – the amateur rugby club based in Acton, west London, who are already looking for new tenants to use the training facilities currently being rented by the professionals. For the avoidance of confusion, let's call the amateurs Wasps and the professionals Pro Wasps.

Eastwood has spent the week explaining the decision, unapologetically after the fact. Richardson, who is said to dislike the limelight, has yet to present himself to the press; perhaps he will do so when Leinster, where his rugby heart is said to lie, visit Coventry in January. Even though Pro Wasps are taking on a £13.4m loan at the Ricoh Arena to add to their existing losses, and they will need to spend on training facilities, marketing and the playing squad, they are confident in their gamble.

It is a trifecta based on rising TV revenues, a crowd ready and waiting in the Coventry area, and ancillary revenue streams at the Arena making the whole thing workable. In this Sky Blue thinking, Eastwood is predicting to break even in "three or four years".

If it comes across as ad hoc – Pro Wasps' first match at Coventry is in mid-December – then it is only in keeping with the knee-jerk nature of English rugby. Year Zero 1995 was when a coherent plan for the professional game might have been made. All we got was a mad rush to jam as many competitions into the season as possible – and if the players are smashed to smithereens, make sure there are doctors at every match to pick up the pieces.

The Rugby Football Union favour light-touch regulation. Nominally the governing body, the RFU describe the Premiership clubs as "independent". They have had nothing to say on the Coventry move other than to confirm, if anyone asked, that as long as Pro Wasps keep their academy licence in the London area, they are not flouting the regulation designed to stop a club being bought in one place and parachuted into another, treading on others' toes and avoiding the tedious hard work of fighting upwards through the leagues.

So while Pro Wasps move to Coventry, we have Pro London Welsh playing in Oxford with very few Welshmen, and Pro London Irish, similarly, employing a cosmopolitan squad in Reading. There is no Premiership club in the rugby hotbed of Cornwall; Pro Sale Sharks have lost supporters, not gained them, by moving 20 miles from Stockport to Salford, but still they strive with a vision of representing the North-west. In Leeds, we have Yorkshire Carnegie: a club or a county?

English rugby is what you might call an unplanned economy, but perhaps we should take solace in it reflecting the glory of the game itself, forever teetering between the ordered and the chaotic.

This is what you get when you regard sports as just another business.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/news-comment/hugh-godwin-wasps-didnt-have-to-send-themselves-to-coventry-9789348.html

Coleman wrote:Honestly i can't see any drawback to giving those tickets away for free every game. An empty seat isnt going to buy any drinks or buy any shirts or scarfs. And if they're kids tickets then that'll drag mam/dad or the grandparent in. Inter CabelTel used to do it back at the old Leckwith and you'd normally have very decent crowds. Hope it works for Wasps.

HammerofThunor wrote:Next week is the first game I think. Further up the thread has 17000 tickets sold (with around 4000 free I think)