Ground-sharing: Should it be a taboo?
There is something of a buzz walking into your rival team’s stadium. Being in a small minority of a group of away supporters is surely part of it; you’re outnumbered, but you’re hungrier and louder as a response. Everywhere around you is enemy territory. It’s not home; it’s unfamiliar, it’s foreign, it doesn’t belong to your club.
Except when it does. Some teams around the world, of course, share their stadium with one of their biggest rivals: we see this in Milan, in Rio, in Rome, in Munich and in Los Angeles. But historically, such ground-sharing has been taboo in England. The odd desperation or ground redevelopment case aside, the entire concept of ground-sharing has been vociferously opposed by most supporters whenever it’s been raised as a threat to the identity of their clubs.
But the momentum towards ground-sharing at both the top and the bottom of the sport seems to be gaining pace fast in England. Is the argument for it compelling?
The Economic Benefit
On his blog, economist John Beech argued the taboo against ground-sharing needs to be broken down as its existence was hurting English clubs economically.
I love stadiums, Victorian (Archie Leitch – what a hero!) or ultra-modern. I love them as buildings, as examples of grand architecture. But I am unsentimental about them otherwise – I do not share the typical British view that they can and must only be associated with one club. As someone who who works in a Business School that is not surprising – their utilisation rate is ludicrously low if they only earn serious money once a fortnight.
In Italy shared stadiums are far from unknown, and there are examples in Germany and Austria too. In Britain they have generally been restricted either to clubs playing different sports (football and rugby seem to pair up more often than other sports) or to lower League clubs sharing their stadium with a reserve team from a higher division. The proposal that Liverpool and Everton share a new stadium has been greeted with derision by their respective fans.
If you haven’t heard yet, you perhaps need to sit down: Oldham (League 1) and Rochdale (League 2) have held initial and informal talks about the possibility of sharing Oldham’s Boundary Park (1). Their grounds are less than seven miles apart, so any inconvenience to Rochdale fans would not be enormous. Stockport County is also mentioned in this particular context.
No doubt there will howls of protest from Outraged of Milnrow. Let the voice of protest just think about the big savings on costs, a vital issue in these times with so many clubs facing the possibility of insolvency. If it meant the difference between survival of the club or liquidation, would they still see a shared stadium as unthinkable? If it works at the San Siro, why couldn’t it be made to work here?
The economic argument is compelling on the face of it, and has been made many times in official reports on English football, including the Chester Report in 1965 and the Taylor Report following Hillsborough. The occasion of Beech’s post is the proposed ground-share between Rochdale and Oldham. Rochdale’s managing director, Simon Corney, explained the rationale:
If the opportunity arose for two clubs who are struggling in the lower divisions to get a brand new facility, why not explore it. I don’t think it is just us. I think it is several clubs in the lower leagues and they were talking to their neighbours to see if it would make sense to move in together.
A similar debate on ground-sharing is raging at the top of English football, where the economic argument is even more compelling in some ways: would it make sense for two new stadiums running into hundreds of millions in cost to be built in Liverpool, for example? The dubious rationale that one super-stadium is needed to guarantee Liverpool a World Cup game in 2018 (for a bid England hasn’t even won yet) aside, the issue is a complex one, with Everton’s other option seemingly to be to move to Kirkby, outside Liverpool city limits. But fan opposition has already been considerable. Should they bow to the economic imperative?
Ground-sharing Elsewhere
Those in favour of the idea often argue that ground-sharing has been a big success abroad. But a closer look at some of the examples cited in Italy, the U.S. and Scotland suggests all is not as straight-forward as it seems.
Milan’s San Siro, shared by Internazionale and AC Milan, is frequently brought up as an example of a stadium where ground-sharing has been a success the Liverpool clubs could emulate at the highest level. Yet there is actually a counter-argument against this: not owning your own stadium can hurt your identity for marketing and sponsorship purposes quite considerably.
A recent piece on Milan’s failures in the Champions League in World Soccer magazine (unfortunately not available online) laid some of the blame at the income shortfall from not owning outright their own home: it means lost value in constantly switching advertising within the stadium for each team and a weaker brand for the club tied to their stadium as it’s diluted by the shared presence with a rival. Milan’s brass has long complained about the difficulties of sharing with Inter. They have for a few years been looking at constructing a new stadium for themselves alone, with Fly Emirates said to be interested in being the marquee sponsor, as they are at Arsenal. If it were to be another shared situation with Inter, it’s unlikely the same branding appeal would be apparent to a sponsor.
It’s also likely in most ground-sharing situations that one club comes to have the upper hand in the stadium, due to more success on the field or greater financial backing, and that can lead to an unequal relationship. In L.A., Chivas USA have struggled to carve out their identity whilst sharing with the Galaxy at the Home Depot Center, and are seemingly always looking ahead to move to their own home.
In Germany, the facade of the Allianz Arena might change colour to reflect whether it’s Bayern or 1860 Munich playing, yet the latter is now very much the junior partner. Both clubs initially owned the stadium built for the 2006 World Cup, but after relegation, 1860 were bought out and now have to pay rent just to play at what was once their stadium, but is now very much Bayern’s. This eased their short-term cashflow, but leaves them hamstrung in the long-term until their build their own home, stuck paying rent in a stadium far too big for their average crowd.
And even at the lower level, the financial gain from ground-sharing is not always clear-cut due to the wear and tear on the pitch, particularly in Northern Europe. The Scottish Premier League considered banning ground-sharing outright in 2008, after a spate of fixture cancellations due to the state of the pitch at stadiums hosting two clubs, costing clubs thousands of pounds.
Ground-Sharing and Club Identity
Scotland’s bid for the 2012 European Championships included a plan for a new stadium in Dundee to be shared by Dundee United and Dundee — currently, they literally play a spitting distance from each other. Yet having a separate stadium remains crucial to keeping the club’s identities apart for many fans who opposed the idea.
In May this year, it was remarkably revealed that a former director of Dundee United (and one about to return to United as a director), John Bennett, now owned Dundee’s ground, Dens Park. Though it looks like Bennett will sell his share in the stadium, for a while fears that a merger was planned played on the minds of supporters of both clubs.
The attempts to promote the building of new stadia for a city with two clubs also often come, tellingly, with such grander plans for a merger of the completely, which of course also makes sense at a base economic level: this was the plan of Hearts chairman Wallace Mercer in 1990, as he attempted to create ‘Edinburgh United’ by merging Hibernian and Hearts together to play at a new super stadium. Robert Maxwell’s failed effort at creating Thames Valley Royals — merging Oxford United and Reading — around the same time was a similar scheme. It took fierce fan opposition to derail both plans.
Beech might be right that sharing a ground with a rival is better than going out of business — though if it’s not viable for clubs to support themselves at their own stadium, there’s something larger wrong with the economics of the game and the way clubs are being run. Stadiums can have multi-use beyond an extra game every two weeks, which may not even bring in much extra revenue.
If ground-sharing was so obviously economically advantageous, one suspects that it would be the exception and not the rule worldwide for clubs to share their grounds. The example of 1860 Munich’s loss of ownership at the Allianz Arena, the problems ground-sharing has caused for Scottish clubs and the difficulties the two Milan clubs have in attracting sponsorship deals on the level of the rest of the European elite who have their own stadiums suggests even the economic argument is not clear-cut.
It may be a taboo, but as long as fans feel it’s important to have a place they and they alone call home, one suspects it’ll take a much more compelling economic imperative to overcome a cornerstone of English footballing tradition.
About the Author
Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Follow him @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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What about the Jets and Giants in New York.
They’re building a new stadium together, so something must be working.
Fans don’t have to bow to economic realities, but teams do.
As for advertising/sponsorships in the stadium, the teams should work together as get twice the amount from the sponsors and split that up. Or just set up a shell company to manage the stadium for both teams. It shouldn’t be the end of the world.
Teams are used to having their own stadiums, but that was back in the day, when top flight teams didn’t require 50,000 plus seats with god knows how many luxury suites and club seats. 4 separate stands and a concessions from a truck won’t cut it anymore.
The Jets-Giants stadium is interesting economically; given it’s not even finished yet, so obviously it’s hard to cite it as a successful example. The Allianz Arena looked like it would work for both teams five years ago, but not now — the NFL as a closed franchise system with a salary cap is obviously a safer bet that a 50-50 venture between two teams (the first in the NFL) will succeed equally. They also received a lot of central NFL funding which might not have been granted to just one team building a stadium.
It’s also interesting that the Jets were never happy sharing Giants Stadium previously, and were looking for their own stadium in Manhattan — only when these plans fell through did they turn to a ‘ground-share’.
Still, if it succeeds, it would definitely encourage the bigger clubs in England to try something similar — and it’s in a different stratosphere as an example to the increasingly decrepit Milanese example, for sure.
Very good article.
While we may see a rise in the number of lower league teams investing in a shared stadium I think it will be a long time before we ever see a it happening in the Premiership. Even though the example of Everton and Liverpool was mentioned I really cannot see it happening in the near future.
Alasdair
Ground sharing cannot work and that’s that. It may be a way out for clubs that are struggling, but never in the long run. It cannot by any means be as profitable as owning a ground, especially now with all the non-sporting uses of stadiums.
One club can both build it’s image and financial stability around a stadium, while renting it from a municipality (like Italy, Poland or Japan) or sharing unequally (there is no equal sharing, even with 50/50 share one club gets more of it) makes a team loose part of or all their extra-use profit, sponsor attractivness and sporting image. Plus, I doubt there is a situation anywhere in the world, where two clubs have the same marketing potential and fanbase for a stadium to fully suit both.
So one always is or becomes the weaker one, like TSV 1860 who couldn’t fill Allianz Arena for more than 2-4 games per season I think. They were far from using the potential of the ground thus making them the ones with less benfits. The ground was also built way below the potential of Bayern which was planning an 80k stadium (and by their attendances at the AA noone can doubt they needed one). So Allianz Arena is a compromise that proves to be both too small for Bayern and too large for TSV at the same time. In what way can anyone judge that as anything positive or even more – a success? Not to mention the ever unprofitable largest parking in Europe just next to it…
And anyone who gives Italy as an example of a ground sharing viability is a laugh. Their stadiums, whether we speak of Rome, Milan or Genoa, are all old and/or built without any other non-sporting uses in mind which makes the clubs earn almost solely on matchday revenues. They cannot manage the ground to maximise profits for their club as they are always either slowed down by the other club or the municipality. That’s far from a healthy situation and probably that’s why we’ve already heard of all six club in mention (not sure about Genoa though, it might be that only Sampdoria planned a move) trying to escape from that situation by building a ground of their own. So if Italian clubs intend to drop the scheme, how can it be described as “working”?
Good talking points raised again in the article.
Ground sharing will not work in the UK and should never happen. Its a dangerous precendent if it occurs at a high level or at any level at all.
Use of Jets-Giants ground share may be relevant in the USA where different attitudes, club history and traditions exist but not here in UK where the historical attachment and emotional belonging to a home ground will ensure that every team generally has its ‘own home.’ Even if a club chose to join up and ground share it would soon move back to building a ground of its own meaning more money.
As such the movement towards ‘new grounds’ in the UK has been one that has destroyed the traditional atmosphere that was once within stadia. Gone are traditonal home ends such as ‘Gallowgate’ at Newcastle; Kippax at Man City and the old Stretford End full of colour, song, bonhomie and flags and what we have now are soul-less cesspits with very little colour, dumbed down atmospheres with replica shirts which are security health and safety zone creations full of useless penants.
I agree the cycle of ground share ideals in countries such as Italy are coming to an end perhaps. Torino want/dream of a return to its original home (one of them) and Espanyol are back at the Sarria. Milan clubs generally been same place in modern era, whilst Allianz (as mentioned) is not really a ground share. Many TSV 1860 fans want back to the old ground or to play at Unterhachings ground. St.Pauli would not go to the AOL/Nordbank.
Any movement towards grounds share ideas in UK is another move towards business not paying one bit of notice at what ‘real fans’ think and want.
Also, Everton fans hate Liverpool football club…really hate them and have an emotional attachment to Goodison like very few fans do to a home ground. They really dislike the club and a movement away from Goodison to share with them or even the mention of it would truly mean that football in England has gone to the dogs. Mention it to Evertonians and the people suggesting it will get death threats.
The failed FC Limburg project in Holland saw the mention of Fortuna Sittard being liquidated and moving to Roda Kerade’s ground. This was a business inspired idea for ‘cost cutting’ ideals and again led to both sets of fans wrecking the ground, issuing death threats to owners and project leaders. It was abandoned by the people who mentioned it.
Incidently Dundee and Dundee United fans also hate each other with a passion as do Hearts and Hibs fans. The present grounds are redeveloped and the fans are quite happy where they are. Any movement to a new ground would see fans disappearing quickly all be it maybe a few hundred and increased tensions between fans.
Scotland bidding for 2012 is a pipe dream that wont happen. It is a deluded Scottish government inspired marketing scheme latched onto by Gordon Smith the SFA Chief as it improves the look of his CV. Scotland is too small a country and lacks the whole package needed to host a high profile tournament. Edinburgh/Glasgow can host an event as venues and suggesting a new ground in Dundee was one idea of selling the idea of Dundee as a venue but the thought of top nations competing in a major tournament in such as parochial small place as Dundee (Klagenfurt at least was picturesque) is just ridiculous.
Its no co-incidence that the people who mentioned a joint Everton-Liverpool ground were American owners who are hated by just about every traditional Liverpool fan.
If ground shares happen in the UK, it will be a time of despair for many fans. We have suffered enough here because of modern football..no more change please!
Damon – I recall Hicks claiming a ground share was never an option, cited by the Liverpool Echo I think. So when did they mention it?
I am clutching straws out of thin air, perhaps. I have no source but based an assumption on things I have read.
But then again, the first chance they get of a ‘ground share’ opportunity they would jump at it. These people would have no qualms about doing that if it suited there business ends and there was economic benefit in it. Even with no source I would bet they have explored the possibility of it?