David Hopkinson outlines vision for Newcastle United to increase revenues by 2030 after stadium setback
Newcastle United CEO David Hopkinson may have delivered bad news on the stadium plans for St James' Park, but he did follow it up with some positivity.
After months and months of waiting to hear the club's decision on what's going to happen with St James' Park, Newcastle's new CEO David Hopkinson, who took over from Darren Eales, has delivered that update, and basically told fans and reporters that no decision has been made, no decision is close, and even if it was, we'd be many years away from seeing the fruits of that decision.
It's obviously a bit of a suckerpunch for fans who have been waiting patiently for a positive update, but for us, it's just good to actually have an update one way or another and to not be fed lies and platitudes.
Hopkinson went on to say how it would be a long time before we'd see any increase in revenue from a new stadium, regardless of whether the decision was made tomorrow, so his focus is on looking at ways to increase revenue in the short term.
David Hopkinson wants to have made a dent in that financial gap by 2030
The former Real Madrid head of global partnerships has laid out a plan to reporters (via The Shields Gazette) to try and bridge the financial gap to the 'legacy clubs' by 2030.
“Even if we could wave a wand right now, and wake up tomorrow morning with a decision over a brand-new stadium – this is our decision and this is where we’re going – then those revenues would still not show up for five years.
“You’d already be beyond the 2030 horizon. But if you look at something like global partnerships and global sponsorships, which I’ve talked about a lot, then we can do that today.
“We can literally wake up tomorrow morning and get cracking on closing some of those obvious and less obvious opportunities. So much of this is self-help, and so much of our ability to increase our revenues, and therefore our competitiveness, is within our purview right now.
“They’re right in front of us, right now. I don’t know to what extent that will sustain us beyond 2030, without a major inflection [sic] – stadium renovation or rebuild, other major changes. But what I’m focusing on is what we do need to change between now and 2030?
“Our plan is to set us up to succeed in these next four or five years, and then it’s also about what steps are we taking to make sure we succeed beyond 2030?”
Bring that money in, Mr H
Hopkinson hinted at working on training ground, training kit and stadium sponsors on Monday after years of ignoring these potential revenue streams.
Peter Silverstone clearly had no interest in bringing this money into the club, saying that it wouldn't be worth doing deals that would undervalue the club, pointing at Chelsea not having a shirt sponsor as an example. But we've never had a training ground/kit sponsor, we have no jumping off point as a value, so even if we start low, at least it's better than nothing.
We aren't football finance experts by any means, but some money is better than no money, is it not?
