The West Ham board have broken a promise to their supporters with their move the London Stadium – and the latest developments have inflamed the situation.
Fans were sceptical about leaving Upton Park in 2016, the club’s spiritual home for more than a century.
Many have since complained that the atmosphere at the London Stadium, which was not purpose-built for football, has left a lot to deserved.
Reservations have persisted even in the Hammers’ runs in Europe in recent years, and they will remain as Julen Lopetegui makes his bow at the stadium in 2024-25.
But a dramatic change to their concessions (junior or elderly ticket holders) policy has effectively priced many supporters out of attending and invoked a great deal of anger among fans.
As well as reducing the age that qualifies for a concession ticket, the club has now made concession tickets available only in the highest and therefore least accessible areas of the stadium.
This has forced fans to pay far more to keep their seats in their usual place or move to an area that is too hard for many older fans to reach, with many steps to climb.
Effectively, this is pricing many supporters out.
This seems particularly egregious given the enormous savings the club are making in terms of the opportunity cost of the London Stadium rental agreement.
West Ham should be passing infrastructure savings to fans
When West Ham moved to the London Stadium in 2016, they promised that the money they saved on not having to build a new stadium would protect fans from share price rises.
The club’s accounts since 2010 document that they have spent just £31m on infrastructure.
Only Newcastle, who were under the ownership of Mike Ashley for almost all of that period, spent less across the same vertical.
Granted, West Ham do pay around £3m per season to rent the stadium.
But that is a steal when you consider that it would have cost circa £800m to construct their own stadium, not to mention the fact that the publicly-funded company responsible for the stadium is running at a loss.
Significantly, research from West Ham journalist Sean Whetstone suggests that the club will make a maximum of £600,000 in annual revenue from the concessions policy switch-up.
While Premier League clubs are under pressure to squeeze the margins at every turn, that figure is next to nothing in the scope of West Ham’s turnover, which was £237m last season.
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Naming rights deal could offset ticket prices
Arguably, it is West Ham’s own intransigence that has led them to feeling they are forced to effectively put ticket prices up by squeezing the concession bracket.
A naming rights deal for the London Stadium could be worth up to £120m over a 10-year period, with that cash more than compensating for a few thousand the club will make from this policy change.
Yes, a naming rights deal is ultimately the responsibility of the London Stadium landlords, but it seems as though frosty relationship between the two parties has put pay to any chance of a deal.
And while the first £4m of any deal would go to the landlords with the remaining cash split 50-50, it seems inexcusable that this hasn’t been an AI priority for either party.