Come again??

By loosehead
March 25 2013

 Wasps, or rather London Wasps, have had a nomadic time in recent years. Where they will end up has been a regular topic of discussion which has taken up so much space on message boards that enough electrons have been used than pies eaten by a erstwhile Canadian Wasp.  

The two latest rumours are really parts 1 and 2 of the same one. There is a wealthy Irishman by the name of Derek Richardson who will be investing in / buying London Wasps (or whatever the name of the actual asset is); London Wasps will be entering into some form of commercial and organisational partnership with Brentford FC and playing their home games at Griffin Park and / or a successor stadium currently planned to be in the vicinity of Kew Bridge.

That's about all that is currently known – if knowledge of rumours does actually count as knowledge.

Commercially, London Wasps have been on shaky ground for some while. Chris White, who funded the transition from amateur to professional and the years of success, always seemed unwilling to play the football club investor game. This is where you throw an insane amount of money at anyone whose name has been in the papers. A few clubs started doing that and imploded in short order. The steady-as-you-go approach has not lead to what many would see as the necessary investment to make London Wasps a long term viable project. The initial distraction of the lamentable tie-up with QPR whose annual loss was greater than London Wasps' turnover meant almost no effort going into building the rugby side. The largest non-Twickenham crowd for a London Wasps home game was achieved almost by accident, and never built upon. No lesson appears leaned from it, whether that would be one that people would want to learn or not.

It was a Friday night game, at Loftus Road, London Wasps v NEC Harlequins (I think I am being pedantically accurate here). I have a hazy memory of the game so I will assume that it was a glorious victory. There were over 12000 people in the crowd. It had been advertised in the London papers and people poured in on the trains in their suits after work. Before people dismiss the Friday night slot, it works / has worked for other clubs. I am not saying it is my favourite at all. But there is a huge potential audience who could get to a rugby match on a Friday evening, have suitable quantities of muscle relaxant, and then still have a whole weekend with the family. That's a powerful marketing angle. I would prefer the standard to be 3pm on a Saturday, but that does not stop me from considering other possibilities.

People who go to see London Wasps at their current hostel for vagrants have got used to a modern routine for home games, that being that games start at or about 3pm on Sundays. A number of new fans from the local area have been enticed along and have become part of that ever growing family of Wasps. The convenience of the time and place appear threatened by the latest rumour and there is grave concern that a move to London would make further attendance by them and many others impossible. There is another view that a return to London would make it possible for some dropped along the way to come back.

Could London Wasps stay at Adams Park? Possibly, but there are a number of significant “Ifs”. The biggest is the size of the ground, it is hard to see (admittedly I have not done the maths) how a maximum theoretical capacity of 10K can be economically viable and competitive when other grounds – Leicester, Northampton, Harlequins, Saracens – are providing a much stronger economic base for operation. Another 'if' is the contractual arrangement with the landlord. I am of the opinion that ownership is a red herring, it is the commercial agreement that counts. After all, it will not be Saracens that owns their new ground, it will be a commercial property vehicle. It's the rights to the match-day income streams that is important. The example of using the facilities mid-week for business meetings or some other revenue earning activity is given as a benefit of ownership. Maybe, but in my world that money would be going to the landlord (whether that is a separate business unit or another organisation) to pay down the construction debts and not finding it's way into the wages pot of the rugby squad. So I am not convinced. If, as at Adams Park, our landlords have subbed out the catering of the main bars so that there is no extra income to be had, then there is only match-day ticket and associated revenue less rent. Our landlords appear unwilling to expand the ground capacity, why should they, Wycombe Wanderers don't need any more space? So there would appear no opportunity for creating a viable operation at Adams Park for London Wasps.

So London Wasps must find somewhere else to play. What are the options? Currently very few. Steve Hayes had a dream that involved High Wycombe council subsidising a sports complex to the tune of a quarter of a billion pounds or thereabouts. Funnily enough, that fell through and toys were ejected from the pram. There are vacant patches of land that have been speculated about in the past. With the MoD moving out of a few places, it seemed at one time we could be a little further down the M40 towards London. Nothing came of it. Currently, the most realistic is the mooted partnership with Brentford FC. They want a new ground, plus money to help pay for it. We want a new place to play, and a bit more commercial muscle in the place – experience at Loftus Road and Adams Park has not been great commercially.

Would this be a good thing or a bad thing? Ignoring people's concerns about personal convenience regarding the location, it is hard to not see this as a massive improvement for London Wasps. The transport links are light years ahead of Buckinghamshire (London Transport comes in for a lot of criticism, but there is nothing like that transport network anywhere else in the country). The road network looks good, might get a bit congested, it's hard to tell. Being a partner in at the beginning of the new ground gives the ability to have it designed to be rugby-friendly where possible, like having an indoor bar that takes more that 350 people. Something that no self respecting football fan would complain about. The scope for building a big, regularly attending fan base looks promising. This then leaves the location concerns. This is something that people are going to have to work out for themselves.

People going to Adams Park now are travelling the same if not longer journey times as would be the case for Wycombe-ites to get to a ground in Kew or Brentford. We can therefore say that a rugby going crowd is generally prepared to travel those sorts of times, even if individuals may not. It would cause a lot of disruption and a change to routines – and whole days, as families have to co-ordinate children at various activities and then getting them to rugby – and regular attendance for some may not be possible.

To turn into a question a phrase that has been used in other circumstances, is this a price worth paying?