Case Study

Title of Case Study: Impacts of Stadium Relocation: Evaluating Arsenal FC

Introduction

In today’s modern era sport has been transformed from a sociable activity for fans and sporting teams on a Saturday, to a multimillion pound profit driven industry. The modern game has turned football players from sportsmen to celebrities, with multimillion pound contracts and playboy lifestyles. Players and clubs seem to have lost touch with their fan base, it has become a clubs priority to make sure profits are maintained and football has taken a backseat in terms of the results and entertainment on a Saturday afternoon. Clubs are now run like businesses with a selection of financial directors, sporting directors and CEO’s now constructing the hierarchy of most football clubs. Football has become a business and teams run with like one, the owners focus is on generating maximum potential revenue through whatever means necessary, the power that was once held by the fans has very suddenly shifted to the business orientated owners who generally have no emotional ties to the club. An inevitable trend from local to international ownership of football clubs in the quest for higher profits, is the relocation of the club to immensely enhanced super structures that would dwarf the average stadium, all in an attempt to boost revenue tenfold and monopolise capital in the area. A good example and focus of this case study is Arsenal’s relocation to the Emirates stadium from Highbury in 2006.

Aspects of the move

For Arsenal FC the reasons to relocate came down to the need for the club to progress in terms of their financial power and sporting prestige. As football entered into the twenty first century, the times dictated the move, the view being that although Highbury stadium was rich in heritage and emotions in the eyes of the fans, the ground held too many constraints for the future success of the club. The 38,000 seated capacity was constricting financial flow to the club as...