BCFC: Fireside Chats and Government Announcements

Tuesday night saw Stevenage become the latest team to fall to defeat by Chris Davies’ Birmingham City, with a late Jay Stansfield goal confirming Blues’ place in the last four of the Vertu Trophy. That goal extended the current unbeaten run to 18, the number of games this season to 59, with just one match standing between the club and a Wembley appearance.

We are Birmingham

However, while the win at Stevenage has made the chance of Blues securing a trip back to the twin towers grow ever stronger, it might not have been the biggest thing that happened to the club on Tuesday.

While the Insider West Midlands Real Estate Investment Summit being held at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in central London doesn’t sound the most thrilling of events, it included a “fireside chat” with Blues Chairman Tom Wagner to talk about Knighthead’s plans for a Sports Quarter in Birmingham.

And while it was always unlikely that Wagner would reveal anything too groundbreaking, what he did discuss should give every Birmingham City fan a little bit more hope for the future.

Although I unfortunately couldn’t be present at the event, I’ve spoken to Blues fans who were in order to put this article together.


Revenues

Monday was an unusual day for me as a Blues fan, because for the first time in a while it was a transfer deadline day where I felt completely relaxed at the thought of Blues not doing any last-minute business.

And while I get that there were some of the more shrill fans out there disappointed that Blues didn’t acquiesce to their demands to sign a winger or a forward, there did seem to be a consensus opinion from the majority I spoke to that not panicking at the end of the window was a nice change.

One of the main reasons we didn’t need to go mad on deadline day is the sheer levels of business we did at the start of the season.

Although I’m of the opinion that much of the transfer fees reported to have been paid by Blues in the summer was inflated by the media, there can be no denial that Knighthead properly backed Davies with money in the summer window.

The only reason they were able to do that was because Blues are now earning much higher revenues as a business.

More money coming into the club means it can spend more and stay within the rules; and as we’ve seen from the procession of commercial deals the club has signed in the last few months those revenues are only going to climb.

One of the things that Wagner confirmed during this chat is just how those revenues are climbing – and how they will give the club more chance of going for back-to-back promotions to the top flight.

Stock market rules preclude Wagner being too precise with figures, but he was able to confirm that Blues’ revenue this season in the third tier would be comparable with a mid-table Premier League team, once the huge revenues from TV rights deals were taken out of the equation.

He also made the point that clubs with parachute payment levels of revenue in the Championship had a one in four chance of promotion from that division, and that Blues were aiming to match those levels by bringing in £50m of revenue if and when the club is promoted.

To give an idea of how that compares, the latest figures I have for revenues for Blues from the year end 2023 accounts submitted by the club to Companies House are roughly £18M.

And while Blues don’t have to submit their accounts for last season until the end of March, there is a way for us to see more recent figures.

ZO Future Group (what was Birmingham Sports Holdings) still must include accounts for the club in their own group accounts even though they have absolutely zero say or control over what goes on at St Andrew’s.

In September of last year, ZFG confirmed revenues of roughly £23M for the club for last season. They are due to submit interim accounts by the end of this month for the period up until the end of December 2024 and that should give us an idea of where the club stands right now.

As Blues continue to build revenues, then it will be easier for the club to spend more money.

However, one thing that is interesting is that Wagner confirmed during his talk is that he knows that pushing up ticket prices for the regular fan won’t work in the long term as Blues fans won’t pay it.

That means to continue this exponential revenue rise, the club need to have more tickets and hospitality to sell… hence a new stadium and the sports quarter.


The New Stadium

I think it’s fair to say most Blues fans are eager to see and hear more about the sports quarter. It’s been nearly a year since the Open House meeting where the plans were spoken about and in that time actual news about what is happening has been somewhat thin on the ground.

As I expected, the summit was not the time nor the place for Wagner to drop out new renders or plans for the stadium; however, it was a chance for him to talk a little bit more about some of the obstacles the club faces and about how the whole sports quarter will be funded.

One of the chief issues the club faces is the length of time the planning process takes. Wagner has been in the news in recent weeks talking about what needs to happen to take the process forwards.

On January 27, Wagner told the Financial Times

“We’re hearing all the right things in our conversations. What we need to see now is a bit more action. We’re confident that they’ll do what needs to be done. If they can’t for this project, well then maybe I’d be more pessimistic on the UK economy more broadly.”

He went on to say

“Capital is highly mobile, it will find the path of least resistance. When governments begin making things harder, vis-à-vis other jurisdictions into which that capital may flow, they will suffer.

“There are lots of projects that we are looking at in the UK that we’d love to pursue if the process can be made easier. And we’re not the only ones. If things change by just a small amount, there’ll be a lot of capital inflow and a lot of excess growth.”

Reading between the lines of what he is saying, I believe that Wagner was using megaphone diplomacy in an attempt to push the plans for the sports quarter forwards.

We’ve seen that Manchester United are getting government support for their project to regenerate the area around Old Trafford as they look to increase the capacity of their stadium further.

Like Blues, Manchester United are working with their local council – in their case Trafford Council and their Combined Authority (Greater Manchester) to develop plans for the area.

On Wednesday morning, a press release on the Government website seemed to indicate that Knighthead have achieved their next objective of government backing.

The press release confirms £100M of Knighthead backing for the Sports Quarter project, and has quotes from both the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy and Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds.

There was also confirmation that Reynolds will visit the site and learn more about the project.

What Blues will want next is a commitment from the Government that they will invest money into the project themselves. There is an expectation that Manchester United will receive public funding to help move three rail freight terminals which are currently blocking redevelopment there.

Blues have also been pushing for improvements in infrastructure around the Sports Quarter project.

One thing that Wagner spoke about at the summit on Tuesday that I’ve not heard before is the idea of underground links.

While we all know about HS2 and the tram links that are due to be built between that and St Andrew’s, Wagner floated the idea of an underground busway to link the Sports Quarter to the centre.

Without seeing any kinds of plans it’s difficult to know exactly what his vision is, but I suspect that any underground connection would be similar to the Loop in Las Vegas, except with electric buses ferrying hundreds of people rather than electric cars with four at a time in.

The only other comparable idea I have found is in London where the controversial Silvertown Tunnel is due to have electric buses to ferry cyclists from one side of the Thames to the other.

Regardless of how it is achieved, the current situation at St Andrew’s has shown that there must be investment in infrastructure if the sports quarter is to be a success.

Having seen the havoc that a 27,000 sell out can have on the local roads after a game, I can’t imagine how the current road, tram and rail network would cope with potentially double that number of fans.

Infrastructure improvements isn’t just about local travel though – and this is where the project really can better the city as well as the club.


Global City

Over the last decade or so I’ve been a lucky bloke; I’ve been able to travel two thirds of the way around the world and have been to places as diverse as San Francisco and Taipei. During my travels one of the things that has always struck me about my home city is just how crap it is to travel from.

One would hope that as the second city in the country Birmingham would boast a decent airport.

While I accept that it’s personal preference, the truth is that for me BHX is an airport to be avoided. The number of destinations available from the airport is small compared to many airports in the UK; for example there are no direct flights from Birmingham to the USA.

I understand that the lack of direct flights is to do with the historically low take-up of seats and it’s not made economic sense for a while for an airline to institute a service connecting Brum with an American city; however I think one if Birmingham truly is to be on the world map then we as a city need to think globally.

One of the things that I’ve hoped that would happen following the tie up between Blues and Delta Airlines is that we’ll see the return of transatlantic flights from BHX to America and clearly I’m not alone in that.

During his fireside chat Wagner made reference to it being a shame that there was no connection; that instead one had to travel up to Manchester or down to London to fly to the USA.

And while it is annoying for the residents of Brum to not be able to fly to the States from their local airport, what we should be seeing as a bigger annoyance is that we’re not getting the reverse traffic either.

If Blues (and Birmingham itself in truth) are to be successful in the longer term, then I really do believe much will be about attracting a global audience to the city.

While a 60,000 seater stadium capable of hosting sports like NFL as well as Blues would undoubtedly be the centerpiece, I think it’s inevitable that the master plans will include other amenities to bring in visitors.

For example, I’m expecting there to be an arena capable of hosting bigger concerts than the Utilita or BP Pulse arenas.

Birmingham frequently gets missed out by the larger acts because there is nowhere in the city to host concerts with more than 15,000 people bar the stadium on the wrong side of the M6; and that collection of sheds has its own infrastructure problems which will also need fixing should they decide to copy the Knighthead ideas.

As such, it’s important that the quarter appeals not only to just Blues fans or Brummies, but to bring in outside visitors from elsewhere in the country and beyond.

I’m hoping that Wagner wants to help make Birmingham a tourist destination because in the long run, it’s that external money which is going to be needed to keep pushing revenues up.


All of this should renew Blues fans’ excitement about the whole Sports Quarter project. The lack of information has caused a little bit of doubt from some of the bigger sceptics and has allowed some of the noisier rival fans to make troublesome noises about things not happening.

There should be no doubt that this project is huge and it is going to require Blues working with not just local stakeholders but national and even international companies and government entities.

However, as more news emerges it feels clear to me that we are even more in the position where the club are more needed by those in power than the other way around – and that is a position of strength for us, for Knighthead and for Tom Wagner.