Exactly. And a championship team at the CBS will lose cash hand over fist.
Why?
Isn't that obvious? It's a huge facility to operate for just a handful of people paying Championship ticket prices. Anyone in and around Coventry with an interest in watching live Championship rugby is already doing it. Wasps as the only Premiership team in Coventry proved unsustainable. Wasps as a second Championship team in Coventry is a complete non starter.
But we have no idea what it costs to run the stadium or what it might cost with a new owner.
The only info I have is that it used to cost approx. £6k to open the South stand when there was a big match back before COVID, one of the guys at Wasps told me this.
There are rumours that CCFC pay 25-30k per match.
So, taking that at face value if with the reduced attendances Wasps only opened the West and maybe North Stands it may cost them £15-20k a match.
I can imagine 3-4k attendance as a number of people in Coventry have invested 8 years of their lives in following Wasps and will continue to do so plus any travelling fans who have followed the club longer, attendances were still around 8-9k this season, so at an average of £20 a ticket that's £80k per match potentially, plus Food and beverage.
Yes, there are other costs but that's what Sponsorship, merchandise etc. are there to help with as we build again as a team, although looking at the account's sponsorship income was only approx £3.7M in 2019. (Something I couldn't find broken out in Exeter's accounts on a quick glance surprisingly)
It's really difficult to say what was and wasn't working financially for Wasps as servicing the debt was a big cost (approx. £4M according to accounts). There are also some other very big costs on the accounts, like £11M administrative expenses vs £2M for the same in Exeter's accounts, no idea what this covers, for info Exeter Staff costs were also almost £2.0M higher. (£12.6M)
Looking at the accounts for both, upto June 2021, Exeter lost £8M that year, Wasps lost £7.9M (both before tax) After Tax it was £6.4M & £7.4M respectively. Which shows the full house of cards Rugby currently is.
I don't think it's ideal financially to be at the CBS in the Championship, but to say it will never work I don't think is correct. Plus people proposing we go to small stadia somewhere, we would need a contract with somewhere with over 10k seats if we wanted to get back to the Prem, that contract would have a level of cost whether we got promoted or not.
Always a Wasp