The case for Wasps’ move to Coventry is, from a business perspective at least, easy to make. The Premiership club’s opening match at the Ricoh Arena against London Irish this weekend will be watched by around 27,000 fans, less than two years after their very existence was in doubt. Yet opposition to the move remains.
The attendance figure will dwarf the 5,000 average gate at Adams Park, the High Wycombe ground for which the former European champions have called home for 12 years. Despite many protestations from London-based supporters, the club are going ahead with a move that will certainly benefit them financially in the long term.
At what cost to others is a debatable point. Wasps insist their relocation will not have an impact on crowds at Coventry Rugby Club, who play in National League 1, while there remain a loyal hardcore of fans that will not be making the 100-mile journey up the M1 from the capital.
Supporters of Coventry City Football Club also have serious reservations, given the horrendous recent plight of their famous team and the club’s long-held ambition to secure ownership of the Ricoh.
The Sky Blues and their hedge fund owners Sisu currently have a groundshare agreement in place for two years, with an option to extend.
Turn the clocks back 18 months and Wasps had £65 in the bank and a mounting tax bill. They were losing between £3m and £4m every year until the Irish businessman Derek Richardson stepped in, and last month completed a deal to buy 100% of the 32,000-capacity Ricoh from Coventry City Council and the Higgs Charity, who jointly comprised Arena Coventry Limited.
The aim is to steer the club back to the summit of English and European rugby, moving the training base from Acton in west London to the Coventry area in the summer of 2016. The revenue earned from this weekend’s game is expected to be in the region of £500,000, four times the record amount secured from a matchday at Adams Park.
The Wasps chief executive, Nick Eastwood, said: “We looked in and around what you might have considered as our home patch.
“I came to the conclusion that building a stadium was not going to happen, so we had to look at other options. The Ricoh was, by a country mile, the best option for the club.
“For quite a significant number of fans, anyone who lives north or west of Adams Park, getting in and out of the Ricoh is probably not going to be any longer a day than getting in and out of Adams Park, which is notoriously difficult to do. There are very few fans still based in west London.
“I don’t want to downplay it but it’s not as if we’ve moved to Carlisle. I think a significant number of season-ticket holders are going to give it a go. It’s not next door but our current fanbase is in the Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire area.”
On Sunday’s crowd, which will include a number of schoolchildren, Eastwood added: “It’s a one-off and we know that, there is an opening night effect and of course we are not going to sustain that going forward.
“But what it does demonstrate is the huge support for Premiership rugby in the West Midlands. We need the commercial platform to get us back where we want to be, which is at the forefront of domestic and European rugby.”
While Wasps did consider other potential options in and around London, the move to the Ricoh Arena was undoubtedly the most attractive financial package. The club believes the stadium’s annual turnover will increase to £21m, the highest for any rugby club in the country.
As the move to Coventry grew nearer, though, a number of supporters voiced their discontent. An online petition against Wasps leaving the London area has been signed by almost 3,000, many of whom feel aggrieved that the club are abandoning those who have loyally followed over many years.
Alexander Hayton, creator of the petition, said: “The move does make business sense, although the club have tried to sell this as a binary choice, like it was the Ricoh or bust.
“The fans would obviously say Ricoh rather than bust, there’s no doubt about that, but they could have looked harder at other options in the London area.
“I don’t oppose a move, Adams Park was not a great ground and lost us a ton of money, but I’m just opposed to a move 100 miles up the road.
“I live in south-east London and whenever I go up to games there are always loads of people with Wasps shirts. But I think it’s great that they’ve got over 26,000 there at the weekend, long may it continue.”
The words “outrage” and “sad” appear many times from people commenting on the online petition.
However, Wasps are now ready for a new life in Coventry, a historic and remarkable move that will shape the Premiership club’s fate for years to come.
