Building the Spurs stadium: A £1.2bn overnight success 25 years in the making

The stadium that Tottenham Hotspur owns is one of the most coveted in the world, and the club’s executive director, Donna-Marie Cullen, has talked about the difficulties and benefits of making it.

Donna-Marie Cullen, executive director of Tottenham Hotspur, has talked about the pros and cons of building a £1.2bn stadium.

When Spurs left White Hart Lane for good in 2017, they went to the 62,850-seater Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. They had a short stay at Wembley after that. Many years ago, the idea for the modern stadium was put forward, but it proved difficult to carry out because of the large number of people living in North London and the fact that the total cost of the project rose by £1bn from its original estimate.

As part of the original dream, the goal was to build a venue that could be used for more than one thing and not just Spurs games. Early on, it was decided to build a custom stadium that could host NFL games in the UK. This would bring in new money, and the F1 Karting Experience just opened below the stadium on a 15-year deal.

Football ondon was at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit where Cullen spoke. He said, “It was three years of our lives that we’ll never get back, but it’s rewarding when everyone walks in and likes it.” While some of it was planned, having someone like Daniel [Levy] around adds a lot of “what ifs?” and “why nots?” that push us a bit further and may even get our planners distracted.

Spurs got a boost in their attempt to sign David Raya from Brentford.
“ENIC bought the club for the first time in March 2001. White Hart Lane was already an old ground that had been through several calls to build the East Stand. Alan Sugar tried to make the maths work on that, but it just wouldn’t go together. You wouldn’t be able to see anything there for years.

“But we knew it was built into the business plan that with one of the smallest stadiums in the league, you can’t compete.” At the very least, your matchday income at White Hart Lane was just under £1 million. Now, it’s just under £6 million (per game). But for us to be able to stay in business and compete, our progress had to be natural and follow a strict P&L (profit and loss) plan.

“To borrow a phrase from Williamsburg, it will be the overnight success that took 25 years to build.” It was our job to put together the land and handle infinite funds. The stadium cost £1.2bn in the end, even though the concept and plan were only £250m at first.

Cullen said that while the financial benefits of a new stadium were what drove the construction—a venue like this was necessary for Spurs to be able to sustainably grow the business and create value at a later date, whenever the ENIC exit may be—doing the right thing by the people who lived nearby was also very important. He used the deal with local brewers Beavertown to provide craft beer as an example, but Heineken eventually bought the company out.

Cullen said, “Especially in the area where our stadium is, we look at it in two ways: you want to do the right thing for business, but you can’t forget to do the right thing for your neighbour as well.” We decided to stay here after the riots because there was nothing else we could really do.

“The government does take some time to look into what is holding back growth every once in a while.” Planning is always the key, and in this country it’s very hard to plan, which was one of our biggest problems. As we went along, we kept pushing the limits, which is how we work. What about adding another sport to the stadium? Daniel has made great strategic relationships. The NFL is one of them, and our most recent one, a 15-year deal with F1, is another one.

Ange Postecoglou makes it clear what he thinks about Timo Werner as Tottenham make sure they get a top-four boost.
“We believed we could not have a stadium that was empty 345 days a year.” I remember that we thought it would make a great go-kart track when it was just supports and we were building it. We knew about go-karts before we found out we had the pitch pocket, so we opened the go-karts two weeks ago. Everything is set up to work on its own. You need a hotel for meetings and parties. You need a hotel if you have shows and other events.

Spurs hired a different company at first to do the planning work, but then they switched to Populous to finish the job. The plan was to build a world-class venue that would also be good for Spurs as a business and for the fans of the club and for where the club thought the future lay.

“When we came in as the new architect, it was working to understand ‘what are the right experiences for Tottenham Hotspur?'” Declan Sharkey, director and senior partner at Populous, the firm that designed the Spurs stadium, said at the same FT event. The microbrewery, the long bar, the sky bridge, and the F1 are all well known. But working together is important. Ultimately, it comes down to providing experiences that are right for that club in that place. Not everything that’s good for Tottenham will also be good for Barcelona.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply