The SIG Column – 1 November

In the inaugural SIG column, Drew Barrand, head of media at Sport Industry Group, asks whether UK sport is pinning too much faith in the healing power of a new stadium…

‘Speak to anyone at the RFU about the opening of Twickenham’s newly revamped South Stand this weekend and it’s akin to a proud parent talking up the stellar achievements of their child.

Complete with hotel rooms, conference suites and every gym facility those preoccupied with the body beautiful could ever require, the stand’s makeover has transformed the stadium’s traditional grey exterior.

Such is the RFU’s pride in its new bricks and mortar offspring that is has squeezed a crowd-pulling fixture against the All Blacks into the already jam-packed schedule to celebrate, arranging a parade of English rugby legends to stroll around the pitch milking the crowd and even brought in the titillating pop band Girls Aloud for some post-match entertainment. Oh, and there’s operatic quartet G4 to appease those spectators with more classical music inclinations.

Even the players are happy given that they no longer have to keep asking the builders for their ball back after every conversion or drop-kick attempt, like naughty schoolboys bombarding their neighbours’ back gardens.

But did anyone actually stop to think whether it was all worth it?

In looking around for ways to bolster the coffers, it’s nothing new for the commercial departments of UK sport to point to the money-spinning stadia model of their American cousins and say ‘why don’t we do that?’. In the land of the free, the field of play is dwarfed by the accompanying maze of shops, bars, restaurants and cinemas.

However, the problem in translating this commercial success to UK shores is that the two sporting cultures are like chalk and cheese.

Whereas the traditional American experience of sport involves an all-day family trip to a sporting venue where the shopping more often than not takes precedence over the action, UK fans are more used to braving the inclement weather for a couple of hours as a measure of dedication to their chosen team. For them, a warm beer and a cold burger is the only thing that will momentarily drag them away from the action.

As dictated by tradition, Americans want and need the extra bits a stadium has to offer if they are to have a fulfilling experience of sport. But, in the same vein of tradition, there has yet to be a compelling case that UK fans are similarly inclined.

The RFU is not the first, nor will it be the last, in thinking it can extract more cash from its bricks and mortar assets. Arsenal may have grabbed the headlines with its eye-catching new Emirates Stadium but it is not the only FA Premiership club to believe that a new stadium is the way forward – witness Spurs and West Ham linked with taking over the Olympic stadium post-2012. It seems natural and entirely appropriate for UK sporting bodies to view their arenas as resources whose full potential remains untapped.

In reality, the most appropriate solution for UK fans probably lies somewhere in between the retail excess of the US and the cold and uncomfortable nature of the UK experience. But, as hundreds of hotel bedrooms lay empty in Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium, it’s worth asking the question as to whether fans actually want or need all the grandiose trimmings. Surely sometimes the sporting action is enough to keep them entertained? After all, that is what they paid to see.”