REPRINTED FROM Sports Management 2007
Q2
Sporting
Synergy
Ian Freeman
visits Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium to find out
how the facility plays hosts to the city’s
community sporting and leisure requirements
What do we
envisage when we think of a UK stadium? First of
all, probably Wembley, delivered two years late
and way over budget at almost £800m, which is,
according to some ‘the greatest stadium in the
world’.
Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium must
figure in there somewhere and what about
Coventry’s Ricoh Arena and the Reebok Stadium in
Bolton, all glorious celebrations of how to do
it big, yet do it right.
Head just 90 minutes
north of Wembley and you’ll find an operation
that might truly define what a smaller stadium
should be – not limitless, overstated,
extravagant and exclusive, but adequate,
tasteful, controlled and accessible.
The
Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster wears its status
as a community stadium with pride and dignity,
while allowing itself just a teeny swagger.
First mooted a decade ago and opened in January
after a build that, amazingly, took little more
than a year, the 15,000-seater straddles a
40-acre site, close to an attractive lake – yet
on an industrial estate – 10 minutes from the
city centre.
The stadium is home not only to
the town’s beloved Donny Rovers football team –
currently holding their own in the top half of
the Coca-Cola Football League One – but also to
the Rovers ladies’ team The Belles, The Lakers
rugby league club and Doncaster Athletic
Club.
“Everyone has everything they want,
despite the difference in the size of the
parties” says commercial director Jeremy Milnes.
“There were intense periods of consultation at
the planning stage and all tenants have had
their requirements taken into consideration.
“Our job here now is to spend time promoting the
community facilities as well as the football and
rugby pitches. We have to ensure there is a very
strong public payback.”
leisure
facilities
The community is served by
much more than the stadium space. A six-lane
athletics track and a 500-seat stand are an
important add-on, plus eight synthetic, two
outdoor and eight indoor floodlit five-a-side
football pitches and three all-weather
seven-a-side pitches, a health and fitness
suite, an outdoor amphitheatre for concerts and
plays, bars and a 350-capacity restaurant. Plans
are also afoot for a martial arts studio and the
provision of serviced office accommodation.
A flat-level car park has space for 1,000
vehicles for which there is a £5 charge on match
days. “We have a green travel plan attached to
our planning conditions,” says Milnes. “The £5
certainly helps to encourage the maximising of
numbers per car. Some parking revenue has also
gone into enhancing existing bus services to the
stadium.”
funding facts
The
ownership, funding and management structure is
down to earth. Construction costs were £32m,
with £2m being provided by the Football
Foundation and £30m by the local authority,
Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council.
Management is in the hands of the not for profit
Stadium Management Company (SMC) and the
facility is leased to it, long-term and
rent-free, by the council.
The
forward-thinkers on Doncaster council were
widely acknowledged as the driving force behind
the stadium and they were quick to take on
consultants Drivers Jonas to project manage,
following their successes at Sunderland’s
Stadium of Light, the Riverside Stadium in
Middlesbrough and the Ricoh Arena.
Wolverhampton-based architects ACP had
previously been responsible for the city’s
racecourse and the Wanderers’ Molineux
stadium.
Naming rights, at a reported cost of
£1m a year, are vested in local construction
firm Keepmoat plc, the second biggest company in
town and one of the UK’s leading regeneration
and social housing specialists. With the help of
a pair of binoculars, they can keep an eye on
what is going on – their offices are a stone’s
throw across the lake.
taking care of
tenants
“Our project is about
regenerating the community, which is Keepmoat’s
ethos too, so there’s a synergy,” says Milnes.
“They get good value for money in terms of
publicity, and the media and fans have had no
trouble adopting the name – they’ve already
dropped the word ‘stadium’ and just call it ‘the
Keepmoat’. We have regular meetings with the
company and work with them to support their
Keepmoat Foundation charity.” Milnes is
currently working to sell naming rights for the
individual stands and advertising opportunities
around the stadium.
“Our tenants provide a
good income stream for us and we provide
high-quality facilities at reasonable prices,”
says SMC CEO Andy Nicholl, a veteran sports
management professional and former Sport England
executive. “For example, when the health and
fitness facility opens this month, it will be
better than anywhere else in the country at £35
a month – it’ll have that ‘wow’ factor.
“The
martial arts studio will also serve the people
of Doncaster and when you throw into the pot
that we’re a bars and catering operation and
draw in conferences and events from a wide area,
you can see how we fulfil our brief to benefit
the community.”
The fitness facility, which
SMC will operate in-house, will feature 75
pieces of Technogym equipment, saunas, sun beds,
a steamroom, a physiotherapy service, treatment
rooms and a relaxation suite. The membership
target is 1,800.
Anchor tenant Doncaster
Rovers FC were achieving early-season average
gates of around 12,000, but fans now appear to
have what Nicholl calls “wallet fatigue” and
attendances have slipped back to around 8,000 –
still more than at their former home of more
than 80 years, Belle Vue.
The Keepmoat’s
football element is enhanced by the Rovers-owned
Doncaster Belles ladies team, who play in the FA
Women’s Premier League along with Chelsea,
Arsenal and Everton.
“The Keepmoat Stadium
will become an ideal showcase for women’s
football,” says Paul Green, the Belles’
secretary and first-team assistant
manager.
“This is the most impressive stadium
in the league and I’m sure that the chance to
play in this arena will help attract top quality
players. We have a good working relationship
with the SMC and this will continue as the
stadium and our club grow
together.”
Doncaster Rovers’ first appearance
on their new pitch was on New Year’s Day, when
they trounced Huddersfield Town 3-0. They later
went on to become the first Yorkshire club to
lift a major cup in 11 years after winning the
Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final in April.
“The 15,000 capacity is just the right
number at the moment,” says Milnes; “if it was
any bigger it would kill the atmosphere.” The
design, however, allows for extending both ends
upwards, which could add a further 5,000 seats.
Doncaster Athletics Club comes to the
Keepmoat from what may have been described as a
run-down former facility. "The move to the new
stadium has instilled new life into the club,
with membership almost trebling in the first
three months,” says the club’s vice-chair, Dave
Lilley. “The facilities mean we can train and
compete on a par with neighbouring clubs and
we’re look forward to hosting an athletics
meeting in Doncaster for the first time in many
years.”
SMC acts as ticket issuer for all
tenants, passing 100 per cent of gate money on
to the clubs, as well as providing all services
in exchange for rent. “In any multi-sports
operation there’s always a degree of conflict
between the users,” says Nicholl, “but they can
actually see the benefits from cross-marketing.
The football and rugby clubs are used to sharing
facilities as they did at Belle Vue, so it’s not
as though this is an untested formula – it
happens all over the country.”
Nicholl is
unfazed by dealing with four disparate
rent-paying tenants. “Everyone was a little on
edge when we started because it was a big
project, but we have established a monthly
tenants’ meeting when everyone gets together.
One tenant may only have a turnover of thousands
while another’s is in the millions, but everyone
has the same interest in operational issues.”
community life-blood
A
well-publicised, early-days element of fan
dissatisfaction was dealt with realistically and
decisively. “Although there were originally some
issues to do with security, ticketing, and
catering, the fans are now hugely enthusiastic.
It wasn’t anything we hadn’t anticipated, and it
has been sorted out,” says Milnes.
“We were
criticised for some of our bar prices, but the
clubs are getting an excellent deal here which
allows them to keep ticket prices down and to
put money onto the pitch in terms of playing
staff. There’s no way we would want to lower our
standards, so the public has to accept there’s a
price to pay.”
Marketing to the community
forms a major part of the stadium’s
profile-enhancing efforts. and promoting the
fitness facility is a prime example. “When you
build a private health club, people see it going
up brick by brick, but ours is hidden away
inside the stadium fabric so you have to make
sure people know about it,” says marketing
manager Jackie Page.
Another interesting
aspect is the ability to provide concert space.
The stadium can accommodate 20,000 for concerts,
the first of which – still under wraps – is
planned for July. Vomitories are in place to
allow bands to get kit in and out with minimum
fuss.
“As a concert venue, we have a great
catchment area,” says Milnes. “Sheffield is on
our doorstep and Leeds and Nottingham are not
far away – Robin Hood international airport is
six miles away from the stadium.”
looking forward
So what of the
future for the new facility? “The first year of
any new venture is making it financially
viable,” says Nicholl. “We are also keen to
extend our influence in the town and increase
perception of what we’re doing.
“There is
room for expansion on site, so hopefully we can
come up with projects that we can convince our
landlords to run with – maybe outdoor activities
on the lake and in the car park.”
Andy
Nicholl confirms that the overall vision is
working. “A few weeks ago the Lakers were
playing Castleford. We had Sky Sports here for a
big rugby league match, it was a lovely spring
evening, the five-a-side pitches were full and
there were about 200 kids using the athletics
track. The whole place was working well, there
was a fantastic buzz and our fears that it might
be a nightmare on match days when everything’s
up and running were unfounded.”
The last word
on what may prove the benchmark for smaller
stadium developments comes from the Lakers’
Simon Fox. “Our research has shown that around
90 per cent of our fans and visitors rate the
stadium as being ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’.
That, for a facility in its infancy, is
fantastic!”
Ian Freeman is a freelance
writer
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