BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — Think “Welcome to Wrexham” only in extra-large size.
Birmingham City, an English second division soccer team that has been out of the Premier League for more than a decade, has announced plans to build one. Europe’s largest stadium.
The proposed 62,000-capacity venue is intended not only to catapult the team into football’s elite, but also to change the face of Britain’s second city, which has recently gained notoriety for its giant rats and piles of rubbish. Strike by garbage collectors.
“In the United States, we call Birmingham an NFL city. That means it’s big enough to have an NFL team, so that’s a significant statement,” Tom Wagner, Birmingham’s chairman and a U.S. financier, told The Associated Press.
Birmingham, with a population of over 1 million people, is located in England’s Midlands, 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of London. Wagner has bold ambitions for the club and the city.
winning formula
Through Wagner’s company Knighthead Capital Management, Birmingham became the latest British soccer team to become US-owned, with NFL great Tom Brady as a co-investor.
This is a similar expression to the one successfully implemented by the actor. Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mack At Wrexham, he transformed what was once a down-on-his-luck team into one that is famous around the world.
Like Wrexham, Birmingham also used celebrity backer Brady to reach a wide audience through an immersive documentary series. Both teams will play at second tier championship And we want to win promotion to the Premier League. But the announcement of the fourth-largest stadium for an English football team is what sets Birmingham’s project apart.
“Birmingham, we don’t have to compete with anyone outside of Birmingham. What I’m saying is that Birmingham is a good enough place to attract all sorts of world-class activities and substantial sporting events,” Wagner said. “If we build the right venue to host them, Birmingham will be a big enough city to support it.”
Birmingham City Powerhouse Stadium, expected to cost around £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) and be completed by 2030, will be the centerpiece of a new sports precinct in the middle of the city. The entire project is estimated to cost at least 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion).
Wagner hopes to attract major music stars and possibly the NFL.
He claims that once completed it will create 14,000 jobs and add “hundreds of millions of pounds” to the total economic impact each year.
ambition
Local fans are experiencing a wave of optimism as they look forward to a return to the Premier League for the first time since 2011. This was the year Birmingham won the English League Cup, one of only two major trophies won by the club in its 150-year history. Last season, he played in the third division.
This is a measure of Wagner’s task of returning the club to the top level.
“Given the total revenue that SportsQuarter brings in, it would be double the revenue of the next closest club in the Championship, even if they weren’t in the Prem in their opening year,” he said. “So you would have to be pretty incompetent in picking players with that kind of income to not be promoted in your first year at this new venue.”
influx of Americans
Elite clubs such as Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal have been under American ownership for some time, but it hasn’t always been for the better. US investors are increasingly looking at opportunities to buy English lower league teams.
Wagner believes the Wrexham and Birmingham model can be repeated.
“Everyone wants to be at a top-level club, but I think what attracts lower-level clubs is the opportunity and the promise of getting there,” he said. “There are a lot of people in the United States who are looking for a club that is similar to their neighborhood, part of their city, or even their city itself. Birmingham will resonate with a lot of people in different parts of the United States, and you’ll probably find fans like that all over the world.
“For better or worse, we’re going to have more Americans coming. I feel sorry for the British fans who might not like that, but I hope they’re the kind of owners who deserve to have a close relationship with their fans. I think we’ve done that here.”
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James Robson is https://x.com/James Saran Robson
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AP Soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
