Quote from: RadioGAAGAA on March 02, 2024, 09:10:44 AMQuote from: Dreadnought on March 01, 2024, 11:54:02 PMBut you know what? When it's built, it ends up paying itself off. And then you own it until the place falls apart in 70 years time. So no matter what it is absolutely worth getting the additional rather than some bog basic terraced stadium
You do realise there is a far larger maintenance cost associated to all the above than some bog basic terraced stadium? Since the stadium is constructed at a similar price to the GAA regardless of whether its all-singing or basic, its the on going maintenance costs I'm concerned with.
For instance, those (unneeded) additional areas do not require upkeep, you don't need to periodically check the wiring, fire alarms etc on rooms that don't exist, nor do you need to clean them. Cleaning of terracing after games requires a fraction of the time. You've no seats to replace on terracing.
In the 2019 financial report - first one I got on google - Croke park had a stadium & admin expense of ~€6.2m. Heat/Light/Power was an additional €1m. Staff costs were ~€2.8m.
That is approx €10m to run the stadium. The latter two would be more direct functions of how many events are on - so will disregard them. If we reasonably assume that the stadium/admin costs are directly related to size, then Casement would be approx 40% Croke's maintenance cost - or €2.6m in 2019 prices.
So Ulster Council will need to raise somewhere in the region of €2.6m (2019 prices) after direct operating costs just to upkeep the stadium.
In 2019, Croke had 28 games and 3 concerts to deliver a gross income of around €29m. (total expenses to do that were €17m. We'll remove the "fixed" €~6.2m I mentioned above from this)
So they made approx €580k per game. We'll not factor by size to be favourable to Casement. It still means Ulster council need to fill or nearly fill Casement 4.5 times a year just to keep the stadium.
Needless to say, they won't be able to do this.
It. Doesn't. Fukking. Add. Up.
(Unless of course, there is an open admission that the Ulster Council are actually building a concert venue that they may occasionally let hold a football or hurling match.)
This is the exact problem that is killing PuC - The Cork County Board had the same idea that concerts would be used to save their bacon - it worked for them in the 70s with the original stadium but that hasn't worked out for them this time around. Trying to payback debt when the stadium is making an ongoing loss is killing them. At the lastCork AGM they announced that the most "optimistic" estimate on when Cork County Board will be debt free is 2048.
As to the source for the estimated 308 million costs, this article is the original source and it's worth a read especially what Heaton-Harris has to say which given he is the one in London who said it would be built aren't exactly the best in terms of the vibes.
https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2024-03-01/stormont-officials-outline-cost-of-casement-rebuild-in-leaked-letter