What If a Football Stadium Worked Seven Days a Week?

Football stadiums are unusual business assets because huge parts of them can be extremely valuable for a few hours and almost redundant for the rest of the week.

a 3D render of what could have been at ATFC

That always fascinated me at Aberystwyth Town.

Park Avenue obviously existed primarily as a football ground, but once you start thinking commercially, the fact that something was built for one purpose does not mean it can only ever serve that purpose. One particular idea I explored was whether part of the existing gantry and hospitality space could be improved and developed into a more flexible environment that could also work as a small co-working and business space.

The concept connected naturally with the Black & Green Business Club.

Instead of businesses visiting the football club occasionally for networking events or matches, could Park Avenue become somewhere people actually worked? Could there be meeting space, day access or a small membership model? Could local freelancers, businesses or people working remotely use the facility during periods when it otherwise generated very little value?

The commercial principle underneath the idea is asset utilisation.

Organisations spend a huge amount of time searching for new products and revenue streams while sometimes overlooking the assets they already possess. Buildings, customer relationships, databases, expertise, audiences and intellectual property may all have additional applications.

Marketing's role is not simply to advertise those assets once somebody else develops a product around them. Market-oriented marketing can help identify the opportunity in the first place.

The “place” element of the marketing mix was particularly interesting here. A football stadium is very different from a conventional office environment, and that difference could either be a disadvantage or part of the proposition. Someone could rent a desk in any number of anonymous workspaces. Working from a football ground creates a story and potentially connects people to a wider community.

Of course, an interesting location would not be enough. The product still needed to work. Reliable connectivity, comfortable working conditions, access, meeting facilities, pricing and customer demand would all need to stack up.

That is where proper diagnosis becomes more valuable than enthusiasm.

I am naturally someone who sees possibilities quickly. I can look at an unused room and immediately imagine what it could become. The danger is becoming emotionally attached to the solution before establishing whether enough customers have the problem.

Today, I would want research much earlier. Who locally needs workspace? What alternatives already exist? What would they pay? How often would they use it? Would the football location add value or simply novelty?

Those questions do not weaken the idea. They give it a chance of becoming a sustainable business rather than an exciting refurbishment.

The project never came to life while I was there, but it remains one of the ideas I enjoyed thinking about because it represented a much bigger principle.

A football stadium does not need to wait until Saturday afternoon to become economically useful.

Sometimes growth can come from looking at something you already own and asking whether you have been defining it too narrowly.