Interview: Tom Wagner, chairman, Birmingham City

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The chairman of Birmingham City has revealed more details about his plans for the club’s new £3bn 'Wembley of the Midlands'.  Tom Wagner was speaking at Insider's West Midlands Real Estate Property Summit in London.  He revealed he would like to create an underground roadway from New Street station to the proposed stadium complex in Bordesley Park, east Birmingham.  The US hedge fund executive, who co-owns the club with NFL legend Tom Brady, said the tunnel project, along with the new sports quarter at the former Wheels site, would create thousands of jobs and add hundreds of millions of pounds to the area's economy.  The tunnel, which would be around 1.5 miles long, would see fans travel to and from the stadium in electric buses.

Transcript

00:00Hi, Tom Wagner, Chairman of Birmingham City Football Club and co-founder and co-managing

00:15member of Knighthead Capital Management in New York.

00:18Well, I think first and foremost, it would be fantastic to have the support of our entire

00:22community because this is really a project that is about Birmingham, the city, specifically

00:29East Birmingham where we're doing our development, but more notably the West Midlands broadly

00:34because this is a scope and scale that will benefit not just the club or our immediate

00:40neighborhood or the city, but really the entire region.

00:43And we hope that it becomes something that is a justification for a number of other projects,

00:48not the least of which is HS2.

00:50And so very much would like to see that level of support from our entire community.

00:54More broadly, we'd love to get national government to lean in on solving some of the transport

01:00challenges that we face as a project and certainly that our neighborhood in East Birmingham faces

01:06and the city as a whole faces.

01:07So getting that commitment and spending that capital to unlock not only a three billion

01:13pound investment, but ultimately a project that will generate hundreds of millions of

01:18pounds of economic development and growth every year and nearly 9,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

01:25So the benefit of this project clearly outweighs the cost many, many, many times over.

01:31So I think that we need to be creative in thinking about long-term solutions.

01:34First and foremost, extending the tram is something that's been talked about for a long time.

01:38And if we can be the catalyst to bring that to an incredibly underserved community, so be it.

01:42Ultimately, it's not about doing it simply for the development of the sports court, it's

01:46about doing it for a neighborhood in the section of Birmingham that is in desperate

01:50need of public transport to ensure that they have the economic opportunity that is enjoyed

01:55by so many others.

01:56As it relates to the idea of pursuing a underground solution, subways or metro systems are very,

02:03very expensive to develop, very, very complicated.

02:06We thought of an idea to simply dig a tunnel in an existing railway and secure a new street

02:10station to the sports quarter and use electric buses running underground.

02:14We think the tunneling system would cost 20 million pounds, roughly, and then a relatively

02:20modest investment to bring that to fruition.

02:23And if that becomes a broader system over time, fantastic.

02:26But let's at least start by solving the easy problems that sit in front of us today.

02:30And I think that's the right way to take the first step.

02:33No, we've not had any other investments that are quite like this.

02:37I think it's a function of the nature of our organization as people, certainly myself included,

02:44that grew up as sporting fans.

02:47And when you're a sporting fan, you want ownership that reflects who you are as a supporter.

02:53And for me, that meant turning up at away matches and sitting in the terraces and enjoying

02:59the entirety of the experience with our most fervent supporters.

03:04And if that means sharing a pint with them or buying a pint for them, pre-match or at

03:09halftime, well, then those are pounds well spent, because I think it demonstrates a real

03:15and genuine commitment to the club, to our supporters, and shows that we understand why

03:21this is so important to them.

03:22Because it's more than sport.

03:24It's a part of their life.

03:25It's a cultural phenomenon and one that we think is incredibly special.

03:29So why not fully immerse oneself into it?

03:32Look, I think I'm a terribly optimistic person, maybe to a fault.

03:37And so one of the things I think that we recognized early on is that success in football

03:43is very often tied to the revenue that you generate.

03:46So we're looking at every mechanism of generating excess revenue, with the exception of simply

03:52raising match day prices.

03:54That's not something that is in the cards.

03:55It's not something that we're intending to do.

03:58What we want is a better product.

03:59What we want is for people to spend more of their free time supporting the club, pre-match,

04:04post-match, visiting the club in our fan zones and away match days.

04:09All of those things, coupled with a real estate development project that I think will give

04:12the club the foundation to be persistently competitive.

04:15That's the key for us, right?

04:16Achieve a level of revenue that is commensurate with Premier League clubs before we get to

04:21the Premier League, so that we're already competing with them on an economic basis before

04:26we enjoy the wonderful fruits of being in the Premier League and getting all those additional

04:30media rights and revenues associated therein.

04:33And we'll continue to do that.

04:35And my firm belief is that if we continue to show success and development on the commercial

04:39side, it'll just be a matter of time before we attain our ultimate objectives from a competitiveness

04:44standpoint.

04:45I was very fortunate to have an incredible coach in high school that ran the program

04:52and instilled some unbelievable values in me at a very young age around sport and commitment

04:59and effort that have stayed with me my entire life.

05:02I was very lucky to have him attend a match last spring shortly after he retired after

05:0753 years of continuous coaching in my high school.

05:11But I think it was really due to the lessons that he taught us and his love of sport and

05:18competition that happened to be in the realm of soccer for me in the US.

05:23And so it was an easy step to fall in love with English football, which is where it all

05:28began.

05:29And I think that the top leagues in English football are the very best in the world.

05:34I don't even think it's up for debate.

05:36And so why not want to be connected to something that is such a deep part of the community

05:41and such a deep part of people's lives?

05:43That's what makes it fun and worthwhile.

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