Wasps boss ‘surprised every single day’ by Coventry

Wasps chief executive David Armstrong has said he has been “surprised every single day” by what Coventry has to offer since the rugby union club moved to the city.

Speaking at TheBusinessDesk.com’s event on Coventry and Warwickshire, hosted by City College Coventry, Armstrong said: “We are the sponsor of the City of Culture bid. In that process I have learnt an awful lot about the lower level of cultural activities in the city that we just didn’t know were there.

“It’s quite easy to think about our region and think about Stratford and overlook everything else.

“I have been pleasantly surprised by that. There’s a lot more of that energy, of that culture, of that desire to shake off the stigma of it being Coventry.

“As an outsider you see that. When the idea itself came up about us buying the Ricoh, it was ‘well that’s in Coventry, isn’t it? Hang on, that’s a great stadium but why would we want to go to Coventry?’.

“But as we learnt more and more about it and particularly now that we are here we are constantly and pleasantly surprised every single day.”

Wasps moved to the Ricoh Arena at the end of 2014, relocating from Wycombe.

He said: “We had done an awful lot of research before we moved and had laid out the first two to three years of marketing plans before we even arrived, so we had got a good understanding.

“What we have been really pleasantly surprised by is actually the strength of support for our business model from Coventry itself rather than the surrounding region.

“We felt there would be a very strong rugby base in the Leamingtons, the Stratfords, that we would be able to tap into reasonably easily, and we have. We did some research recently that the top five streets for purchasing Wasps tickets since we camme here are all bang in the centre of Coventry.

“So there’s a lot more strength and economic activity in Coventry itself than we expected.”