Edgbaston set to be England’s premier cricket ground
WARWICKSHIRE County Cricket Club has revealed more details about how the £30m transformation of its Edgbaston ground will look once the redevelopment is complete next summer.
The club is reliant on maintaining its Test Match status in order to guarantee strong revenues but recognised that to achieve this, improvements would have to be made to its facilities.
Colin Povey, WCCC chief executive, said: “With competition for Test Matches increasing in England, Edgbaston has to maintain its position as one of the principal venues in the country.
“The redevelopment of the ground will secure Test Match status and provide a wealth of new facilities for the club and its members.”
An eleventh hour bid by residents to have the plans quashed was rejected earlier this year paving the way for the redevelopment to go ahead.
The ground regeneration will see the construction of a major new stand on the south side of the ground, set to increase spectator capacity to 25,000.
In addition, a 500-guest capacity banqueting suite and exclusive new members’ areas will be erected and the façade of the ground completely transformed.
The old pavilion and adjoining conference suite has already been demolished, paving the way for the new pavilion area, which will host state-of-the-art facilities for players, officials and the media.
In order to maintain its income from conferences, banquets and other events, the club has erected a huge marquee inside the ground.
This will remain in place until the new facilities are ready and will host major hospitality events both during the summer and beyond.
A tantalising glimpse of what lies ahead has recently been given to potential new corporate members.
The club is courting new business after it announced a major tie-in with Jaguar over the naming rights to the club’s new executive lounge.
The Jaguar Club, as the new lounge will be known, is due to open next July and will be the centrepiece of the new pavilion.
The new facilities will be amongst the best of any cricket ground in the country, including Lord and The Brit Oval.
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The tie-in with Jaguar also suits the manufacturer’s current strategy of glamorising its products by linking them to successful sporting achievements.
The company has secured recent sponsorship deals with leading sportsmen and its Academy of Sport aims to develop young talent in a range of sports.
Moreover, for Warwickshire it represents the successful collaboration of two of the region’s more recognised brands.
The Jaguar Club is billed as the crème da le crème of corporate packages and to retain exclusivity, just 100 memberships will be available.
On the field, the ECB has handed the club a boost by agreeing to schedule no home 2011 fixtures until May, meaning the club will enjoy more home fixtures than normal in the second half of the season and ensure plenty of use for the new facilities in its first season of operation.
To try and ensure loyalty from its members, the club is introducing new six-year memberships. These will ensure there is no need to renew every season. However, the traditional year-on-year schemes will still be available.
Options on the various schemes will allow members access to the improved Members lounge in the new pavilion, while a cheaper deal will allow access to the current Members’ facilities in the David Heath Suite plus the concourse of the new stand and the external seats in the lower tier of the new stand.
Edgbaston is also guaranteed international cricket between 2011 and 2016, together with the finals day for the domestic Twenty20 competition.
The club is also preparing to market its facilities on a global stage, with particular emphasis on the sub-continent.
India is the current powerhouse of world cricket with the Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition attracting the world’s best players and guaranteeing massive media exposure.
Warwickshire will tap into its strong Asian connections to promote the ground’s benefits to the community’s thriving entrepreneurs. It will also tap into its relationship with Jaguar, which is owned by India’s Tata Motors.
“We have to look at markets beyond our own and we believe the new facilities will provide a great platform on which to promote the benefits of Edgbaston to the wider world,” said Mr Povey.
The ground is currently being used as a neutral venue for Pakistan to play matches against Australia. If the experiment is successful – and the early response has been favourable with near capacity crowds turning out to watch two Twenty20 games – then it may be rolled out in the future.
