David Hopkinson: Newcastle United’s CEO has spoken about the future of St James’ Park and revealed how many more seats the club could fit into a renovated stadium.
Ever since the takeover of the club in October 2021 and the skyrocketing demand for match tickets, the future of St James’ Park has been much debated on Tyneside. St James’ Park has been their home for well over a century, but such are the demands of modern football and the increased pressure for clubs to generate more and more revenue to stay competitive, that building a new stadium has been talked about and plans for such an eventuality have been explored by the club.
However, over four years into the takeover project, there has been no official announcement on whether the club will build a completely new stadium or simply expand the current capacity of St James' Park. Their CEO, though, has just dropped the biggest hint that the latter could be their eventual choice.
David Hopkinson on St James’ Park future
Hopkinson was asked about the future of St James’ Park in an interview on Talk Sport on Wednesday morning, just hours ahead of Newcastle United’s clash with Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium in the second-leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final. He responded: “The truth is we haven’t decided.
“St James’ Park is a magical place. It’s going to be an extraordinary place here on Saturday when we play our next [Premier League] match.
“We’re at 53,000, we think we can be bigger and that, of course, is revenue and a major investment. We haven’t made a final decision on what we are going to do here but we are working on that everyday. Deciding whether it is here, a renovation or a new stadium. But we have an opportunity that we are pursuing and working on everyday.”
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Hopkinson was then asked for an exact figure on how much St James’ Park could be extended by if the club opt to remain at their current location: “At least 10,000,” the Magpies CEO claimed.
“All of our best modelling today, all of the capacity starts in the 65-68,000 range. I don’t think bigger than that is good, but we also want to make sure that if we do something it is material and significant. 10-15,000 would be right.
“I think a new stadium is something that we are considering, but not really moving that far. We don’t want to be in some farmer’s field out in the middle of nowhere. One of the things that makes Newcastle so special is that St James’ Park is right here in the centre of town and that makes sense.
“Everywhere I’ve worked I’ve had the privilege of having that arena or stadium right in the middle of town. It matters. The renovated Bernabeu in Madrid, Madison Square Garden on 7th Avenue right in the heart of Manhattan, location matters.
He added: “Doing nothing is always an option, I just don’t think it is the most intelligent option. We’ve got the support from ownership to look at what the best way forward is. We just haven’t decided that yet.”
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