Unrevised transcript of evidence taken before

The Select Committee on and Paralympic Legacy

Inquiry on

OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC LEGACY

Evidence Session No. 17. Heard in Public. Questions 250 - 263

WEDNESDAY 24 JULY 2013

10.45 am

Witness: Barry Hearn

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

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Members present

Lord Harris of Haringey (Chairman) Lord Addington The Earl of Arran Lord Bates Baroness Billingham Lord Faulkner of Worcester Baroness King of Bow Lord Moynihan Lord Stoneham of Droxford Lord Wigley ______

Witness

Barry Hearn, Chairman, Leyton Orient FC

Q250 The Chairman: Good morning, and thank you very much for joining us today. I should explain, in case you are not aware of it, that this is a public session. Indeed, I believe we are being broadcast on BBC Parliament live as we speak. There will be a transcript made of today’s evidence. You will be sent a copy of the uncorrected version, so if there is some factual error that has crept in, or there is some mis-transcription, you will have the opportunity to correct it. However, as an incentive for a quick reply, we will put the uncorrected transcript on the website, so the sooner you correct it, the better. We have a number of questions to ask you; perhaps I could start. We have had a certain amount of evidence that suggests that, at the time of the bid, football expressed absolutely no serious interest in the possible future use of the Olympic . At what point, from your point of view, did Leyton Orient become interested in the post-Games future of the Olympic stadium? Did you, at any point before 2012, have a realistic expectation that Leyton Orient would move into the stadium after the Games?

Barry Hearn: I have to disagree with your opening comment 100%, my Lord. In fact, football was always the prime objective of the Olympic stadium in its early days. We were involved, 2 from 2006 or 2007, in discussions with the incumbent powers about a football usage of the

Olympic stadium post-Games. The plan was quite straightforward. They were effectively offering us the lower tier, which is the only fixed part of the development, if you are aware of the construction basis of the stadium. Everything above the lower tier was almost like a

Meccano set. It was just a temporary building with no facilities, just seats. I think Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone were the two incumbents at the time. The initial plan was to remove the Meccano, and to leave a 25,000-seater stadium. We were to be, effectively, the tenants of that building. We turned it down because of their decision to maintain the athletics track.

We said, “You can’t play football with 50 metres of athletics track betwixt the crowd and the playing surface, as it destroys the atmosphere.” In 2007, we suggested: “The only solution here before you build it is that you must put in retractable seating”. It was a decision taken at the time by the powers that be that they could not afford the retractable seating. They were already running past the £2 billion initial budget in 2007, approaching the

£9 billion-plus it eventually cost. They were looking at ways to save money and not spend money. It has turned out to be a very, very expensive and poor decision. At that early stage, as I understand it, we were always intended to be the football tenant post-Games in a small,

25,000-seater stadium, which is obviously in the proximity of Leyton Orient Football Club.

The Chairman: At what point did you get back into the story?

Barry Hearn: We came back into the story the moment they said those wonderful words,

“We are going to put retractable seating in. We are going to spend a couple of hundred million quid, because we made a mistake”. Sometimes in life, you put your hands up and wipe your mouth, and say, “I have made a mistake”. They have appreciated that the only future for the Olympic stadium has to be a football-oriented future. It is going to do other things, of course. I am not sure that you know me so well, but obviously I have been a sports promoter for 40 years, and worked everywhere from Madison Square Gardens to the Great 3

Hall of the People in Beijing, so I am, modestly, a total expert in this field, if I may be so brief.

We have a situation now where football is the only way forward. Once they said, “Yes, we are going to put retractable seating in,” we were in, but we were not in to be the sole occupant. In terms of the new structure of 54,000 seats, I am ambitious, but that is perhaps going to another planet. We were interested in the lower tier, with 18,000 seats. We were interested in a ground-share once we knew the experience for the fans was going to be compelling, rather than a distant memory of something going on over there.

The Chairman: Is the bulk of the extra conversion costs for the retractable seating?

Barry Hearn: And extending the roof, because once you extend the seats, you have to extend the roof.

The Chairman: That expenditure only works, then, in the context of having a much bigger club as a joint user.

Barry Hearn: Commercially you are absolutely right. Premiership football is this gigantic business now, with billions of pounds pouring in, of course. It is a wonderful brand of entertainment for people. If we are only looking at the commercial value, and not discussing legacy, then I would entirely agree with you that a Premiership club is the only future. My point is: can we not get the best of both worlds?

Q251 Lord Wigley: You mentioned ground-share. Is ground-share a practical, long-term proposition? I know it has happened in the short term for Crystal Palace.

Barry Hearn: With respect, sir, in Europe, it happens all the time. In France, Germany and

Italy there are major clubs, which are obviously interested in money—because Premier

League football, while it is a great form of entertainment, is a money-money business—taking the view that there is a wider benefit to the community to have a community club on alternate weeks. As I said, my experience in around the world is that usage is absolutely fundamental to getting taxpayers value for money. It is no good having a game a 4 fortnight. You have to have something happening every single solitary day and night to recoup your costs, and hopefully get back some of what I call “the mistake money”—in other words, the money that the Government is going to have to spend or get together, because of a poor decision made six years ago.

Lord Wigley: That is a good accountant’s analysis.

Barry Hearn: It was so easy to do, but unfortunately hindsight has always been our greatest adviser, has it not?

Q252 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Can I just pick you up on a couple of things you said, Mr Hearn, which are very interesting? First of all, on the ground-share, are you saying to the Committee that if the proposition was put forward that Leyton Orient would share the stadium with , you would welcome that?

Barry Hearn: Welcome it? My friend—excuse me for being familiar—I would welcome it. I would kiss you, right, and I do not normally kiss men. I am not sure how much you are up to speed on this. This is not a done deal. West Ham have been given agreement to proceed, but I have a challenge in the courts for judicial review, because we are questioning the whole basis of the bidding process with the LLDC. I also have an outstanding litigation with the

Premier League, because we think that West Ham even moving is a breach of Premier

League rules. There are two sides of my argument, because we are not interested in the ground-share. We are desperate to survive, and we believe that the only way we will survive is by a ground-share.

Q253 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: That is very clear; thank you very much. Can I also pick up something else you said? You said at the outset that Leyton Orient were perceived as the front-runner.

Barry Hearn: Yes. 5

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I have not seen anything in writing that has said that, other than an interview, which I think you gave to the BBC.

Barry Hearn: I think you will find there is lots of correspondence in 2006 and 2007.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: The Committee would be quite interested to see it.

Barry Hearn: I am sure we can find that for you, sir.

The Chairman: Are you saying you were led on?

Barry Hearn: Well, we are in an open forum. I think lots of people have been led on in this process. Tottenham Hotspur were led on to believe they had a chance, and that it was either them or West Ham. A market was created, whereas, of course, Tottenham Hotspur had no chance whatsoever. We were quite supportive of Tottenham, because we knew they could not get in. It was a complete breach of Premier League rules, moving into the same borough as an established Premier League club. They had no chance.

We are the people that make people look good. We are an out-and-out community club that does not care about money. We are not interested in making money, and we care about carrying on the work we do. We actually look good by being involved. Our community scheme is acknowledged throughout the whole country as one of the best. You have probably seen evidence of it. So, yes, we are not being used but I feel that the whole process was a done deal before we started, to be perfectly honest with you.

The Chairman: That leads on nicely to Lord Addington.

Q254 Lord Addington: The question I have been asked to ask you is: what was your assessment of the decision-making process, and do you think the decision-making process paid adequate attention to those concerns?

Barry Hearn: I appreciate that I am totally biased, but I have to say the decision-making process was poor from day one. We have ended up in a situation where we have gifted

£500 million of taxpayers’ money to a Premier League club that has a turnover of over £100 6 million. It is a wonderful gift. If I was an Arsenal fan I would think, “Why did I bother to build my own stadium and pay for it?” Notwithstanding, I find myself a bit contradictory, because on the one side, as a taxpayer, the negotiation strength of the LLDC was appalling. It was appalling. Do you know how much this is valued? I am sure Ms Brady will give evidence later and may disagree with this. In my view, commercially, the occupation of this stadium will increase West Ham’s value by around £100 million. Yet they are paying £2 million a year rent and the stadium is responsible for policing, stewarding, and so on. If you add up those costs, it is rent-free. I think they are paying a £15 million contribution to the reorganisation cost but are being allowed to sell and develop Upton Park. This is state sponsorship beyond my wildest dreams.

In a way, I say good luck to West Ham, because they are in a position, as a commercial enterprise, to do the best deal for themselves. In this age of generosity—obviously we are not in a recession, and there are no problems in the world, money-wise—I wonder why little Leyton Orient, 750 yards from the entrance to the Olympic Park, has been totally overlooked. It staggers me. I do not understand, which is why we are going to pursue every avenue. We want to survive. As to the process, to answer a long-winded question, I thought they were nice people. They have a certain amount of skill. In a commercial world, I do not think I would let them run a newsagent.

Q255 Lord Addington: Just to follow on from there, many people who are not football fans like me assumed that it would be something that would have a benefit for sports outside, such as athletics. It would also be a good size for rugby union and rugby league. Do you actually think that there was any way they could have structured in something that would have guaranteed that sort of usage, possibly with yourself?

Barry Hearn: So easy as to be unbelievable. This is a multi-use stadium, I quite agree with you. It is not just a football stadium, but football will be the anchor tenancy. West Ham will 7 give it the profile as a Premier League club being televised around the world. If we were lucky enough to share on dates, we would work round: we said to the LLDC, “If we cannot play at the weekend, because you have something happening, like a rugby match, we are quite happy to play Thursday.” The Football League will give us permission. We appreciate that we are the secondary tenant because we are not, initially, paying the same amount of rent under the proposal as West Ham. We are a community club; we do not have their

£100 million of income.

It is all in organisation. This business is about logistics. It is about looking at 365 days on a calendar, making sure that you have your fundamentals in place—that is, your Premier

League fixtures—and then going out and doing exactly what you said. This is an iconic building. The area is going to be the greatest attraction for people in bar none, because we have celebrated the greatest sporting event in my lifetime, and we have to build on that. You will not be getting rock concerts to the world, as Mr Johnson has been saying.

This does not exist in the real world. Rock concerts and the like would much rather go to the O2 where you are indoors, you are paying £60,000 and you do not have problems with the weather. There are very few bands in the world that will sell out a 54,000-seater stadium, and it is certainly not a regular occurrence. What are regular are the one-off events: American football coming in, perhaps some cricket—there is a strong cricket influence, so you can easily put that down—certain rugby leagues, certain rugby unions. You look at the calendar and you fill your calendar: occupancy. On the days you do not fill your calendar, it is stadium tours or anything you can do to drive money in to pay your fixed costs. It is a brutally hard business, but you need someone at the top of it who is actually driving business every day, and creation of new events like that is absolutely perfect. But do not get confused. There will not be a huge number of them, when it actually gets down to it. 8

If you can hit 30 days a year of specialised events, with the set-up times and the breakdown times, you have done well.

Q256 Baroness Billingham: When all the preliminary discussions were going on, life looked fairly rosy as far as the economic situation was concerned. Subsequently, of course, we have had a nightmare scenario. I have to say to you that your line, which you are so determined to pursue, seems to me to be something that ought to be up for review. I do not understand why you are so determined that you cannot view football across an athletics track. I have viewed football all over Europe and in other parts of the world which does just that. I am wondering why you are so determined that that should not happen. If you were able to compromise, there would be a saving to the taxpayer and perhaps the release of funds to other sports that are not as wealthy or as popular as yours. May I remind you that we are told that we have the task of the legacy of producing a new sporting nation? Now, you are taking a very large portion of that cake.

Barry Hearn: Before you kill me, I am the largest sports promoter in the world. I promote

11 different sports to a global audience of billions of people every day of my life. I care very passionately about sport. I care very passionately about football. I think the evidence is that everyone agrees with me that you cannot have it. I am sorry, but you are very much in the minority.

Baroness Billingham: I am asking the question.

Barry Hearn: The answer is that you cannot play football with atmosphere with 50 metres of athletics track between the front row of the seats and the start of the playing surface.

They do it in Europe, but it is an abysmal failure. The whole ethos of how football has been built into the national game is that it has been built around accessibility—to all ages, all sexes and all creeds—and the responsibility of people to put on an entertaining show that will provide atmosphere. 9

The fact is that not just I, but obviously West Ham, and now even the LLDC, have finally agreed that this was a colossal mistake, and it was not a question of compromise. I am not good at compromise. I am good at getting things right. That is what I try to do. I do not live in a world of compromise. Compromise, to me, is a completely alien thought. I want things right. Unfortunately, we messed up. We, the country, messed up the building of the Olympic stadium. We had to put it right, and it cost money. When I lose money on events I have to put things right; it costs me money. I try not to make the same mistake twice. They are now going to create the most magnificent stadium, which will be a multi-use stadium, for everything. Football will be the anchor tenant, because without football, there is not going to be enough occupation. You are up against Wembley, who are starving at the moment, desperate for events. You are up against the O2, who will cut prices to get you in. By the way, they are just on the doorstep. What price, striking a good commercial deal for the

Olympic stadium? It has to be right.

What you have is this wonderful, iconic building and these brilliant memories of the fabulous

Games. That is what you are building on. That is why that whole area is going to be such a vibrant area for London. We are really excited, because we come from the East End of

London, which probably has not had any money spent on it since the Great War. Suddenly, we have these magnificent facilities, and we want to be part of it. I am afraid I disagree with you. When you make mistakes in life, you have to bite the bullet.

Q257 Lord Wigley: Is atmosphere in a football game not a function of more than one thing? Proximity is one; the other is the size of the crowd.

Barry Hearn: Correct.

Lord Wigley: The old used to get a tremendous atmosphere, although there was a distance from the playing field. In the context of Leyton Orient, is the problem that the size of the crowds might be so small? 10

Barry Hearn: Yes, I think that is a very good point. We looked at this, because obviously our average crowd is about 5,000 people, or just under. This year we have created 2,000 new season ticket holders by giving free season tickets to under-18s in London. We have an extra 2,000, so hopefully our crowd is going up. It has been terrific. We know this is a challenge; it is a great challenge.

Lord Wigley: You are an ambitious club.

Barry Hearn: Yes.

Lord Wigley: And you are going to get to the Premiership.

Barry Hearn: No. I hope we do. As a club we live in the real world. I do not allow any of my companies to borrow money. I have no debt in any of my companies. We are one of the few debt-free football clubs.

Lord Wigley: So are Swansea City.

Barry Hearn: They have done very well, and Huw has run a wonderful business there. I would love to think we could, but I like to live in the real world as well. I want to get in the

Championship. I want to go up one division at least. That will allow me to fill the 18,000 lower bowl.

Lord Wigley: The point I wanted to get at was, if you did get up there—to the Premiership or to the Championship and knocking on the door—would it be as easy for you to be ground-sharing in those circumstances?

Barry Hearn: Yes. Well, I do not see any reason, but I think people have to live in the real world. As we know, there is an economic recession now. We have to make the best of our facility. The stadium’s job is to be busy all the time. They have to be looking for things to be in there, and we would be delighted to be part of it. I have to say—and I think this is a really relevant fact—please understand that we are running a community football club here. We do have restrictions; we live within our own budgets. On the other side, should we be 11 fortunate enough—either by this review or by the challenges that we are mounting—to ground-share, we have already given an undertaking to the LLDC. If in the future we did become successful and we ever sold our shares in Leyton Orient Football Club, the entire profit of the proceeds would go back to the LLDC. We are not in this to make money. That is very fundamentally different. We are a community club. We probably have the biggest community scheme in the country, and we demand the right to be treated with respect. So far, quite frankly, under this process, we have not had it.

Q258 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Mr Hearn, when the leader of Waltham Forest

Council gave evidence to this Committee, he said, “There has been no effort made by the

Olympic authorities to see what effect turning that stadium”—the one we are talking about—“into a football venue would have on the Orient. That is the key point”. Have you made that sort of assessment? Can you share that with the Committee?

Barry Hearn: Sir, I would love to. This is a point that is not just relevant with the local council, but it is also very relevant with the Premier League case. Under the Premier League rules, they say—I think it is rule 3.1—that they will not sanction the move of one club closer to another club if it has an adverse effect on the resident club. Our point with the Premier

League is that they have made no inquiry as to what potential effect it would have. We, on the other hand—and I hate spending money, because I run a proper little business—spent

£30,000 with an economic consultancy to produce a report trying to set out the effects of

West Ham moving into the Olympic stadium, and us staying where we are. This report is the most damning evidence, and it has not been taken into account by anyone. What it says is: there are season ticket holders that we lose automatically every year; people die, unfortunately, and people leave. These are small numbers, but it adds up. We lose 400 to

500 season ticket holders a year, and every year, what do you know, we get 400 or 500 new ones, so we pretty well stay the same. Their report says that once West Ham are in, giving 12 away, as they have already publicised, 100,000 free tickets, no youngster in our catchment area, with the brand value of the Premier League, will consider going to Leyton Orient, because we are a division one club. The effect of this is to condemn Leyton Orient over a five-year period, not necessarily to death, but certainly to dropping down the leagues, because as you know, we operate within a 60% revenue rule, and as our revenue drops, so our availability to spend money on our squad drops. This is the kiss of death.

I am one of the most sensible people you are ever going to meet. Do you think I spend £1 million on lawyers? I hate lawyers. Why do I give them £1 million of my money to fight my case when I could do something better with it? It is because I am fighting for survival, and the point is being ignored. It keeps coming back and driving me crazy in the middle of the night.

What harm does it do Leyton Orient being in the Olympic stadium? There are benefits to the community, with the succession of Leyton Orient for fans year after year, and the generations going forward. No one has said it to me. All I am hearing is that West Ham do not want to ground-share with Leyton Orient. That, my friends, should be academic, because when we signed up to the bidding process to start with—including that visit—we all accepted the principle of matching, i.e. ground-share. I cannot come up with one reason,

Lord Chairman. What harm would we do? I can even make a case to say the Olympic stadium itself could make a profit out of us being there, even at our current level.

There would be additional benefit to the community in terms of businesses, pubs and taxis through having more activity within the Olympic Park on days that suit. The Chief Executive of the Olympic Park says, “This is where we are going to make our money, and this is where

Leyton Orient is going to play”. To my mind, this is totally unfathomable. I am completely bemused, because it is a no-brainer. 13

Q259 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I think I know the answer, but I would like you to say it. Your dream scenario is to come to an agreement where Leyton Orient and West

Ham United share the Olympic stadium.

Barry Hearn: Yes.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: But at the same time you comply with the other requirements for the stadium to be made available for athletics and other major events.

Barry Hearn: I told you, we would sit down every year and literally look at the calendar and say, “What dates are left for us?”

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: So you would keep the athletics track in place, but you would cover it over.

Barry Hearn: It is going to be covered over anyway. That decision has already been made, so yes.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: It will be covered over for football and then taken back for the athletics.

Barry Hearn: Yes, correct. We play at the same time as West Ham—

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: So it would remain as a multi-purpose stadium, used by two football clubs.

Barry Hearn: Totally.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Got it.

Barry Hearn: We have offered £500,000 a year rental while we are in division one, £1 million when are in the Championship, and £5 million if we ever make the Premiership. Your point, sir: another Swansea. West Ham are currently paying £2 million. We are offering £5 million, if we are in the Premiership, but that is academic, because we are not in the

Premiership. 14

We have also said to them, “All the catering and hospitality is yours”. Plus, we have produced two reports from independent consultants, which say that if Leyton Orient was involved in the stadium, the naming rights would improve by between £500,000 and £1.5 million a year, because most major corporations like to tick community boxes. With all respect to West Ham, they have a community aspect to them, but they are a Premier

League money machine. That is what Premier League football is. They will have their community: nowhere near as much as us, but they will do something. However, they are fundamentally living off £100 million of Premiership TV money. Good luck to them. I wish it was me, but it is not. We have given them a structure of a deal where we will say, “We will sell our Brisbane Road. We will put all the money into the club. We will try to get to the next level in the Championship, and hopefully more”.

Do not forget, this is a money business. The investment opportunities for a club resident in the Olympic stadium are vast. There are the Chinese, Asians, Middle Eastern people and people from America who look at that stadium and they start dribbling because it is such a beautiful building, and it is going to be the home of a wonderful football club, West Ham

United. The opportunity for huge profit-making does exist, which is why we put our clause in: “If we ever sell, you have all the money”. We are not interested in the money. We do not want to take anything out of the development of Brisbane Road. We want it to be totally transparent, and we want to run a proper business for the community, as we have been running for 130 years, instead of being slipped out, bashed up, bullied, terrorised and basically made to feel as if we are of no significance.

The one word that we have not discussed so far is “legacy”. What is the legacy of the

Olympic Games? Is it to state-subsidise a huge commercial enterprise? As a taxpayer, I do not like it. As a West Ham director, I would love it to death. Is it to look after a little football club like Leyton Orient that actually achieves the dreams of youngsters, which goes 15 out into the community and reaches 100,000 kids in our area? Is that what we are supposed to be doing? Is that the legacy, or is legacy just a word, and is money the only thing that matters? In my relationship with the LLDC and, I have to say, with Mr Johnson, legacy has not featured. Money has featured: the cost of doing this, the cost of supplying that. These costs were incurred because of bad administration decisions, not by me. If you had listened to me, you would have saved yourself a couple of hundred million quid, but the powers decided not to.

Q260 Baroness King of Bow: You could sell out the Olympic stadium with a one man gig. This is brilliant; I am really enjoying it. You are the most sensible man we are ever going to meet. Give us some sensible reasons, even if you do not agree with them, of why the others do not want you there, not just because West Ham does not want to share. There must be some, even if you do not agree with them.

Barry Hearn: It is because I would like to see claret and blue seats in the stadium. I would like to see my iconic Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst. I would like to see the bars with the names up. I would like it to be West Ham’s ground. We stopped the original deal by judicial review, where they were going to actually own the ground. Thank God we stopped that. Now the rental deal is a terrific deal for West Ham, and we all know that. If I was West Ham, of course, I want to go out; perhaps I want to go to Asia. Listen, it is not for me to say. Perhaps I want to go and sell the club in five years’ time. Perhaps I want to get some investment in the club, and I want my shareholders, or my potential investors, to look at this iconic stadium and say, “That is ours”, not seeing a little bit of Leyton Orient signage here and there, and every other week a team in red running out, instead of claret and blue.

I can understand that you want your own ground that you own exclusively yourself. I understand that, but you know what? They are getting such a brilliant deal. God, I wish I was on the negotiation panel for that deal. It would have been a different story, but that is the 16 taxpayers’ problem. That is over; that is done. Good luck to West Ham. They are lovely; they are our neighbours. However, neighbours works both ways. What about us? Are they just going to be a great success and churn another 100 million quid, and are we just going to be the forgotten tribe of the East End? I do not think we will die quietly. We have our court cases and we have our moment. We reserve our judgment, if we lose that, to continue. I do not know anything other than fighting for something that is, in my view, the real legacy of the

Olympics.

Q261 Lord Stoneham of Droxford: I have a general question, but I want to follow it up with something specific. How can any ongoing concerns that you have be addressed, given that the decision has been made for West Ham to occupy the stadium? What future measures do you wish to see taken to protect the interests of Leyton Orient? Can I just elaborate and ask you what the view of your fans is of your suggestion that you should be absorbed into a stadium run by West Ham?

Barry Hearn: Well, the stadium is not going to be run by West Ham, number one. It is going to be run by the legacy company or the development company.

Lord Stoneham of Droxford: But that is how the fans will see it.

Barry Hearn: Let me come back on the fans. The second thing is that, as I said, this is not a done deal. I have to keep putting this across to you. There is a judicial review in the High

Court on this. There is a claim against the Premier League, so it is all subject to this. Now, of course, we all know that eventually it is going to be a done deal, so let me accept that. We have had meetings with supporters clubs, with the fanzines. Quite frankly, a lot of them would rather stay in Brisbane Road. They were there with their dad, their granddad and their great-granddad. This is what happens in small clubs. It is an exercise of 50% of them saying, “The future for us is the Olympic stadium. Without it we die,” and other people are quite prepared to die and hold the fort down until the last Indian has finished hacking them 17 to pieces. I am not going to tell you there is a unanimous view of our hardcore supporters.

However, our responsibility and our fiduciary duty is to look to the club, the name, to look to the future and to build. If you talk about Swansea, it was not so many years ago that

Swansea were in our division, where they were attracting 3,000 or 4,000 people at most.

But they had a dream, and the Olympics is about a dream. Was it not a dream for the athletes? Why should that dream stop after three weeks, or four weeks or five weeks? The

Paralympics and the athletes had their dream. Football fans and owners have their dreams as well, and this is on our patch. My front door is 750 yards from the Olympic stadium. We have to convince all the fans that we are halfway there, by sitting down with them, as we do, and explaining, “Look, this is the alternative, on number one. Within five years, with a fall- off—according to this totally independent report—we will be in the Conference at best, because we will not have any money. We cannot spend more than 60% of our revenue.

They are the Football League rules. Or we could have a little gamble.” We have said that we will go out and give every kid in London a free season ticket, for under-18s. We will give it to them for free. To every member of the Armed Forces we will give a free season ticket.

To every student we will give a free season ticket, because it does not matter. We are not in it for the money.

Q262 Lord Stoneham of Droxford: No, but can I just put a point to you? You have argued that you are worried that those 500 season tickets will not be replaced. One of your single selling points, presumably, is the fact that they go to the familiar ground. They look up the road and they see rich West Ham, and they are fighting for their club. That is why they go. If they turn up at a stadium that is 10% empty—

Barry Hearn: It is a lovely thought, but I am afraid you are very old-school. I am afraid that, like me, you have the wrong colour hair to understand what young people are like. Young people today want success. They want dreams. 18

Lord Stoneham of Droxford: That is the point I am making. Will they not actually sign up for West Ham?

Barry Hearn: I think you have to take it into a football context. The Premiership brand is such a strong brand. It is everywhere. Pick up your newspaper, listen to your radio, turn on your TV. It is all Premier League brands. Kids at school, deciding to go along and support their first club: this is what we are losing out on. They will turn to a Premier League club every day of the week instead of saying, “I think I will fight my corner at Leyton Orient”. It does not work like that any more. Kids today are influenced by the media much more than that. Your hardcore fans, they may stay. As we have already proved, though, each year 400 or 500 of those hardcore fans disappear. They are replaced by 400 or 500 kids from the area that want to go and watch their local football club. If you have a Premier League club on your doorstep offering free tickets, do you honestly think they are going to come to Leyton

Orient? What, do they have a death wish or something?

Lord Stoneham of Droxford: I am making that point. I am saying that you are going to speed up the decline of Leyton Orient if you go into the West Ham stadium.

Barry Hearn: No, no, no. Again, do not underestimate. As I say, I am in the event business.

The iconic nature of that stadium sells tickets to everyone, irrespective of whether they are even a fan. This is going to be a centrepiece, once this is open. This is a major, international centrepiece that people in the East End are proud of, which we have waited generations for.

It will not happen again in our lifetime. You could stage you and I arm-wrestling there; people would come to watch because it is the Olympic stadium. Do you get my feeling?

Whereas I am a 5,000 crowd, I will guarantee that I will definitely be a minimum 10,000 crowd. Can you imagine the away supporters? What away supporters looking at the fixtures are not going to say, “Ooh, where shall I go? Milton Keynes? No, I do not fancy Milton

Keynes. Shrewsbury? It is a long way away. Olympic stadium? Are you joking?” This is going 19 to be a community focal point, and we have an opportunity to make it a community focal point. We add an enormous amount to that mix. It is not just about old-school thinking. It is about new-age promoting.

Q263 The Chairman: I think we have got the point. Thank you very much indeed for your evidence. You have undertaken to dig out some of that correspondence from the early days.

Barry Hearn: I will do so. Would you like the copy of the report that we did on the effect of the stadium as well?

The Chairman: That would be very useful. Thank you for your time.

Barry Hearn: That would be very much a pleasure. Thank you for putting up with me. I do appreciate it; thank you. You have been a very good crowd.