So the start of October has arrived. This was the point at which I originally suggested we may see an announcement concerning Sportcity, but there's no sign yet of this coming to pass. There are now whispers (and from sources whose word has been proved reliable on other things in the past) that we may now hear something substantive in November. As we've now been waiting a year from the date when it was originally thought an announcement would be made, it will be frustrating if the timetable slips further, but, desperate as I am to know what's going on, I can see why the Abu Dhabi policy is to announce something when it's ready and not before. So for the time being, we continue to be reduced to looking at current events to see if there are any signs of what may be to come. One recent item of interest came in a recent national newspaper report, which trailed a likely deal between City and what we can legitimately refer to as a world media giant.
Eleven days ago, the Daily Mail claimed that the world famous Walt Disney company is set to ditch Chelsea in 2011, when its current four-year partnership deal with the London club expires, in favour of a similar deal with Manchester City. For what it's worth, the story appeared under the byline of the paper's Chief Football Correspondent, Matt Lawton.
I've not seen this officially confirmed, or indeed supported anywhere else. However, one fairly well placed source I've managed to speak to suggests that the story isn't a fabrication (which isn't the same as saying the Disney tie-up is a done deal, of course). We'll proceed, then, on the basis that there's at least a significant possibility of it happening. If it does, is it a sign that we'll have a Disney Theme Park at Eastlands (on the Blue Moon website the nbext day, a well known poster created a thread posing the question: Disneyland Manchester at stadium?).
The answer is that there certainly won't be anything on the scale of Disneyland. The Prior Information Notice issued by the Council on 26 September 2008 and soliciting expressions of interest for the former Super Casino site referred to a visitor attraction to be built on a 38-acre plot. Europe's existing Disneyland park, at Marne-la-Vallée just outside Paris, encompasses 4,800 acres, so it seems safe to say that whatever we get will be somewhat different.
The Public Information Notice suggested that whatever will go on these 38 acres should draw in the region of 3,000,000 visitors to the site annually. Back in February, the publication Crain's Manchester Business claimed that City's Abu Dhabi paymasters are aiming for double that. (The article is no longer available, but was quoted on this thread on the Skyscraper City forum's Manchester sub-forum).
The article in Crain's contains interesting comparisons with other visitor attractions. For instance, Manchester's leading attraction as things stand is the Museum of Science and Industry, the annual footfall of which is 819,000. Six million would put it marginally ahead of "London's biggest crowd puller, The British Museum, attracts 5.9 million". (The Manchester United museum, to give another comparison, draws 300,000 annually).
Anyway, if we're looking at anything even approaching the pulling power of The British Museum, let alone overtaking it by a whisker, it will need something pretty spectacular to be put in place on site. And while normally one might doubt that this could be done, City's owner is part of a ruling family that has developed its Emirate by making the spectacular a reality. In this instance, my guess is that cutting edge technology, with possible virtual reality attractions, is going to be what will make this development special. But what could the underlying theme be?
An extremely interesting visitor attraction has just been completed in Abu Dhabi and will open this very month. Ferrari World will be the world's biggest indoor theme park, and the size (200,000 square metres or 2.2 million square feet) of fifty acres means that it's of a fairly similar order to the plot that will house the first stage of Manchester's Sportcity visitor development.
There's no suggestion - at least not that I've heard - of Ferrari World II appearing in Manchester. Indeed, if the world's second Ferrari theme park does appear in Europe, one would assume that Italy would be the location, for obvious reasons. However, a tie-up with the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate by revenue would certainly allow for a twist that would give a Sportcity visitor facility a shot at attracting visitors in the numbers that have been mentioned.
Of course, a tie up with Disney has other benefits to City as well. As Lawton noted in his piece in the Mail, there are possibilities in terms of the club's brand positioning in the US market (and the modern vogue seems to be to think of the States as potentially more lucractive than Asia notwithstanding the vast interest in English football in the latter). And, of course, with Disney-owned ESPN breaking into the market for rights to the English game, there could be a synergy of interest here too.
Nevertheless, if Lawton is right, the prospects for the Sportcity development are intriguing. It's definitely something to keep an eye on.
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