How much money Birmingham City's new 62,000-seater 'Powerhouse' stadium will make per year | OneFootball

Plans for Blues' new stadium were unveiled to the public on Thursday afternoon

Birmingham City owner Tom Wagner believes the club's upcoming 62,000-seater stadium at the centre of the Sports Quarter complex in East Birmingham will generate at least £750m per year.

After weeks and months of planning and anticipation, Blues were finally able to unveil plans for what has been dubbed as the 'Birmingham City Powerhouse Stadium' within a lengthy video reel which showcased the stadium's instantly iconic design on Thursday afternoon to an excited audience at Digbeth Loc Studios and hundreds of thousands of supporters keeping across all updates on various social media platforms.

Designed jointly by Heatherwick Studio and MANICA design, who received advice from Peaky Blinders creator, screenwriter and lifelong bluenose, Steven Knight, the aforementioned plans and adjacent training facilities, a stadium for Birmingham's Women's team and an array of retail and commercial spaces is set to transform the Bordesley Green and Small Heath areas of the Second City, the wider community and the overall West Midlands region.

Plans for the Sports Quarter were initially mooted at an 'Open House' event called by Wagner in April 2024, in what was his first season as owner after completing an initial takeover through Knighthead Capital Management in July 2023, with the overall project set to cost approximately £2.4bn.

As well as fronting up the vast majority of cash for the development which will also transform the city's skyline, Wagner has also received further backing from government officials, with a £1bn tramline extension being granted by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, in June, as well as a further £400m being pumped in by the West Midlands Combined Authority, with the latter exclusively revealed by Football League World.

The hope, now, is that the current Championship side, who enjoyed a record-breaking start to their rebuild in League One, will have returned to the Premier League by the scheduled opening time of summer 2030.

How much money Birmingham City's 'Powerhouse' stadium will generate per year

Image supplied through Grayling

The aforementioned design of the stadium is one which pays homage to the rich industrial history of Birmingham, with the building process on the currently derelict Birmingham Wheels BMX track costing Knighthead £1.2bn.

After a teaser video went viral within minutes and Wagner had taken to the stage at Digbeth Loc Studios to issue his initial thoughts, the American went into further details regarding the 'Powerhouse' in a follow-up press conference.

Within the teaser, Wagner and minority stakeholder, Tom Brady, also stated that NFL encounters and high-profile music events will be a regular in Birmingham over time, as well as having features such as a retractable roof and pitch.

As such, Wagner believes that a minimum of £750m per year can be made in revenue.

“I want to say it’s three quarters of a billion pounds per year, my gut tells me that we’ll do better than that because we keep seeing more interest in what we’re doing,” he said.

“Different types of entertainment venues, different types of acts and different forms of teams and entertainment that want to come and be a part of it.

“My sneaking suspicion is that this is going to be used quite a bit more than any of us realise today and that will be definitive when HS2 is done. When HS2 is finished this is the most accessible stadium in England, for sure, and probably the most accessible in the UK and Western Europe, and I know it will be the most passed stadium – meaning more eyeballs will see this stadium every day than any other stadium in Europe," the Blues owner explained.

“It will sit on a number of major transport lines, whether it’s Great Western, HS2, the surface rail tram that will be built or the existing highway. It’s a pretty fantastic location.”

Birmingham City will hope to match new stadium plans on the pitch

As previously mentioned, initial plans for the stadium move were drawn up weeks before Blues were relegated to the third-tier 19 months ago, which immediately raised question marks.

However, it has been made clear that Wagner is looking to marry the lofty off-pitch plans with an exciting product on the pitch, which Chris Davies and his side have certainly delivered in the past year or so, accumulating 111 points last term, and they are starting to find their feet again in the Championship after a patchy run of form.