Wembley and Old Trafford stand out above the rest of England's other football venues in terms of capacity. However, there is speculation that West Ham also have ambitious plans to expand their arena.

Are more seats at London Stadium a necessity?

The London Stadium has 62,500 seats and is currently the third largest Premier League stadium after the "Theatre of Dreams" and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The venue from the north of the United Kingdom's capital is only 350 seats ahead of the Olympic Stadium. It appears, however, that there is a high interest in matches for the popular Hammers and an enlarged home arena would be advisable.

The east London club has therefore announced a plan that targets 68,000 seats on matchday. It appears, however, that no major changes or interventions to the stadium structure will be necessary. This is all due to the fact that some of the seats at the venue are excluded during Premier League matches. This has to do with the fact that the arena was built as an athletics stadium and then rebuilt adapting it to a football profile.

Because of this, part of the stands were set on sturdy scaffolding closer to the pitch. This also meant that 5 500 seats had to be excluded for safety purposes. However, the club's agreement with the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), which operates the London Stadium, would be finalized within two years, allowing West Ham to use the excluded seats from as early as the 2026/2027 season.

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An insurer in the name of London Stadium?

This is not the only change to take place at the venue used by the Hammers. The arena has been named "Olympic Stadium" for the past few years to emphasize its unique role as host of the 2012 Summer Olympics, but the subsequent redevelopment and change in the nature of the arena has led to the decision to move away from using that term in the name. It is therefore not hard to get the impression that this move was intended to make it easier to secure a title sponsor for London Stadium in the future. All indications are that this goal is close to being realized.

As reported by BBC Sports, LLDC is close to finalizing talks with Allianz. The German insurance company has for years adopted acquiring the naming rights to large and recognisable stadiums as one of its marketing strategies. Allianz Arena in Munich, Allianz Stadium in Turin, Allianz Riviera in Nice, Allianz Stadium in Vienna and Allianz Parque in Sao Paulo are the most well-known of these.

It is not known at this point how much money is involved. According to the BBC, West Ham will be able to count on the proceeds if the annual value of the deal exceeds £4m. It is hard not to get the impression that this is still a very cautious estimate. Juventus received nearly €105m from Allianz for the naming rights to their stadium for seven years. This means that the Old Lady receives close to €15m a year from the German consortium.

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Premier League stadium naming issue

It is worth noting that a little earlier, the British portal The Standard reported that Allianz could not be sure of its position in the negotiations, as Stage Front is also vying very hard for the rights to the London Stadium name. The US-based mega-event ticketing company is likely to pull out of the fight in light of the new information. Hence the decision to become the title sponsor of Stage Front Stadium (formerly Estadi Cornellà-El Prat) used on a daily basis by RDC Espanyol.

Only four of the 20 current Premier League arenas have a sponsor member in their name. Most clubs try not to sell the rights of the stadiums they use to it, although they are aware that this would be a truly invaluable and powerful cash injection. In this case, commercial gain loses out to tradition, which is extremely important for local fan communities.

The situation is different for new venues, where this attachment to the name is not so great. Since the completion of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2019, every now and then there has been speculation in the media space about when the arena will finally get a sponsor. Quite recently, we reported that concretes were still lacking, with Spurs' owners were not convinced to work with the first mover.

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