The man who runs the Ospreys’ league says the rebuilt St Helen’s is already paying off, with sponsorship and season tickets doubling on last year.
Martin Anayi, chief executive of the United Rugby Championship, wrote on LinkedIn on Sunday: “Build it and they will come!”
He said the atmosphere at Saturday’s first game, “even in the sideways rain”, was “jumping and the positivity in the crowd was palpable”.
Martin Anayi says St Helen’s is “something Swansea and Wales can be proud of”
Anayi singled out the Ospreys, managing director Richard Lancaster and the whole team behind the ground.
He also named James Davies-Yandle, chairman and chief executive of the club’s owners, Y11 Sports & Media.
He said the ground “is and will become even more integral to the community”, with the council, rugby clubs, the university and schools “all working in partnership to build a sustainable community asset with rugby at its heart”.
He added that this was “what rugby should be about, and rugby in Wales especially”.
People who love their rugby had come together to build it “brick by brick”, he wrote, creating “something Swansea and Wales can be proud of and something that adds real value to” the league.
URC chief’s model for St Helen’s: 10,000 sell-outs a week, and a big derby on top
Anayi says the URC has discussed a model with its clubs: sell out about 10,000 every week, then add a big match on top.
He says St Helen’s will be able to do that in future, “once fully developed”. For the big match, he pointed to Judgement Day, the double-header of Welsh derbies at the Principality Stadium.
That, he wrote, is “the model”, and “it’s very achievable!”
The ground is not there yet, and Anayi says so himself: it is “not the finished article yet clearly”, but “what’s being planned is exciting”.
Swansea Council’s plans put the finished capacity at just under 7,000. Saturday’s official crowd was 5,592.
Anayi wrote that “scarcity and a fomo will build demand”, and that the fan experience would “thrill and delight and bring them back”.
Ospreys bottom on crowds and their own income in the WRU’s licence report
His praise comes as the Ospreys fight the Scarlets for the last west Wales licence, under the Welsh Rugby Union’s plan to cut from four professional teams to three.
The report behind the union’s licence decisions put the Ospreys bottom of the four on crowds, and on the money they earn for themselves from sponsorship and matchdays.
Those were 2024/25 figures, from the Ospreys’ time at the Swansea.com Stadium. The report warned they “may not be representative” of the club’s future position.
The union says it will decide who gets the west Wales licence by the end of June 2027.
Next up at St Helen’s are Cardiff, on Saturday 31 October at 7.45pm.
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