West Ham Are Primed and Ready to Join the Premier League Elite

There’s more than one way to skin a cat and, as West Ham United have shown, more than one route from the obscurity of the Championship to the cusp of heavyweight status.

If it’s true that there are no favours in Premier League football, then West Ham have pulled off one heck of a coup, landing a lush new home for a song just in time to start banking their share of the mega-millions flooding England’s way this season in television riches.

Those numbers, for clarity; the Hammers have already begun receiving their share of income from the Premier League’s £10.1 billion global media deal set to cover the next three seasons, while the newly renamed London Stadium—despite costing £701 million to erect—has set the club back no more than an upfront fee of £15 million and an annual £2.5 million rent.

To put that into context, the Emirates Stadium cost neighbours Arsenal £390 million, 100 per cent of which was funded by the club at a time when Premier League rights went for a piffling £1.7 billion.

Yes, West Ham have been shrewd about their business.

Arsenal were severely hamstrung by the process of paying off their vast investment in the Emirates project, but the club’s most recent published accounts are a clear indicator of how a few seasons of austerity have bolstered their spending power in the long term, even though the management have chosen to remain prudent about how to execute it.

The new ground upped Arsenal’s home capacity by more than 22,000, and 10 years later, the club have cash reserves of £250 million, the highest in world football, per the Swiss Ramble (h/t Metro).

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West Ham, on the other hand, have seen their capacity increased by 25,000 from the cosy days of the Boleyn Ground. And with no debts to service or building work to finance, the rewards will be reaped not in five or 10 years, but now—beginning this season with what must surely be an ambition to reach the UEFA Champions League.

Add to the mix a daring, dashing young manager radiating charisma and everything is in place for West Ham to wrestle their way to superpower status, both at home and abroad.

The 2015/16 season was an enigma for the Hammers. The pre-amble and early weeks were accompanied by a nagging fear of the unthinkable, of how severe the consequences might be if the club were to be relegated at the worst possible moment on the eve of the move.

Thereafter, and once it became clear that manager Slaven …

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