Well, the Ponty has appeared in several different manifestations, but we generally still call it the Ponty. Oakwell will always be Oakwell for me.
We may not stay there. Depending on how much an investor wants to pay, and depending how much Barnsley council want for their share of ownership of the ground, its not unfeasible with an area crying out for regeneration to get some local incentives to construct a new ground elsewhere. Who knows what other fingers in pies they have and where they may wish to direct contracts and business deals. Look at Rotherham. the Booths thought they had the new buyers over a barrel and upped the rent massively. Result, Booths own land with no tenant next to a scrapyard and the club now play in a new purpose built ground.
The Chinese business culture is relatively refined but the Chinese businessman in this case has lived and worked in America for 30 years and his business essentially American. Somewhat less cultured. At least massively different. Plus they'll know exactly what they're taking on. I'd be hugely surprised if they haven't read the monster thread on here gauging the response of fans. So they'd know that they weren't unanimously being welcomed, and wouldn't upset the apple cart too much with other stuff you'd imagine. They aren't the 'takeover and destroy' types from what you read. I think it could be the making of the club - if the stadium is renamed it will be done officially with a naming rights sponsorship deal as a means of injecting cash. St James Park was the Sports Direct stadium for a good while, it was always St James Park. It will always be Oakwell to most. And I can't see them wanting a new flat pack stadium when the majority of what we have is fine.
The guys been based in the US for 30 odd years or so though, so I reckon he might not be as conventional as most Chinese business types.
I wasn't thinking him so much, but where investment may come from, institutions and if trying to channel us to a Chinese market
You must also remember the American model of sports ownership is brutal. Teams are franchises and if support and money starts running dry they move them to where the money is. I'm a follower of the NFL, I love the game but the NFL as an organisation isn't what you'd call community supporting. If cities don't dance to the NFL tune they lose their team or teams. The NFL love public money and the owners merely spend the money dished out on salaries and reap the rewards from commercial ventures. The levels of cash coming into English football now and how it's distributed needs looking at because I hate to say it but it's going the same way as the NFL. How many times have the big clubs spoke about breaking away to form a Euro Super League? Only because the Premier League is so cash rich have the big 5 hung around. Barca and Real get all the cash in La Liga so they're happy enough. Bundesliga is a special case and Italy well is Italy clubs go from being cash rich to bankrupt in matter of months and seem to rise from the ashes unscathed. Barnsley just need to keep playing reverse bullseye ''In the black and out of the red' because at some point the house of cards is gonna come crashing down. In what league we'll be playing who knows but the most important thing is we survive. If that's by the help of foreign owners I don't care.
Ha ha of course not. I did say historical: didn't do a bad job with the japanese but he wasn't a red.