Dutch Eredivisie football club PSV Eindhoven has appointed the Hypercube agency to assess its stadium options.
PSV has played at Philips Stadion, which is owned and operated by the club, since 1915, but the facility, with its capacity of around 35,000, is no longer large enough to meet future ambitions. The appointment of Hypercube, which specialises in the sports and mobility sectors, was disclosed during the presentation of PSV’s annual financial report.
With 9,000 fans currently on a season ticket waiting list, PSV financial director, Jaap van Baar, said: “The region is growing, so we expect that to be something that will continue to happen. That is why we continue to look at a small expansion or a major expansion at some point.”
The Philips Stadion, in its current configuration, can have its capacity expanded by a further 2,000. “Then you have to think about the limited space we still have in certain places to add one or two rows of seats,” general manager Marcel Brands said, according to the ANP news agency. “If you want to expand even further, the stadium really needs to be overhauled.”
PSV is said to want to retain its current location, in the centre of Eindhoven, but a move to another site hasn’t been discounted. Van Baar and Brands indicated that PSV is looking at expansion options because the club is at its maximum potential in terms of revenue generation.
PSV recorded a net profit of €13m (£11.3m/$13.6m) for the 2022-23 financial year, mainly due to a positive player trading result of €33m. Turnover passed the €100m mark for the first time in a year when no UEFA Champions League football was played. The club said this was mainly due to the growth in commercial, merchandise and ticketing revenue.
In May 2022, it was revealed that PSV supporters who missed out on attending matches during the COVID-19 pandemic had been invited to reinvest their compensation money into improvements at Philips Stadion.
Season ticket holders who continued paying for matches while COVID-19 restrictions were in place were entitled to reimbursement from the club. Alternatively, they were able to give the money back to PSV to improve the match-day experience at Philips Stadion.
