12 concerts a year, NFL, UFC, but no football - Scottish Rugby's Murrayfield vision and £1.9m spend on toilets

Alex Williamson unveils his ‘entertainment centre’ plan for home of Scottish Rugby

Scottish Rugby’s new head honcho has a bold plan to turn Murrayfield into an “entertainment centre” capable of hosting up to 12 concerts a year but Alex Williamson’s vision for the stadium goes beyond gigs by the likes of Oasis, Beyonce and Taylor Swift.

The chief executive sees a future where American football, boxing and mixed martial arts can also be staged at the ground.

Steps are already underway to improve facilities, including a much needed revamp of the Murrayfield toilets. The ladies’ loos - or lack of them - have been criticised in particular and the shortcomings were again evident at the recent Robbie Williams concert. Now around £1.9 million will be spent on a toilet upgrade.

Scottish Gas Murrayfield could host up to 12 concerts a year. | SNS Group / SRU

It’s a lot of money to spend a penny but the stadium is in need of an upgrade and its core business is not being ignored: a further £2m is being splashed out on a new pitch which is being moved three metres west, thus reducing the large gap between the west stand and the playing surface and increasing the ‘run-off’ area along the east touchline.

“So we're spending about £2m on an entirely new surface in the bowl, including the lights that go alongside that [to help grow the grass],” said Williamson in a media briefing. “We're putting in a new PA and emergency lighting systems to support the safety and security, but also some of the customer experience points. And we're spending about £1.5m on hospitality environments and just under £2m on loos.

“And all of that will make an impact in the places it touches, but it's by no means going to solve all of the issues. There's plenty of them and we'll get after them in a measured way as our finances allow us to.”

Finances have been a prickly subject for Scottish Rugby after consecutive loss-making years of £10.5m and £11.3m. Things appear to be back under control, with chairman John McGuigan steering a prudent path while in interim charge before Williamson’s arrival in January. Williamson succeeded Mark Dodson but there was a 10-month gap between the latter’s departure and the former’s arrival.

Scottish Rugby chairman John McGuigan and chief executive Alex Williamson with Rory Darge and Finn Russell. | SNS Group

Return to profit

The new man has got his feet under the table now and predicts a loss of £3.8m for the 2024-25 financial year, with the union aiming for profitability by 2026-27. More concerts will help and so too will extending Murrayfield’s sporting portfolio, although Williamson is less keen to host football at the stadium.

“Scottish Rugby can be sustainably profitable, absolutely no question of that,” said Williamson. “Our challenge is broadening the depth of our revenues.

“At the moment we continue to be pretty heavily predicated on rugby. This needs to carry much more entertainment through Murrayfield, and so the investments in the stadium need to be to turn this into a world-class sports and entertainment environment.

“The changes we made after quite a short period of time me being here around the extension to our licence is a really important first step. So we now have the licence to have 12 concerts here [per year] as opposed to three. If we think about how we're going to improve in 2025-26, that improvement is because we've got three Oasis concerts and an AC/DC concert in comparison with one Robbie Williams concert.

“So even in a period where we've got only two Six Nations games, we will see revenue growth. That's a big step in the right direction but it's not enough, we've got to do more.”

Oasis will play three nights at Murrayfield in July and AC/DC are scheduled to play on August 21. Last year, Taylor Swift performed three concerts and there have also been performances in recent years from Bruce Springsteen, Harry Styles, Beyonce and the Eagles. Williamson wants more.

Taylor Swift fans queue outside Murrayfield stadium ahead of her concert on June 6, 2024. | Getty Images

“We can have 12 concerts,” he said. “We went through a fairly long-winded and challenging conversation with the licensing team and, actually, the [Edinburgh] City Council has been very helpful but clearly we had to get a number of stakeholders in the local community to support us as well.

“But I think there is a recognition in Edinburgh that Murrayfield's prosperity is a very important part of the prosperity of the city and so ultimately all parties agreed. And that 12 is a self-imposed cap of 12, as in we have committed to only having 12 for the time being, but it can be negotiated differently in the longer term.”

Welcoming other sports - but not football

Williamson has also watched with interest as London has hosted NFL games and envisages a future where American football could return to Murrayfield, along with other international-scale sporting events.

“When I say that I'd like us to be an entertainment centre there's absolutely no reason in my mind why we wouldn't be hosting other sporting events, let's say NFL as an example but equally why wouldn't we have boxing, UFC or major darts events? We shouldn't limit ourselves to anything, it ultimately just needs to suit the bowl. There aren't many better viewing experiences than here and the acoustic experience is really good so we're available for pretty much anyone.

“Where we will fall short is where our facility doesn't hit the right straps. If you compare us to Tottenham, we cannot pretend that we've got anything like the same quality of facility. We have to find a way of investing rapidly in the stadium.

“I spent a couple of a couple of days down in London last week with people who've been involved in major regeneration programs and I'm absolutely certain that we can get after the regeneration of Murrayfield as a as a whole campus but we're only at the start of that process.

Scottish Rugby chief executive Alex Williamson wants to get more out of Murrayfield. | SNS Group

“We've had a number of goes at identifying a way of refurbishing the stadium and got frightened by the number. We can't afford to get frightened by the number anymore. We've got to get on with it.”

The stadium naming rights are currently owned by Scottish Gas and Williamson will seek more private investment along with help from government agencies.

“It will be a multi-dimensional package,” he said. “We're going to need probably the support of the UK Government, Scottish Government, the city council, private money, Scottish Rugby money and who knows, World Rugby money. We're going to have to get it from everywhere, but it is doable.”

Williamson is cool on the idea of staging more football at Murrayfield. Rangers played Manchester United in a pre-season game at the stadium last summer and United also played Lyon there in 2023. Hearts and Celtic have also used the ground in the past but there are unlikely to be any more matches in the foreseeable future.

“There are some challenges with hosting football here for sure,” said Williamson, who is not a fan of the segregation that comes with the games. “I'm not totally certain as to whether that's a long-term commitment for us. Some of those challenges are that I don't think the city particularly enjoys hosting football and we want to be great partners with the city.”

Williamson is confident the new pitch will be bedded in for the start of Scotland’s four-game Autumn Nations Series, the highlight of which is the game against New Zealand on November 8 which is already sold out, a significant boost for the Murrayfield coffers.

“We've had record sales for autumn,” added Williamson. “New Zealand was the fastest-selling autumn game in our history and we're going really well for the way we've packaged up for the Argentina, US and Tonga games. [That] has been really helpful, so I think we're in good shape there. And that's building a bit of confidence, so we're making investments, we're being careful and we're trying to touch a number of buckets, so stuff around playing, stuff around safety and all the sort of well-being angles, and then stuff around customer experience.

“We've introduced a chief customer officer Olaf Gueldner and he's making a material difference because we are connecting all of those customer dots together so that's absolutely a driver. Our revenues are consistently growing, and we shouldn't forget even though the profit numbers look pretty horrifying, Scottish Rugby were very cautious about the way they used that CVC money and so a large proportion of that was protected and has been carried forward.

“Right now, we're sitting on a cash balance and we will gain through this next three or four-year cycle.”