West Ham’s move to the London Stadium in 2016 has routinely been described as a financial masterstroke, even if the atmosphere is hollow – but that’s a complete misconception.

Speaking exclusively to Hammers News, University of Liverpool football finance expert Kieran Maguire explained how, as well as removing fans from their spiritual home, Karren Brady’s decision to ditch Upton Park in favour of the soulless athletics stadium has also potentially cost the club millions in lost revenue.

The fight for Premier League survival takes precedence for now, anyway. Nuno Espirito Santo and his side face Everton tomorrow afternoon, with five games left that will dictate whether or not they survive in the Premier League. After that, however, there will be soul-searching about where the club is headed.

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The London Stadium is, of course, central to that conversation and, for better or for worse, will shape how Brady is remembered in East London.

“In terms of her legacy at West Ham, it is very mixed,” says Maguire.

“West Ham have the benefit of paying a low rent, but there was a degree of short-termism with the deal.“

The current agreement costs the Irons about £4.5m annually, which will be cut in half if they are playing in the Championship next season. Had they built a new stadium instead, they would be paying more in interest repayments but also have access to more revenue streams, argues Maguire.

“For example, the West Ham women’s team have never played at the London Stadium. That is partly due to the fact that the landlord charges a fee, which means the club would be losing money to stage games there. So, I don’t think she took a holistic enough view of West Ham’s position.”

Naming rights are another lost revenue source, with the club’s landlords pocketing the first £4m of any deal and splitting the remainder 50-50 with West Ham. What’s more, West Ham get no revenue from non-football events at the stadium, nor do they have scope to significantly upgrade or recalibrate the stadium for commercial and atmosphere purposes.

“The other concern is that the sale of Upton Park was poorly negotiated,” says Maguire.

“The company that bought it, Boleyn Phoenix, made a £20m profit on a property they owned for almost no time at all. That was money that the club lost. The land was very valuable.”

“West Ham have lost money in recent years. Yes, they have the memories of winning the Conference League, but the relationship with the fanbase is very poor. The London Stadium doesn’t feel like home. They still look and feel like a tenant.

“With the SCR system which is coming in next season, they will be denied the revenue benefits that clubs like Everton and Tottenham are enjoying in hosting concerts and other sports events at the stadium because they don’t own it.”

Significantly, while Brady says that the London Stadium move has allowed the club to scale commercially, they still exist in a different financial universe to many of their rivals. Take Tottenham, for example.

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“If you compare West Ham’s commercial income with Spurs’ before and after their stadium moves, that is the opportunity cost in terms of revenue and it’s hundreds of millions,” says Maguire.

In West Ham’s last season at Upton Park, their combined matchday and commercial income was £55m. Last season, it was £95m. That’s a 73 per cent increase. Tottenham, by contrast, earned £309m more from the same two revenue streams in 2024-25, which was a 242 per cent increase on their last season at White Hart Lane. Yes, footballing reasons account for some of that divergence – but nowhere near all of it.