Welsome To the DW Stadium - Now Shut The Door!

So from August 1st, Wigan’s premier arena (not the Monaco Ballroom) the JJB Stadium is to be named after the chairman’s new business venture. Welcome to the DW Stadium!

With Whelan (known commonly as ‘Father Jack’ among the cynic group of Latics fans) buying JJB’s fitness clubs for a cool £70 million, he has set up his own ‘DWSportsFitness.com’ business. Presumably this will be more of an online retailer as well as the expansion of the health clubs, which come complete with their own sport shop of course! Reading into it, I don’t think that DW will be in direct competition with JJB, as the DW chain is more focused on selling fitness equipment rather than sportswear. If I’m right, then it’ll be great news for Wigan – we would have two major sports retailers based in the town, meaning more jobs for the good and the not so good people of Wigan!

Away from the business side, I don’t see this being a great thing for the club. Fair enough Whelan owns the stadium, he can call it what he wants. However, Latics are also going to be ‘sponsored’ by DW. I say sponsored, I can’t really see Whelan paying through the nose to sponsor his own team. This will generate less money for club meaning that Whelan will constantly moan about the club’s lack of profits and thus blaming the lack of fans. Our top players will get sold, just so the club can balance the books. You just watch!

It should be interesting to see when/if Whelan will replace all the JJB marks from the stadium. It took him nearly 2 years to remove the ‘Adidas’ from the East Stand and replace it with ‘JJB’, after their sponsorship ended. I just hope we don’t have Whelan’s face as seats, like Preston have done with their famous players! But I reckon the rugby fans would love to sit on his face!

I just hope we can avoid those imminent ‘hilarious’ nicknames such as ‘Dreary Wigan Stadium’ etc. Although if it’s the rugby, fair enough!