North Stand extension

[gatopreto]

A top half Prem Sunderland could attract 45k with 3k aways. A Sunderland with a big takeover and Champs league ambition (yep, never gonna happen), would see us need an extension to 55k. The reality is we will probably at best become a bottom half prem side at some point, with potential for crowds of around 40-47 depending on the occasion. The extension was definitely needed. If it remained 42k, thats 39k SAFC at the time. Not enough.

Yep fully agree with your assessment. To justify having a 48k stadium as appose to a 42k seater stadium (the extension), you don't need to be selling out 48k every week. In fact if you are selling out every week it indicates the ground is too small.

It's realistic that we can become a mid table premier league team. If we do then most weeks we'd be getting 43-44k. On 3/4 occasions per season we'd sell out. The ground would be very much the correct size, nobody would be having this debate.

When the ground was extended at the turn of the millennium, our expectations could and should have been a lot higher than making up the numbers in the premier League. The landscape was very different then, we had momentum and should have really kicked on and established ourselves as a strong top 6/7 team. That ship has sailed.

The notion that the ground is too big for the club is as a result of underachieving for a sustained period, then the club going through it's worst period in its history. For reasonably well ran Sunderland a 48k seater stadium is just fine.

 

[Peace]

As a neutral Sunderland are a very big club, there's no doubt about that. Good stadium, history and support.

I would put Leeds in the massive club category though. Anyone who has stayed in Leeds and the surrounding areas would realise how gigantic their catchment area is.

 

[JackL]

Leeds!? In what capacity?!

Only Skyboys would say the Mags

Put 100 football fans in a room and ask who's bigger and the majority would say Leeds (imo). There's no agreed criteria on what makes a big club - all fans will use favourable criteria to say theirs is bigger. Has to come down to popular opinion imo

 

[Blyth]

Leeds is debatable like. They sit in 11th place in the all time average attendance table and we are in 12th. But they weren't formed until much later than us and football was already very popular by then.

won less, have worse recent history which in itself is some achievement, smaller crowds despite have 3 times the population.

I would put Leeds in the massive club category though.

Based on what?

Show your working out. As whatever you can show SAFC trumps it in every way.

 

[Peace]

Put 100 football fans in a room and ask who's bigger and the majority would say Leeds (imo). There's no agreed criteria on what makes a big club - all fans will use favourable criteria to say theirs is bigger. Has to come down to popular opinion imo

Agreed. Leeds have 3x the catchment area of Sunderland and are more of a brand, and the media love to hate them.

won less, have worse recent history which in itself is some achievement, smaller crowds despite have 3 times the population.

Based on what?

Show your working out. As whatever you can show SAFC trumps it in every way.

Population of city and surrounding areas.

 

[Harry Angstrom]

49k is too big for sunderland.

40,000 to 42,000 is about right.

Can't remember sunderland ever selling out even in the prem. 49k too large.

49k is too big for Sunderland in Championship or struggling at bottom of Premier League.

We would be close to capacity this season at 42k

 

[Eric gates hair]

As a neutral Sunderland are a very big club, there's no doubt about that. Good stadium, history and support.

I would put Leeds in the massive club category though. Anyone who has stayed in Leeds and the surrounding areas would realise how gigantic their catchment area is.

So why does nobody turn up to watch you then?

 

[Julio Mackemo]

Plus it's not 49k, the capacity is about 45-46k with segregation

We can sell thar out with a decent PL team

I dont think anyone knows what the current capacity is !
If they moved the away fans to the south stand, we'd be at capacity again. It's a no brainer.

As a neutral Sunderland are a very big club, there's no doubt about that. Good stadium, history and support.

I would put Leeds in the massive club category though. Anyone who has stayed in Leeds and the surrounding areas would realise how gigantic their catchment area is.

Sorry I've worked in that area and that is utter nonsense. Big catchment area doesn't necessarily translate to big crowds, plus they compete with Leeds Rhino's.
Newcastle's catchment area is twice the size of ours and that's why they get bigger crowds, does not translate to Leeds.

 

[CEF]

Put 100 football fans in a room and ask who's bigger and the majority would say Leeds (imo). There's no agreed criteria on what makes a big club - all fans will use favourable criteria to say theirs is bigger. Has to come down to popular opinion imo

Bigger in what way though?
They're smaller than Sunderland in every aspect you can think of.

 

[Bear]

49k is too big for sunderland.

40,000 to 42,000 is about right.

Can't remember sunderland ever selling out even in the prem. 49k too large.

Funnily enough Leeds struggled to hit 30k average for the best past of 20yrs until recently you tit

 

[Peace]

You'd certainly put Sunderland in the top 15 biggest English clubs.

If I was a mega rich investor I would choose Leeds over Sunderland though.

Sunderland are very appealing, of course, but probably have a ceiling of 50,000 (which is class still), no.matter their success. Sunderland are a big club too.

However, if someone got Leeds to like Man City, Leeds would be getting 70,000 to 100,000 every week.

My point is Leeds have much more potential to grow than Sunderland.

I don't think Sunderland could ever get more than 50k, whereas Leeds could get 70k to 100k every week with Man City type success.

 

[gatopreto]

Ue

Agreed. Leeds have 3x the catchment area of Sunderland and are more of a brand, and the media love to hate them.


Population of city and surrounding areas.

Yep Leeds have a much bigger catchment area.

There's a lot more interest in other sports than there is in the north east. Also because it's a more cosmopolitan area, there's a lot of people who don't care about football or who have no affiliation to Yorkshire, so support more successful teams.

49k is too big for Sunderland in Championship or struggling at bottom of Premier League.

We would be close to capacity this season at 42k

48k. You don't have to fill it every week to justify having it. If we were pushing for automatic promotion or battling bravely in the premier league then we'd be getting 3k on average more than we are now.

 

[Harry Angstrom]

48k. You don't have to fill it every week to justify having it. If we were pushing for automatic promotion or battling bravely in the premier league then we'd be getting 3k on average more than we are now.

I rounded it up. 49k.

it was definitely worth building at the time and we would have no problem filling it if we were successful.

 

[AndrewP]

In terms of traditionallyband historically, in what capacity.

John Hall's propaganda was certainly far reaching wasn't it. Ffs.

Yep, people only think of recent history and they've been in and around the top half of the premier League for a lot of the last 30 years.

 

[gatopreto]

Plus it's not 49k, the capacity is about 45-46k with segregation

We can sell thar out with a decent PL team

I think it's only that level of segregation against the mags

 

[CEF]

Yep, people only think of recent history and they've been in and around the top half of the premier League for a lot of the last 30 years.

Been in the Premier League 3 seasons out of the last 17.
Top half of Premier 8 times in 30 years.

Had fewer Premier league seasons than Sunderland.

 

[thamesvalleyman]

As a neutral Sunderland are a very big club, there's no doubt about that. Good stadium, history and support.

I would put Leeds in the massive club category though. Anyone who has stayed in Leeds and the surrounding areas would realise how gigantic their catchment area is.

Get on yer own forum yer knacker.
Bisto is on special offer get yerself to Tesco.

 

[Bilbob]

49k is too big for sunderland.

40,000 to 42,000 is about right.

Can't remember sunderland ever selling out even in the prem. 49k too large.

Not big enough. 75,118 top attendance.

 

[monolithic baby]

Money should have gone into the team at the time.

 

[Wrenthorpe Mackem]

A few fans fail to realise that if we had a smaller capacity and selling out every game then our prices wouldn't have been as low as they've been. If we constantly sold out with a smaller capacity then prices would be increased as it's all about supply and demand. Though increasing prices may price out some fans so they could still end up with empty seats if demand drops.

The SOL has over 80% available to concession prices yet many other grounds only have certain areas. These were the early bird prices for SOL and that's Brighton's tickets this season below ours. Compare the prices for anyone aged 18-21 given our prices were £165 (it was £180 this season to new fans) in over 80% of the lower bowl. Most of Brighton's ground is £275 to £380 for U18s as there just a few section for the £150 tickets in ZONE F. This is part of the reason why they get £20m in gate revenue whereas we got less than half of that even with around 10,000 more average attendance. I think other clubs such as Leeds, Sheff Wed, Leicester also do similar as some clubs don't really give big concessions to anyone over 18, nor is it available in most of the 4 stands of the ground.

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The larger capacity of SOL allows for crowd fluctuation without the club fleecing the fans and just increasing prices due to demand exceeding supply. This is already happening at the mags and it will only get worse for them as the cheaper tickets be increased or there becomes less of them available.

Look at Boro's prices here for the early bird renewals as 18-21 year olds is a minimum £310-£360 so nearly double our prices.

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Birmingham are £260 for anyone new fan 16 years or older and there's many other clubs like this as very few have a pricing structure like SAFC thanks to the size of the SOL. Look at Sheff Wed prices HERE

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Here's Southampton's prices from 2021 (they've gone down slightly since being relegated) and again it's a limited area for the 18+ year olds but they still get 30,000 crowds near capacity even in the Championship. This is one reason why the comparing of crowds like for like just by the numbers themselves is sometimes just dick waving. It's not as some other clubs would get higher crowds if they had bigger capacity grounds and a similar pricing structure to ours and we'd get smaller crowds if we had pricing structures similar to them. Thankfully we don't do that and it allows just about everyone an option to get a ticket to watch the 'working mans game' and not be priced out due to the greedy owners/players etc.

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Good post. I'm probably unique in thinking we do charge too low a price and we could increase to a degree. No one can tell me people in Middlesbrough are wealthier. No, not saying we should do away with concessions. Maybe we have the West and East stands more limited for concessions, e.g. 18 plus pay full adult price. Or more generally make the 18 to 21 concession a lot less. Keep the u16 as is because crucial to get them hooked.