• The forums will be unavailable for a few hours on Saturday 6th June, when they do return they will initially be in a degraded state with some features missing, but normal posting/reading will be possible. The main website will not be affected by these updates.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.
    Some other features of the forum are also currently disabled.

SOL expansion

jimb said:
The city issue is the average supporter has been out priced by the club it's not that they don't have enough fans to fill their ground.
Click to expand...
And you don’t think we’d be the same if we were as successful as you are envisaging/want? City charge what they do not because their ownership need the money, but because of FFP rules and the need to compete. We’d be exactly the same. Look at the price rises this year just for being in the PL.
 

Zimba said:
I really don't understand what your trying to say here. If we had 80,000 seats we'd just have 35k empty seats instead...

People aren't not going to the game because the stadium doesn't have enough empty seats...?
Click to expand...
what I'm saying is that the capacity of the SOL has nothing to do with the attendances we got last season. Two things are being conflated here.

We got 40k plus average crowds which was the 7th best second tier attendance average in Europe - full stop.

what does the capacity of 49k have to do with getting 40k average crowds? absolutely nothing.

I don't get the point being made here or on social media. the point being made appears to be that we didn't get 49k average crowds and because that's the capacity of the stadium our crowds of 40k are shit. My follow on point is that what people are saying is that if the ground held 80000 and we didn't get 80000 average crowds that would be shit. That's clearly wrong. The capacity of the stadium has nothing to do with our crowd average last season.
 
Last edited:
harryCLSsafc said:
Don't get this argument.

I see this all the time on social media that we didn't get 49000 crowds last season.

Are people saying that if the capacity of the SOL was 80000 they would expect us to get that average last season ? I just don't see what the capacity of the stadium has to do with the average we got last season which has been proven to be amongst the highest in Europe. Our crowds were phenomenal and all but 6 clubs on the European continent would have snapped our hands off for such attendances.
Click to expand...
Because resources are not infinite. If we spent tens or hundreds of millions on expanding the stadium so that we can get a few more fans through the door for the occasional match (the Derby and Boxing Day I would imagine) then it would take forever to recoup those costs.

I really wouldn’t be surprised if attendances drop next year as we will likely struggle most weeks. Our attendance in the premier league years last time around weren’t regularly close to capacity. There just isn’t the demand for more seats at the moment.

If we can expand hospitality, and expand & upgrade the concourses so that fans feel more inclined to spend more time at the stadium increasing the revenue per person the club receives, then that would make sense. There may even be an argument that after this attendances may rise.
But expanding so that there are more empty seats each week is just a fools errand, because attendances could rise every week anyway without the stadium being full.
 
Last edited:
harryCLSsafc said:
what I'm saying is that the capacity of the SOL has nothing to do with the attendances we got last season. Two things are being conflated here.

We got 40k plus average crowds which was the 7th best second tier attendance average in Europe - full stop.

what does the capacity of 49k have to do with getting 40k average crowds?

I don't get the point being made. the point being made appears to be that we didn't get 49k average crowds and because that's the capacity of the stadium our crowds of 40k are shit. My follow on point is that what people are saying is that if the ground held 80000 and we didn't get 80000 average crowds that would be shit. That's clearly wrong. The capacity of the stadium has nothing to do with the crowd average.
Click to expand...

You're right but we're talking about expanding here. If something isn't already at capacity, it doesn't really make sense extending it if like you said capacity has no impact on crowds.

Rightly or wrongly, the club would make more money by having a smaller stadium as there's two ways to supress demand and capacity isn't the only way. The other way is increasing prices.

30,000 x £700 is more than 40,000 x £500 for example ignoring other costs/revenue.
 
Lucky1985 said:
Because resources are not infinite. If we spent tens or hundreds of millions on expanding the stadium so that we can get a few more fans through the door for the occasional match (the Derby and Boxing Day I would imagine) then it would take forever to recoup those costs.

I really wouldn’t be surprised it attendances drop next year as we will likely struggle most weeks. Out attendance in the premier league years last time around weren’t regularly close to capacity. There just isn’t the demand for more seats at the moment.

If we can expand hospitality, and expand & upgrade the concourses so that fans feel more inclined to spend more time at the stadium increasing the revenue per person the club receives, then that would make sense. There may even be an argument that after this attendances may rise.
But expanding so that there are more empty seats each week is just a fools errand, because attendances could rise every week anyway without the stadium being full.
Click to expand...
I get what you are saying but no one is going to expand the stadium when the demand isn't there. We would only increase the stadium capacity if for example we get say 46k (or whatever the real capacity is after segregation etc.) for a few years and were prospering in the top flight.
 
Zimba said:
You're right but we're talking about expanding here. If something isn't already at capacity, it doesn't really make sense extending it if like you said capacity has no impact on crowds.

Rightly or wrongly, the club would make more money by having a smaller stadium as there's two ways to supress demand and capacity isn't the only way. The other way is increasing prices.

30,000 x £700 is more than 40,000 x £500 for example ignoring other costs/revenue.
Click to expand...
See my post above.

Remember we are almost at our stadium limit as it is. whilst the notional stadium capacity might be 49000 there is no way, with segregation and probably one or two other factors we would ever get a crowd of 49000. the maximum attendance is probably around say 47000 - which means this season we are only going to get - maximum an extra 5k to 6k more fans in the ground.
 
Last edited:
harryCLSsafc said:
I get what you are saying but no one is going to expand the stadium when the demand isn't there. We would only increase the stadium capacity if for example we get say 46k (or whatever the real capacity is after segregation etc.) for a few years and were prospering in the top flight.
Click to expand...
I’m not lobbying for expansion btw, I’m explaining why it doesn’t make sense unless it is purely to improve the facilities and not the capacity.
 
jebthesheep said:
Biggest mistake they made in building the stadium was sinking the pitch below ground level. The space for concourses and corporate are massively impacted as a result. Went past the mags gaff the other day and the amount of people in and out of the big stand for a non-matchday was huge - loads of events going on that can generate revenue.
Click to expand...
What were they doing?
Blyth said:
Leeds aren’t waiting. Birmingham aren’t waiting. Neither are the mags, palace, Brighton, forest or Villa.

They aren’t thinking what happens if it goes to shit.
Click to expand...
None of them have a 49k seater stadium, barring the mags who are Champions League regulars.
 
Last edited:
Tom the Pom said:
If we did it and I know we won't, I am sure the first project would be the East Stand, with as many private boxes and corporate as possible. The only way to increase revenue in a shorter period of time. South Stand would still look OK
Click to expand...

I 100% think any future expansion would start with the south stand, it’s the natural end to start with going round from the west, and also has more room behind it and the closest link to the town and new bridge.
 
DonaldDownTheWing said:
Average attendance 40.7k, 8.3k below capacity.
Click to expand...
We would never get an average crowd of 49000 - due to segregation and perhaps one or two other factors. so actually if we get 40000 average crowds we are probably only 7k below capacity.

This season we will probably have a crowd average of not far short of that so we are slowly but surely almost at our limit people wise.
 
Last edited:
DonaldDownTheWing said:
Even at 6k below actual capacity, there’s no need to extend.
Click to expand...

Well we are playing in a different league this year mate,

Season tickets are likely to be sold out by the weekend so there is the 1st argument.

IF we can re establish ourselves in the PL, I see no reason we can’t push average attendances into the 50s.
harryCLSsafc said:
We would never get an average crowd of 49000 - due to segregation and perhaps one or two other factors. so actually if we get 40000 average crowds we are probably only 7k below capacity.

This season we will probably have a crowd average of not far short of that so we are slowly but surely almost at our limit people wise.
Click to expand...

Your only 500 off mate but 46500 is our current capacity.
 
harryCLSsafc said:
See my post above.

Remember we are almost at our stadium limit as it is. whilst the notional stadium capacity might be 49000 there is no way, with segregation and probably one or two other factors we would ever get a crowd of 49000. the maximum attendance is probably around say 47000 - which means this season we are only going to get - maximum an extra 5k to 6k more fans in the ground.
Click to expand...

Aye no arguments. I'm against the extension tbh makes no sense.
 
harryCLSsafc said:
We would never get an average crowd of 49000 - due to segregation and perhaps one or two other factors. so actually if we get 40000 average crowds we are probably only 7k below capacity.

This season we will probably have a crowd average of not far short of that so we are slowly but surely almost at our limit people wise.
Click to expand...

You say only 7k below as if it’s a small number. It’s almost 15% of the ground.

There’s just no need to extend until people are queueing outside and being turned away.
 
Smiter said:
Americans would literally build a stadium for 30 years then knock it down and move to a new one, so it’s more than reasonable after 30 years to have a major upgrade.

I do think you start with the south stand extension, easiest way to extend corporate across from West Stand, and they would just need to dig out old plans for that extension.
Click to expand...
An imaginative South Stand Extension could look really good looking over from the city centre.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top