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SOL expansion

Rotherham red'n'white said:
Surely any expansion we do would be about hugely increasing the corporate hospitality side of things rather than the number of seats for the regular fan. In time the demands of PSR will force us to chase the most profitable type of "fan" , and with 2 of our stands lacking any corporate hospitality facilities that's going to be where investment is focused. But we won't do it until demand is sustained, perhaps after 3 years established in the premier league and starting to challenge for top half and Europe?
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Could just make loads more standard seats then make a landlocked pub under one stand n charge daft twats £127 for both?
 

Weststand said:
OTR Reiver has had a text.....its happening

Away fans staying put tho
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Nonsense.
Rotherham red'n'white said:
Surely any expansion we do would be about hugely increasing the corporate hospitality side of things rather than the number of seats for the regular fan. In time the demands of PSR will force us to chase the most profitable type of "fan" , and with 2 of our stands lacking any corporate hospitality facilities that's going to be where investment is focused. But we won't do it until demand is sustained, perhaps after 3 years established in the premier league and starting to challenge for top half and Europe?
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The expansion will only happen when, like you suggest, we’re established in the PL and beginning to challenge for Europe. At that point the demand will be there all the time.

At the moment it’s not a sustained demand, and they’re not going to make a massive capital investment on a stand that might sit empty.
 
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oddbod said:
You wait for the demand or you create it! you choose? ...leeds are going to extend their stadium next year to 55000 or so ....are they fools? or are they just future proofing?Infrastructure investment does not effect PSR so we need to expand as demand grows and make the sol a stadium fit for the 2030's...spurs and evertons stadium makes the sol look like a farm building and that needs to change or we will never improve!
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Mate, its not happening in the very near future. The club need to see the long term demand is there. And that needs us to be an established PL team. Its really as.simple as that no matter how much you post on here arguing the opposite.
 
Peace said:
The stadium of light is too big for Sunderland.

Sunderland don't have the support to sell 49k very often.

The stadium of light has been soldout only 10 times since it opened.

The original 42k was perfect. 49k is too big.
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Things change, as the saying goes.

I know a club not far from here that used to give away 10,000 season tickets a few years back, just to make their ground look full for the TV. They are now saying a new 80,000 stadium won’t be big enough for them.

Saying that, they are deluded.
 
Peace said:
The stadium of light has only been soldout 10 times since it opened many years ago.

Very few games will be soldout.
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I appreciate you're from Holland and have only been a Sunderland fan in your recent history, but we had eight sell-outs in the stadium's first season open alone.

Manchester City,
Bradford City,
Port Vale,
Reading,
Portsmouth,
QPR,
Crewe Alexandra,
Stoke City.

You're lost.
 
Get Into Em said:
I appreciate you're from Holland and have only been a Sunderland fan in your recent history, but we had eight sell-outs in the stadium's first season open alone.

Manchester City,
Bradford City,
Port Vale,
Reading,
Portsmouth,
QPR,
Crewe Alexandra,
Stoke City.

You're lost.
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Selling out games also relies on the away side filling their allocation, again, transport links are not as good to Sunderland and if travelling by train, for many, it will take longer than it would to get to Newcastle.

He probably thinks they'd be selling out their ground if they were duplicating our 15 and 19 points season, they wouldn't at all. There'd be a mass outcry and protests on a level we've never experienced. We're talking about a set of fans that went on a rampage in their own city centre after losing a cup final.
 
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How did the club manage to expand the Stadium from 42K to 49K after only a few years originally? I can't imagine it would be so easy now with the cost of expansions.

Surely this will be a potential obstacle to you ever expanding to say 55K.

With our new Stadium, the club were originally looking at around 60K Capacity but the American who designed it argued for a more compact design of just under 53K for a variety of reasons, one of which was to do with making demand higher. As a result we've got thousands competing for a ticket and the consequence is higher ticket prices.

The ticket prices at our new Stadium are already getting out of hand and the club know they can rip the fans off due to the high current demand. I would think that Sunderland would be in for much higher ticket pricing if they did expand to be able to afford any expansion. Think only a few clubs have owners that can easily afford stadium upgrades and even then they will look to rip off the fanbase - like Man City are doing with their new Stand (although obviously their success also allows them to more easily).
 
Mr B said:
Things change, as the saying goes.

I know a club not far from here that used to give away 10,000 season tickets a few years back, just to make their ground look full for the TV. They are now saying a new 80,000 stadium won’t be big enough for them.

Saying that, they are deluded.
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Things do indeed change, for example a small side like Leeds were once struggling to sell 20k tickets in League 1 when they forgot their club existed - now they're on about extending their ground to 50k.
 
EFC said:
How did the club manage to expand the Stadium from 42K to 49K after only a few years originally? I can't imagine it would be so easy now with the cost of expansions.

Surely this will be a potential obstacle to you ever expanding to say 55K.

With our new Stadium, the club were originally looking at around 60K Capacity but the American who designed it argued for a more compact design of just under 53K for a variety of reasons, one of which was to do with making demand higher. As a result we've got thousands competing for a ticket and the consequence is higher ticket prices.

The ticket prices at our new Stadium are already getting out of hand and the club know they can rip the fans off due to the high current demand. I would think that Sunderland would be in for much higher ticket pricing if they did expand to be able to afford any expansion. Think only a few clubs have owners that can easily afford stadium upgrades and even then they will look to rip off the fanbase - like Man City are doing with their new Stand (although obviously their success also allows them to more easily).
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I think we can upgrade relatively cheaply because of how the ground was built and how it was future proofed for extensions. The extension only cost around £6/7m iirc, albeit in 2000 or whatever.
 
EFC said:
How did the club manage to expand the Stadium from 42K to 49K after only a few years originally? I can't imagine it would be so easy now with the cost of expansions.

Surely this will be a potential obstacle to you ever expanding to say 55K.

With our new Stadium, the club were originally looking at around 60K Capacity but the American who designed it argued for a more compact design of just under 53K for a variety of reasons, one of which was to do with making demand higher. As a result we've got thousands competing for a ticket and the consequence is higher ticket prices.

The ticket prices at our new Stadium are already getting out of hand and the club know they can rip the fans off due to the high current demand. I would think that Sunderland would be in for much higher ticket pricing if they did expand to be able to afford any expansion. Think only a few clubs have owners that can easily afford stadium upgrades and even then they will look to rip off the fanbase - like Man City are doing with their new Stand (although obviously their success also allows them to more easily).
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The SOL was built with expansion in mind,

The foundations were already in place for the North Stand extension and it will be the same for any further extensions to the South or East stands.

The stadium was designed to be a 65,000 capacity when required and fully complete.
 
AndrewP said:
The Leeds who haven't averaged over 40k in their history? That Leeds?
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Rugby town
KLD said from the very start that he was interested in Sunderland as we owned our stadium and we could easily extend it. This was the problem they had at Marseille, they didn’t own it so could just ramp it up. He has kept his word on everything else so what’s to say he doesn’t pump it up. I think he will do the east stand first adding another 10,000 seats. I would be durprised if we ever get both done. Unless we need it doing for a World Cup.
 
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Spaceturtle said:
Rugby town
KLD said from the very start that he was interested in Sunderland as we owned our stadium and we could easily extend it. This was the problem they had at Marseille, they didn’t own it so could just ramp it up. He has kept his word on everything else so what’s to say he doesn’t pump it up. I think he will do the east stand first adding another 10,000 seats. I would be durprised if we ever get both done. Unless we need it doing for a World Cup.
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Rugby town and cricketing county
 
Mr B said:
Things change, as the saying goes.

I know a club not far from here that used to give away 10,000 season tickets a few years back, just to make their ground look full for the TV. They are now saying a new 80,000 stadium won’t be big enough for them.

Saying that, they are deluded.
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Their demand is a lot deeper and more sustained than ours though.

They've sold out 2x friendlies at 52k each, we got 13k for our home friendly despite momentum being about as high as it can get. That points to a much higher underlying demand which would justify a big outlay in increasing capacity.

It's a similar story for cup games.

A big part of that is they have 10s of thousands of people who know a friendly is basically there only chance of getting to see a game, whereas with us pretty much everyone who wants to go either already has a season ticket or knows there'll be plenty of games where they'll be able to pick up on of the matchday sales tickets.

I wouldn't bank on demand increasing if we establish ourselves either. Forward momentum is what increases demand and you can't have that indefinitely. We've seen loads of teams, including us, who a few years earlier would have snapped your hand off for regular mid table finishes but after a few years get bored of it quite quickly and demand starts to fall off.
 
Hulkster said:
Their demand is a lot deeper and more sustained than ours though.

They've sold out 2x friendlies at 52k each, we got 13k for our home friendly despite momentum being about as high as it can get. That points to a much higher underlying demand which would justify a big outlay in increasing capacity.

It's a similar story for cup games.

A big part of that is they have 10s of thousands of people who know a friendly is basically there only chance of getting to see a game, whereas with us pretty much everyone who wants to go either already has a season ticket or knows there'll be plenty of games where they'll be able to pick up on of the matchday sales tickets.

I wouldn't bank on demand increasing if we establish ourselves either. Forward momentum is what increases demand and you can't have that indefinitely. We've seen loads of teams, including us, who a few years earlier would have snapped your hand off for regular mid table finishes but after a few years get bored of it quite quickly and demand starts to fall off.
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If we start the season half decent then match day tickets will be hard to get.

General sale West Ham tickets sold out weeks ago and the majority of hospitality is already sold out for the season.

A sniff of success and 55,000 would be more adequate.
 
seaham ftm said:
What's the point you're making? The Mags are trying to expand/move grounds right now due to this...
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ignore the mags thing that was justa point that they say they have had a waiting list for over 25 years but only since cut throat thing have they decided to change their stadium....leeds are being proactive thats all and all i was pointing out was the bollocks about their long term waiting list as its got nowt to do with that its about making their ground the best it can be with the budget they have and we should do the same but a certain part of our support(and i think its just ours) have a fear of empty seats and i just dont get it if im being honest!If Bob could have afforded it in 97 He would have built the ground at a capacity of 63500 as a start and bugger the empty seat brigade.
 
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