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SOL expansion

Brett said:
I honestly don't think it's just about an expansion.

The stadium is looking it's age compared to the new stadium's like Spurs and Everton.

Even Arsenal are trying to work out how to stop their stadium from falling behind.

We need a plan to future proof the stadium for the next 30 years , hopefully this is what KLD wants to do
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Agree with this part
 

Brett said:
I honestly don't think it's just about an expansion.

The stadium is looking it's age compared to the new stadium's like Spurs and Everton.

Even Arsenal are trying to work out how to stop their stadium from falling behind.

We need a plan to future proof the stadium for the next 30 years , hopefully this is what KLD wants to do
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Yep hopefully if an extension takes place it’ll go alongside a more general ‘facelift’ of the place to modernise its look. Even inside the stadium I find the red carpets and gold handrails etc to have a bit of a dated 90s vibe
 
The Beautiful Game said:
Those games didn’t see a huge uptake in ticket sales last time we were in the prem, why would they going forward?
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Last time we were in the prem we didn’t have a season ticket waiting list, and girls didn’t even play football at school. The town centre was a complete shit hole and no one wanted to come to Sunderland.

The game has got so much bigger with all the coverage and pushing of the women’s game. That and the town centre is a much better place to grab a drink and something to eat afterwards.

Club and city are on the up!
 
Brixton said:
Last time we were in the prem we didn’t have a season ticket waiting list, and girls didn’t even play football at school. The town centre was a complete shit hole and no one wanted to come to Sunderland.

The game has got so much bigger with all the coverage and pushing of the women’s game. That and the town centre is a much better place to grab a drink and something to eat afterwards.

Club and city are on the up!
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Extend, we need to. No don’t extend, empty seats bla bla bla. Thank god the owner will decide. I believe we need to and will. If Kyril says no,ok. If he says let’s get this done, ok. There’s a new generation of young fans,waiting for the opportunity to attend. When is the only question,and if things continue at the rate they are then I believe it will be sooner rather than later.
 
Will be interesting to see what happens with ticket prices if we stay up. You’d think that clubs outside of London/not in the traditional top 6 can’t rely on fleecing tourists to boost revenue anywhere near as much. So getting more through corporate and yes adding more capacity makes sense.

It’s a big decision to extend though and might look a little like the club were getting carried away if they announced it 3 months after an 8 year spell away from the PL. :lol:
 
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Hulkster said:
Every single club eventually gets bored of mid table finishes and/or relegation battles each year eventually.

Every one, no exceptions.

This includes clubs for whom finishing mid table in the premier league would have seemed like an absolute fantasy just a few years earlier.

The demand for tickets *will* fall back unless we keep moving forward- and there's a limit to how far forward we can realistically go.

4 seasons in a row of finishing sort of 8th to 16th, which seems like a dream now, and demand would start to fall back a little and the stadium would seem like just the right size, mostly full but selling out only for the biggest games.

It's at this point most clubs have to either accept where they are, but more likely try something different or spend beyond their means to try to kick on and end up falling backwards.

Unless anyone thinks we can establish ourselves as a regular champions league team then our stadium is already big enough for us.

Money would be better spent on increasing the size of the concourses, putting in place measures allowing the seats at the front of the north stand upper to be sold, reducing the number of seats lost to segregation and an increase in corporate facilities, rather than simply extra seats for the sake of it.
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You’ve said every club gets bored of finishing mid table and the demand will fall back.

Why then are all of those clubs sell outs every week and season tickets sell outs, it hasn’t affected the attendances at al?

West Ham is a terrible example five seen others use on here and even then you can’t buy a season ticket.

Fulham palace Bournemouth Brighton all of them sell outs I could go on and on, Premier league is a different animal to what it was last time we were here.
The Beautiful Game said:
Those games didn’t see a huge uptake in ticket sales last time we were in the prem, why would they going forward?
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Because times have changed and all teams sell out PL games where the interest is not at it is here, premier league football is a different world to 10 years ago.
 
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ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK said:
It's also because the nasty mags (or other teams fans) will take the piss out of the empty seats.

This image below has a dot showing the attendance of all the league games games post war to now. The blue line going across is 30,000 as a guide. You can see how high crowds got at the beginning, yet also how low they got at the same time as it fluctuated wildly all the way up to when the Roker End was cut down in size in the early 80s which is the red vertical line.

The green vertical line is the switch to the SOL. For every game above 30,000 from 1946 to when the Roker End was cut down, there's a game below it also. Did anyone have any issues back then with this? Did it affect the atmosphere have such low crowds with huge spaces around the ground?

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My point is, so what if there's empty seats or even a few empty sections as long as it means kids aren't denied going to the game. There's no perfect capacity to ensure all seats are sold and nobody is missing out as the crowds would still fluctuate if everyone who wanted a ticket got one.

Even if we had a 60,000 capacity the club could adjust tickets to get people to come, especially bairns. Therefore ensure more lifelong fans getting addicted who will put money into the club in other ways also, not just the ticket price alone and more importantly even go when times aren't great like the 30,000-40,000 have the last 8 seasons.


This is why it should be extended as we need to keep the conveyor belt of fans going.

If we had the extra 5,000 seats now then there's no question they'd be sold. Even if they weren't the club could then make it tempting to bring bairns to games, so you could end up get 2 extra tickets sold as a parent is dragged along to the game anarl. That kid could then end up a lifelong fan and will be putting money into the club other ways.

Or the kids can miss out going to a game and end up having to watch on TV etc but then those who won't have SAFC in their blood could be tempted to follow the mags glory hunting instead or peer pressure etc. A kid who goes to our game can stand up a bit more to peer pressure and say he goes to the game and isn't an armchair glory supporter.
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I would argue we would sell extra 10k tickets right now. Demand is there for at least 5k (possibly more) from our supporters alone. That’s without neutral supporters who would come just to watch a premier league game (if tickets were available) from around the country and world, this used to be estimated at an extra 5-6k a game.
 
In the PL if we extended the away end to 5k seats that’d sell out most weeks (albeit at £30 a seat).

Plus as people have said we need to drag in and indoctrinate kids from the ‘mixed’ areas. If we say that’s 500 per game (flex it up for the unattractive games, remove it for the Saudis etc) then 5k extra seats feels very achievable.

I’d do the East and leave the NEC. As others have said, that’d give the best ROI via corporate.
 
Ferryhill Exile said:
Mags will have been out in force vocally, no doubt.

Oasis were spot on when I saw them at Wembley end of last month. Not quite the same as the Play Off final, but could at least have an overprices lager in my seat.
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they look and sound a different kettle of fish now to 2009. I went to see them in Heaton Park then the SoL in the space of a week and they were only marginally better in Manchester.

At least I hope they’re a different kettle of fish as I’m seeing them next Friday!
 
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