Do attendances matter these days?

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Lampiao

Lampiao

Old Git
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In these days of TV rights, Sponsorship, Overseas Chairmen/Owners does the income from home crowds actually matter? Have noticed that the attendance at Bournemouth tonight in their "secure promotion to Premier League" game against Bolton is only 10,070. It'll be interesting to see their pulling power next year!

I've always thought that our crowd numbers should be an advantage but apparently not these days.
 

Lampiao said:
In these days of TV rights, Sponsorship, Overseas Chairmen/Owners does the income from home crowds actually matter? Have noticed that the attendance at Bournemouth tonight in their "secure promotion to Premier League" game against Bolton is only 10,070. It'll be interesting to see their pulling power next year!

I've always thought that our crowd numbers should be an advantage but apparently not these days.
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About 10070
 
Lampiao said:
In these days of TV rights, Sponsorship, Overseas Chairmen/Owners does the income from home crowds actually matter? Have noticed that the attendance at Bournemouth tonight in their "secure promotion to Premier League" game against Bolton is only 10,070. It'll be interesting to see their pulling power next year!

I've always thought that our crowd numbers should be an advantage but apparently not these days.
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The ground only holds 12,000 .

Just a thought . Eddie Howe employs quite a few family relations , but none are on the scouting side.:)

Well done Bournemouth . Playing football can bring success .

UTB.
 
Lord Bos of Eckington. said:
The ground only holds 12,000 .

Just a thought . Eddie Howe employs quite a few family relations , but none are on the scouting side.:)

Well done Bournemouth . Playing football can bring success .

UTB.
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Bournemouth's football is as far from what we play today as it is from what Basset did.

We both like the ball on the floor. It ends there. Bournemouth get it forward with pace. I'd love to pay to watch that style. Same for Brentford's.

UTB
 
Lampiao said:
I've always thought that our crowd numbers should be an advantage but apparently not these days.
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it'll have a minor advantage at this level. in the premier league it makes no difference whatsoever because of the best tv deal in the world
 
I think it makes a difference, but in the long term, not the short term.

In the short term you can achieve success on the field by suddenly finding the right combination of manager, coaches, players and circumstances.

In the medium term you can sustain it by the investment of a rich owner who doesn't mind losing a few million.

But in the long term, you need the crowds. It's not just the immediate income from the gate receipts. For most potential investors, there needs to be some realistic prospect of a return at some point. If a team has the potential to get really big crowds if you can achieve success on the field, then that potential is there (not just because of the gate receipts, but also the merchandise sales and the greater sponsorship income a well supported club can attract)

There'll always be the occasional Wigan, who have a few years of success because someone's prepared to throw money at them for personal reasons. But because they can't achieve the support, so can't ever give a return, it will always be temporary.

To have a chance of really establishing yourself with some long term success, the support base has to be there. This is particularly true with the financial fair play rules coming in.

United have some decent support - and I'm sure Prince Abdullah would not have chosen to invest if we were getting 5,000 every week. We're not a Manchester United or an Arsenal, but we have enough support to sustain ourselves in the Premier League with some sensible investment at the outset.
 
Congratulations to Bournemouth. Did some one metion Basset? Got me thinking, did Bournemouth nearly do us a favour when we went up in 1990? Whilst we were playing Leicester, were the Dirtiess losing to Bournemouth and if they'd have lost, we'd have won the title and they might have missed out to Newcastle?
 
boo radley said:
Congratulations to Bournemouth. Did some one metion Basset? Got me thinking, did Bournemouth nearly do us a favour when we went up in 1990? Whilst we were playing Leicester, were the Dirtiess losing to Bournemouth and if they'd have lost, we'd have won the title and they might have missed out to Newcastle?
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L**ds beat Bournemouth 1-0. Their fans ran riot in town
 
I think attendance size doesn't matter, this years Championship outcome clearly demonstrates that. Bournemouth and Watford are two of the worse supported clubs in this division and they've gone up. If attendance mattered why haven't Wolves, Derby, Florist, Wendy, Leeds, Naarich etc gone up automatically. Attendances seem to matter in the dick waving size way but it's surely no coincidence that B'mouth are backed by a Russian billionaire, I don't know about Watford but I presume they're also well financed.

There seems to have been a general drift over the last 40 years away from the northern power houses, the old industrial heartlands, towards the wealthy south of the country. Ok, Manchester and Merseyside have bucked that trend but Brighton, Bournemouth, Southampton, Norwich, QPR, Watford, these were historically 3rd and 4th tier clubs.

Wouldn't be surprised if Stevenage, Dagenham or Crawley also emerge
 
Lord Bos of Eckington. said:
The ground only holds 12,000 .

Just a thought . Eddie Howe employs quite a few family relations , but none are on the scouting side.:)

Well done Bournemouth . Playing football can bring success .

UTB.
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Yep and I was surprised to see them still attacking after the opposition went down to 10 men, bit of a risky move if u ask me.
 
Radio_Blade said:
And that will be the day that I walk away from football for good.
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Perhaps on a different scale, but I thought the same about Wigan. Poor neighbours of Rochdale (well, I got that from a colleague who supported Rochdale) in a town only interested in chasing eggs about. Has to be said though, I didn't walk away, which of course I am relieved about/regret in equal measure.
 

alcoblade said:
Bournemouth's football is as far from what we play today as it is from what Basset did.

We both like the ball on the floor. It ends there. Bournemouth get it forward with pace. I'd love to pay to watch that style. Same for Brentford's.

UTB
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Ah, but Brentford have that master tactician - David Weir - lurking in the background. Another one we 'should have been more patient with'...:rolleyes:
 
Of course attendances matter, as does commercial money as it all goes to working out the FFP values.

QPR "owe" £60m to the FL.

Bournemouth lost £6m getting out of the division we are in and the Russian converted it to shares.

Dread to think what they have "lost" getting out of this division but as long as they pay their dues then who really cares.

Unfortunately "small" clubs only last so long, aka Wigan.

But, congratulations all round to Bournemouth, it is an incredible story and good look to them - enjoy it until the FA come looking for Eddie Howe to take over from Roy Hodgson.

UTB
 
just done a quick calculation using Bournemouth as an example

Bournemouth = 12K capacity stadium

If we had gone up with lets say 25K crowds.

That is 13K extra fans + 23 games in a season x £15 (worked out a reasonable average ticket price) = £4.5 million extra gate receipts.

Bums on seats matter and not only for revenue.

UTB
 
grafikhaus said:
Ah, but Brentford have that master tactician - David Weir - lurking in the background. Another one we 'should have been more patient with'...:rolleyes:
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No. Not unless you had a burning desire to be in league 2.
 
With the money in the game they're pretty irrelevant. Hence why it annoys me when people talk about fans 'deserving' success etc. It doesn't matter.
 
Lampiao said:
In these days of TV rights, Sponsorship, Overseas Chairmen/Owners does the income from home crowds actually matter? Have noticed that the attendance at Bournemouth tonight in their "secure promotion to Premier League" game against Bolton is only 10,070. It'll be interesting to see their pulling power next year!

I've always thought that our crowd numbers should be an advantage but apparently not these days.
Click to expand...
Yes attendances do matter what would we do on a matchday afternoon .they keep the police busy .they also would have nobody to boss about on sat afternoons they keep people employed. pubs around grounds get extra business during matchdays. what would we have to moan about?our wives/partners get a bit of peace from us im sure you could think of many other advantages matchday crowds have on the communty.but in my 50 years of watching football they still treat us all like paying cattle
 
alcoblade said:
Bournemouth's football is as far from what we play today as it is from what Basset did.

We both like the ball on the floor. It ends there. Bournemouth get it forward with pace. I'd love to pay to watch that style. Same for Brentford's.

UTB
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I like the high-tempo way Bournemouth play.

It is all built on a solid spine of Boruc, 2 no-nonesense centre backs playing all 45 games together, Arter as all-action midfield dynamo and the tremendous Wilson up front.

The absolute opposite of our spine situation.
 
cahill said:
I think attendance size doesn't matter, this years Championship outcome clearly demonstrates that. Bournemouth and Watford are two of the worse supported clubs in this division and they've gone up. If attendance mattered why haven't Wolves, Derby, Florist, Wendy, Leeds, Naarich etc gone up automatically. Attendances seem to matter in the dick waving size way but it's surely no coincidence that B'mouth are backed by a Russian billionaire, I don't know about Watford but I presume they're also well financed.

There seems to have been a general drift over the last 40 years away from the northern power houses, the old industrial heartlands, towards the wealthy south of the country. Ok, Manchester and Merseyside have bucked that trend but Brighton, Bournemouth, Southampton, Norwich, QPR, Watford, these were historically 3rd and 4th tier clubs.

Wouldn't be surprised if Stevenage, Dagenham or Crawley also emerge
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But who wins trophies? The clubs from the big cities. Since 1978, the only clubs to have won the league have been from Manchester, London, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham, with the exception of the Jack Walker bankrolled Blackburn in 1995. The likes of the clubs you mentioned can get into the top tier but are generally perennial relegation strugglers.

I'd also add that clubs from the north who were not "traditional" top flight clubs have got there in recent years - Bradford, Barnsley, Hull and Wigan spring to mind
 
cahill said:
I think attendance size doesn't matter, this years Championship outcome clearly demonstrates that. Bournemouth and Watford are two of the worse supported clubs in this division and they've gone up. If attendance mattered why haven't Wolves, Derby, Florist, Wendy, Leeds, Naarich etc gone up automatically. Attendances seem to matter in the dick waving size way but it's surely no coincidence that B'mouth are backed by a Russian billionaire, I don't know about Watford but I presume they're also well financed.

There seems to have been a general drift over the last 40 years away from the northern power houses, the old industrial heartlands, towards the wealthy south of the country. Ok, Manchester and Merseyside have bucked that trend but Brighton, Bournemouth, Southampton, Norwich, QPR, Watford, these were historically 3rd and 4th tier clubs.

Wouldn't be surprised if Stevenage, Dagenham or Crawley also emerge
Click to expand...

I've noticed this too. There's an overall trend of increasing population in the south, with increasing wealth. The best example could be Reading. Twenty years ago it was a small town with a small lower league club. These days it's a big thriving town with an ever growing population and a club that's firmly established in the top two divisions.

Dagenham, Stevenage and Crawley were small non league clubs. And for every one of these 'success' stories there's the other side, an old established club gets pushed further down the ladder. It's because of these new clubs that the Conference is full of former league clubs and L1 always has a couple of 'big' clubs in it.
 
BushBlade said:
I've noticed this too. There's an overall trend of increasing population in the south, with increasing wealth. The best example could be Reading. Twenty years ago it was a small town with a small lower league club. These days it's a big thriving town with an ever growing population and a club that's firmly established in the top two divisions.

Dagenham, Stevenage and Crawley were small non league clubs. And for every one of these 'success' stories there's the other side, an old established club gets pushed further down the ladder. It's because of these new clubs that the Conference is full of former league clubs and L1 always has a couple of 'big' clubs in it.
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In this season's premier league, there is only one club from the south of England outside London - Southampton. Forty years ago there was also 1 - Luton. As for London teams, we have 5 in the PL this season and there were 5 in 74-75.

Plus ca change....
 
What is actually more remarkeable is the staying power of the "traditional clubs". If you look at this season's PL there are only 5 who arenot "traditional" top flight clubs - Swansea, Southampton, QPR, Hull and Palace and you can make a case that QPR and Southampton, having spent most of their history since the 60's in the top flight have now joined that club.
 
Well obviously its not scientific but just a trend in my opinion. Perhaps going back 40 years doesn't do it justice. Football didn't start in 1975. How long is it since, Preston, Burnley, Huddersfield, Bolton, Blades, Wendy, S'land, Newcastle Leeds were winning things ? Ok they all have their moments but Huddersfield won 3 titles in succession, Burnley during the 1960s were always up there, Wolves in the 1950's.

Over the last 50 or so years, Swindon, Oxford, QPR, Norwich, Luton, W'don have all won cups what about Hudders, Preston, Burnley, nothing. There are examples that buck the trend eg. M'boro winning the league cup.

Eventually as wealth becomes ever more concentrated in the south of England I think the Merseyside clubs will decline as a lot of the top players seem to want to play in London. Chelsea, Arsenal, Wham (new stadium) Spuds, Bournemouth, Watford , Reading (recent years), Southampton.

I think we have to accept, unfortunately that clubs like ours, Huddrs, Wendy, Leeds, S'land, Newcastle are on the wrong side of history and geography,
 
biggest attendance in europe is borrusia dortmund

they dont win much
bournemouth got in the prem with 10k gates

its not worth any points
 
Darren said:
What is actually more remarkeable is the staying power of the "traditional clubs". If you look at this season's PL there are only 5 who arenot "traditional" top flight clubs - Swansea, Southampton, QPR, Hull and Palace and you can make a case that QPR and Southampton, having spent most of their history since the 60's in the top flight have now joined that club.
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The traditional clubs don't have staying power though.

Us, Wednesday, Leeds, Wolves, Preston, Forest, Bolton, Derby, Blackburn...
 

Darren said:
In this season's premier league, there is only one club from the south of England outside London - Southampton. Forty years ago there was also 1 - Luton. As for London teams, we have 5 in the PL this season and there were 5 in 74-75.

Plus ca change....
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There are 6 London teams in the top flight this season, not 5.

So far as regional congestion is concerned, next season's League one will have Fleetwood, Blackpool, Rochdale, Wigan, Oldham and possibly Bury and Preston. That's a lot of Lancashire derbies (which is probably good for everyone else).

As for PL staying power, there's a hierarchy: barring disaster, 8 clubs - Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Everton and Villa - will not be relegated. Only one of them has since the founding of the PL.

Newcastle should be part of this group but like City in the 1990s are run very badly and so have gone down in recent memory.

The other 11 slots rotate.
 
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