Capacity

[Sheffsteel]

The upper tier had seats available for every single game apart from Liverpool. For what it's worth I agree, I'd rather not go than have to sit behind a pillar or in that corner. I think our support has grown a bit since basing it on this seasons crowds so maybe it will be full every week next season.

But the Man Utd night match was officially sold out says before the match with an attendance of over 32K.

 

[FATTYFOULKE]

Our only trip into what is now League 2 came but 5 (?) years after we built the South Stand.

Correlation? Causation? I know which one my money is on.

Gypsy curse.

 

[YES Blade]

Our only trip into what is now League 2 came but 5 (?) years after we built the South Stand.

Correlation? Causation? I know which one my money is on.

And the end result was that we’ve benefited from having the south stand for almost 50 years whilst also getting back to the top division.

 

[YES Blade]

Surely it makes zero business sense to choose the more expensive option, spend 100’s of millions to reduce capacity. No competent owner would agree it.

To make the Kop steeper means a lower capacity, unless it’s done double or triple tier at greater cost.

Also it’s financial suicide to reduce capacity down to 20K for 2 years, effectively banning some season ticket holders from attending matches for 2 years.

Or we could have a fairer system where every season ticket takes their turn missing matches. The risk is if you fail to attend home games you find other things to do and lose the habit of going.

Normally whole stands are built because there’s so much extra space you can use under the stand but why would United need extra space under the Kop, there’s hardly any parking and we have plenty of facilities in the South stand and John Street.

A Leeds fan told me that they limit the number of season tickets so that if/when they are going to rebuild parts of Elland Road they can still allow all the season ticket holders to attend whilst the building work is taking place.

We could do something similar, when a season ticket holder doesn’t renew, don’t sell that season ticket. It might take a lot of years but we’d eventually reach a point where the kop can be rebuilt without season ticket holders having to miss matches.

 

[CarlMcBlade]

As the big fella said to Noah…Build it and they shall come.

 

[Greasy Chap Butty]

As the big fella said to Noah…Build it and they shall come, while you're in the Prem, but if you get relegated you'll have 20k spare capacity and fucking massive repayments you can't make.

His full statement..

 

[YES Blade]

His full statement..

We’ll never get anywhere as a club if we base all our future plans on the view that we’ll eventually be a championship or league one club again at some point.

Might as well just go ahead and sell Ndiaye, Berge and anyone else with any value now. We’ll go down in a year or two anyway and they’ll just leave so no point trying to keep them and make any progress as a club.

 

[Blademan18891889]

But the Man Utd night match was officially sold out says before the match with an attendance of over 32K.

I meant other than the 2 sold out games against man u and watford

 

[Old Programme seller]

I‘m guessing that sponsorship money pays far far more money than attendance and the amount of money the club can get from the average supporter so it’s not cost effective to increase the ground capacity.

 

[S64 Blade]

I‘m guessing that sponsorship money pays far far more money than attendance and the amount of money the club can get from the average supporter so it’s not cost effective to increase the ground capacity.

Do you know why sponsors pay money in the first place though?

 

[Trigger Blade]

Interesting stat site showing Burnley's average attendances. I would imagine all seater stadium has caused the lower capacity they get now. Surprised me

England historical attendance and performance

european-football-statistics.co.uk

Burnley is the smallest town to win the top English league. Even though they pull in fans from elsewhere in East Lancs, their attendances seem remarkably high to me, at least when they’re doing well.

As that site shows, they weren’t great in the late eighties, just over 3,000 when they nearly were nearly relegated from Div 4 and they were nearly overtaken by the now extinct Colne Dynamoes who were interested in groundsharing Turf Moor.

 

[YES Blade]

I‘m guessing that sponsorship money pays far far more money than attendance and the amount of money the club can get from the average supporter so it’s not cost effective to increase the ground capacity.

Bet Spurs are gutted they didn’t speak to you before they built their stadium. Could’ve prevented them wasting £1B!

 

[Old Programme seller]

Bet Spurs are gutted they didn’t speak to you before they built their stadium. Could’ve prevented them wasting £1B!

I see you’re point but to counter I’d say that they’re in a far better financial position than us with 40 odd years of regular top flight football with silver wear and they can fill a stadium year in year out it is essentially a bigger club with more financial resources and the next step is their international fan base which is global for every full house they get they could get may be another 10k So their stadium and club in a rich part of London can’t be compared to us they had a turnover of nearly half a billion quid last year.

 

[Greasy Chap Butty]

We’ll never get anywhere as a club if we base all our future plans on the view that we’ll eventually be a championship or league one club again at some point.

Might as well just go ahead and sell Ndiaye, Berge and anyone else with any value now. We’ll go down in a year or two anyway and they’ll just leave so no point trying to keep them and make any progress as a club.

How much do you propose spending on these improvements??
Actual numbers please. Let's base this discussion on something.

 

[Rodley]

Absolutely this, I live in Manchester and the attitude of Mancunians to Sheffielders is polar opposite, Manchester see the positive in growth while Sheffield is always looking inward, it’s totally bizarre why we have such a down beat attitude, we need to grow , growth will bring in extra revenue, sorting out the Kop and South stand to release the BLUT to away fans would enable us to achieve this, and also push us to stealing a march not just in Sheff but Yorkshire.

Interesting to reflect on development freeing up the whole BL stand to be used for away fans - with a city centre full of good pubs and potentially ~5,000 tickets in a full Bramall Lane away end, I think it would be the best (and most popular) PL away day.

 

[Rodley]

I see you’re point but to counter I’d say that they’re in a far better financial position than us with 40 odd years of regular top flight football with silver wear and they can fill a stadium year in year out it is essentially a bigger club with more financial resources and the next step is their international fan base which is global for every full house they get they could get may be another 10k So their stadium and club in a rich part of London can’t be compared to us they had a turnover of nearly half a billion quid last year.

Being in London, Spurs will get all sorts of non football events hosted at their ground.

 

[BladesOnToast]

Burnley is the smallest town to win the top English league. Even though they pull in fans from elsewhere in East Lancs, their attendances seem remarkably high to me, at least when they’re doing well.

As that site shows, they weren’t great in the late eighties, just over 3,000 when they nearly were nearly relegated from Div 4 and they were nearly overtaken by the now extinct Colne Dynamoes who were interested in groundsharing Turf Moor.

Burnley were just one point away from being the first team to be automatically relegated from the Football League that season!

 

[nickwr37]

Do you know why sponsors pay money in the first place though?

Yes. It generates more money for them above the cost of the sponsorship.

 

[JJBlade]

New stadium is needed
It is impossible to knit all the individual bits of the stands together

Besides, what's the point
A 70,000 seater state of the art ultra safe stadium would not comply with pig council regulations and capacity would be reduced to whatever meant it was smaller than the death trap

 

[CaptainMorgans]

Out of interest, what do people estimate this proposal would have cost?
£20m? £100m?

Personally, always felt these plans looked great and still do provided the Kop facilities were improved a lot with it.

 

[jt64]

Yes. It generates more money for them above the cost of the sponsorship.

Unless you are Football Index or Cazoo, where it's throwing good money after bad

 

[Keef Chedwyn]

I'm sorry, but you're talking absolute bollocks here. We've just averaged nearly 29k in the Championship

We've just averaged 29k for an FA Cup semi final.

 

[Keef Chedwyn]

Selling whatever we sold against Man City in a FA Cup semi final has nothing whatsoever with how many seats we need as a top flight club.

If it were left to the likes of you we would have a capacity of about twenty thousand because there was a time not so long ago that’s all we averaged in the top flight.

How many times could we have sold 35000 plus in our recent stint in the Premier League against the likes of Arsenal and Man U, therefore increasing our average gate?

Zero. Everyone who wants a ticket gets one.

 

[FATTYFOULKE]

Out of interest, what do people estimate this proposal would have cost?
£20m? £100m?

Personally, always felt these plans looked great and still do provided the Kop facilities were improved a lot with it.

From memory, at the time McCabe costed the whole thing at £23m. Take into account property development was his business.

 

[JJBlade]

Zero. Everyone who wants a ticket gets one.

Not for the semi final they didn't

 

[CaptainMorgans]

From memory, at the time McCabe costed the whole thing at £23m. Take into account property development was his business.

At that, it's a shame we never cracked on.

 

[ReeceofBDTBL]

Do people realise that every other club of a comparable size has had (in living memory)
1. A trophy
2. A long stay in the top flight
3. European football

The last time we had a good footballing team with a decent stay in the top flight was the seventies, we didn’t even have 4 stands till that relegation season.

If this club doesn’t develop its infrastructure it WILL be the next hull city.

 

[BLADE OF GRASS]

It’s the local psyche mate (Wednesday fans excluded).

Be overly cautious of relatively small changes. Don’t do anything and then moan about Sheffield being backwards and shit when places that do take more calculated risks are successful.

Like you say, increasing the capacity by 10% when it’s >90% full already in the Championship, isn’t being deluded.

There’s just shy of 2 million people living within a 20 miles radius of Bramall Lane, but it’s impossible for us to grow from 30k crowds…

 

[nopigfansintown]

Not for the semi final they didn't

Nor in the Premier League. Points restrictions existed for around half the games and tickets didn't go on sale for fans on low points until a few days before the game. Season tickets sold out in the renewal stage. My mate John got burned with the latter as he didn't renew in time.

Curiously the same state of play re points to buy some match tickets existed in our last Championship promotion season. I had some Chinese clients in that season who were visiting the city. They wanted to attend a game and went to the box office and were turned away as they didn't have x points. They came back to me (Blades regalia in the office) and I sorted it for them as I have a number of burner accounts and a few child season tickets that aren't always occupied. The club must've essentially turned down over £200 from Chinese visitors. There's been a few posters on here in similar predicaments. It seems a bit ridiculous to me.

 

[Keen Blade]

We already have a standing area at the back of the Kop


Sheffield is similar to Sunderland. Similar percentage of fans-to-population attend the game. When you consider the pigs attendances, there's 55K attending football in this city


Everton is a prime example of what/where we could be if we were able to sustain top flight status.
Liverpool is a smaller city than Sheffield and Everton are the smaller club, starved of recent success, but still building a 53K stadium.

I realise they were a successful club back in the day, but have done nothing for 30-odd years.
It's top flight football that has maintained a chunk of their fanbase.

Everton owner minted so can afford stadium without worrying about ffp issues re wages or losses coz it's capital investment - our owner potless