Capacity

[Westran]

How do other clubs finance stadium improvements? I’d imagine that it will be via long term loans.

So if we financed the stadium over say 20 years, we might need to trim the budget for players as a result of the loan payments but I’d like to think it wouldn’t have a big impact. There is also the possibility of an increase in match day revenue covering some of the loan payments.

The quoted cost online is between £2.5k per seat and £5k per seat, dependant on facilities that go with it. So I'd imagine the kop would be around £3k per seat, and if we were to expand capacity by 4000 seat, it'd maybe cost us about £10-£15m. To be honest I think that's a much better outlay than some of the players we bought in the prem last time round.

The South Stand would cost much more, probably wouldn't get much change from £30m. The only way we could finance something like that in the absence of rich owners, is by building in everyday revenue streams, student accomodation, retail, entertainment. Another possibility is building on mixed use of the stadium and partnering with the council or one of the unis. That's how other clubs have done it, but our problem is we're not building an out of town stadium that regenerates an area, and the council probably wouldn't partner with us. Maybe one of the unis would though.

 

[Keef Chedwyn]

Oh well done. For a game we were nailed on to lose, at a stadium at the other end of the country that has become tedious at best to our supporters after 4 visits somewhat recently, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, in the middle of a 4 home game streak and 1 week after the season ticket deadline. Need I go on?

Tremendous effort to take 29k and just goes to show how our support has grown exponentially over the last 20 years. On this trajectory we're going to need a considerably bigger ground

Merit awarded for most excuses for poor turnout in one sentence.

 

[Booker4]

Any debate on the merits of extending/refurbishing the ground is largely irrelevant unless we get took over because we won't see any improvements of note whilst ever the Prince is in charge for obvious reasons. He did say when he took over than the club's facilities needed improvement but I don't think we've seen that much change in his tenure sadly. Ultimately he'll no doubt say much of the club's money was spent on transfers and bar Ramsdale we've not sold anyone on of note in the Prince's time.

 

[reedy63]

The 500 royal points you have entitles you to get a ticket. How does a new supporter who has never been to Bramall Lane wants to go get a ticket but has no points to start with that's a big problem Bartman for a start. so the club will have to do something about that. thats a no-brainer don,t you think. the club needs to encourage new supporters.

 

[JJBlade]

I keep seeing everyone say how the cost of redeveloping the two stands, Kop and South, would be huge and there wouldn’t be enough return on investment to justify it.

How much ROI are we going to get on Brewster or to a degree McBurnie?

Not a lot is the answer. Something like £45m in transfer fees plus millions in wages spent. Berge too, another £20m plus in fee and wages. He‘s going to run his contract down and we wont even get a fee at the end of it. McBurnie too might. Brewster is probably worthless to us already. Where’s the ROI there?

I think I’d rather have seen a proportion of that money spent on the ground and infrastructure such as the academy. We’d at least have something to show for it for decades to come and us fans would be the beneficiaries of the better facilities as much as the club.

But people would rather the money be spent on the team, which would be fine if there was a guarantee the money was well spent. It if we repeat.the mistakes of the past though we’ll be back as a 2nd rate club in the Championship or lower and we’ll still have a 2nd rate ground.

At some point we have to spend on the ground for the long term future of the club instead of always taking the gamble of spending tens of millions on players who may or may not work out.

Yes
I'd try to figure out some way of putting another tier on John Street including the kop corner and kop to all be joined to it.

There is a problem on John Street because the three residents that still live there have objected against developing John Street that already blocks out all their daylight, they don't want a higher structure that will apparently block out all their daylight.

 

[reedy63]

The magic word has been mentioned, Students Sheffield council loves them. nearly every new build in Sheffield is for students. tell them we want to make developments at Bramall Lane with student accommodation. It will get approved and they will offer half the money to pay for it.

 

[JJBlade]

The other thing they have in common is that they are single city/town clubs. It’s mebbe not really fair to use them as a comparator.

Depends what you consider a one team club in a town

Most cities in the UK spill into each other joined up by smaller towns dotted around in between

Only a small section of a clubs fanbase can get into the stadium.

We have traditionally much bigger support than Leicester, Brighton, Southampton, Portsmouth, Ipswich, Watford, Bristol City, Cardiff, Swansea, and they have all managed to get double, treble and even quadruple traditional attendances by building better facilities.

No reason why United can't do the same, many older people on this forum have been in attendances of 55,000 and 57,000 at the Lane, that level of support doesn't just disappear in a generation or two, it just can't get in the stadium, or doesn't see it as worthwhile.

If it was worthwhile and the facilities were excellent, the fans are still there.

 

[JJBlade]

So you think we have 28700 fans with loyalty points. ? Sorty but that is a solutely rubbish

Really
And pray tell me how anyone other than those 28700 have got them seeing as they cannot attend a game

 

[Cappy]

Really
And pray tell me how anyone other than those 28700 have got them seeing as they cannot attend a game

Other than season ticket holders, the other attendees aren’t the same ones every game. So there will be thousands who only go to occasional games, each getting loyalty points when they do. Also, away games, memberships and cup games give you loyalty points.

 

[bartman]

Really
And pray tell me how anyone other than those 28700 have got them seeing as they cannot attend a game

I don't get your point. Not everyone who has points attends every game. Points have been accrued over the last 15 years or so. New fans have attended this season as there have been at least 5000 non season ticket seats on sale each home game

 

[BarcaBlade]

Brighton - one club town no local competition
Southampton - one club town no local competition
Fulham - Chelsea fans 2nd team
Forest - PL for first time in ages, crest of a wave fans, will drop off, City rivals are in the National League
Brentford - Astronomical rise, London Club, novelty factor
Leicester - Won a PL and attracted fans, didn’t sell out prior to this
Wolves - 1 club town
Everton - if they drop out of PL will have good gates for a year or so then nothing, new ground could end up half empty

The others are either top 6 PL so have the demand for capacity or shit Championship or league one with half empty ground apart from Sunderland and Derby, both 1 club towns.

Not sure any are decent comparators.

Now imagine the Blades redevelop and increase capacity and a Birmingham City fan is writing a similar set of excuses. In fact, they've seen your post and just copy it wholesale and add in Sheffield United as the latest club to redevleop:

Sheffield United - historically quite well supported club now in second recent spell in Prem leading to growth in attendances - from a 1.2 million conurbation with no local competition.

It's a better 'excuse' than most of those listed.

 

[JJBlade]

I don't get your point. Not everyone who has points attends every game. Points have been accrued over the last 15 years or so. New fans have attended this season as there have been at least 5000 non season ticket seats on sale each home game

I'm sure there are an odd few

But generally the same 28700 are turning up every week

There could be 10 million people with 100 points because they've attended one game

But it doesn't help them get a semi final ticket

 

[Isar]

If we don't have a stadium and a system that allows new fans to get to our home games then we cannot realistically grow the fan base. When I was a kid, we could get around 45k in the ground, so it was always easy to attend a home game.
Without a doubt in my mind, a 38k plus capacity stadium will bring benefits to the club in the long term.
The Premiership has huge interest and the club currently are unable to capitalise on it.

 

[jt64]

Makes you wonder how many fans have thought fuck it this loyalty points system is shit. so that's me done ain't going to bother anymore.

I'd put the under/over for that as the number of goals Conor Sammon scored for us

 

[John Street West Terrace]

Another factor that has had impact on attendances particularly in recent times has been the emergence of IPTV , I know a lot of lads who used to go who now opt to watch it via this with the cost of living crisis I do get this 100% but I have to honest and say others could definitely afford to go but still choose this option.
With regards the distribution of Sky money & using this for re-investment in ground improvements etc . I was listening to a football finance expert on the radio a month or so ago saying that of 80% of the Sky revenue is used on players wages now in the PL , so unless you’ve got a rich benefactor that doesn’t leave much to carry out redevelopments unless you choose not to invest in the playing staff .

 

[Houston_Blade]

Now imagine the Blades redevelop and increase capacity and a Birmingham City fan is writing a similar set of excuses. In fact, they've seen your post and just copy it wholesale and add in Sheffield United as the latest club to redevleop:

Sheffield United - historically quite well supported club now in second recent spell in Prem leading to growth in attendances - from a 1.2 million conurbation with no local competition.

It's a better 'excuse' than most of those listed.

What expansion would you suggest on that basis?

 

[BornOnShorehamStreet]

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.

1947 to the late 60s when the population was 70/80,000 is when they had a large percentage of fans actually in the ground. They were Div 1 champs in 1960 I think and Turf Moor was almost as difficult to get points as Anfield in the 60s.

 

[nopigfansintown]

I was thinking about this the other day. All the smaller clubs who were an example of how to run a club in the premier League from when I first started watching are the championship at best with a few good examples in league 1. There are always new small clubs on the scene who make a good go of it but will eventually fall back down if they don't grow as a club.
I want to be one of them clubs that no matter how bad they seem will always end up back in the premier League. When villa went down, west ham or Newcastle the question was always when they will go back up not if. Just like us in our current state is a question of when will we get relagated. Good teams come and go, the stadium, training facilities, academy and fan income is what sets clubs apart in the long term.

Bang on. I asked the same question/made the same point earlier in the thread. This is already evidenced post Shirecliffe and post new stands at BL. That's the major reason we've dominated Sheffield over most of the last 20 years despite numerous bad transfers and managerial appointments. The pigs are the only club to gave had a big benefactor in that time.

 

[BarcaBlade]

What expansion would you suggest on that basis?

I wasn't really entering into the suggested expansion argument as the answer is zero right now. We don't have any money. I only read your post and it got me thinking that those aren't great 'excuses'.

If we did have the money, as many have said on the thread already, there's the ideal of being able to incrementally expand, which would allow the stadium to remain full and justify potential further expansion at a later date, pitched against the fact that that would be an unrealistic and costly approach to take, as well as leading to less than optimal facilities compared to knocking the whole thing down and starting again, which obviously can't be done because we'd lose the momentum of a growing fanbase...and leads to the suggestion that we move to that patch of land opposite the Queen's Moat House Hotel on the ring road.

I'd expand to closer to 40,000 if we did have the money and means, mainly because it would mean I'd have no problem getting a ticket for myself and my feckless Czech relatives who have all decided they now want to come with me to Sheffield for a game. They probably don't realise that Chelsea have reverted to being a minor club so will be happy if I can get them a ticket for that. The Czechs love Chelsea.

Just to be clear. I'll tell the Czech relatives they should have come with me to the game against Crewe when they had the chance before I would ever advocate leaving the Lane.

 

[Houston_Blade]

I wasn't really entering into the suggested expansion argument as the answer is zero right now. We don't have any money. I only read your post and it got me thinking that those aren't great 'excuses'.

If we did have the money, as many have said on the thread already, there's the ideal of being able to incrementally expand, which would allow the stadium to remain full and justify potential further expansion at a later date, pitched against the fact that that would be an unrealistic and costly approach to take, as well as leading to less than optimal facilities compared to knocking the whole thing down and starting again, which obviously can't be done because we'd lose the momentum of a growing fanbase...and leads to the suggestion that we move to that patch of land opposite the Queen's Moat House Hotel on the ring road.

I'd expand to closer to 40,000 if we did have the money and means, mainly because it would mean I'd have no problem getting a ticket for myself and my feckless Czech relatives who have all decided they now want to come with me to Sheffield for a game. They probably don't realise that Chelsea have reverted to being a minor club so will be happy if I can get them a ticket for that. The Czechs love Chelsea.

Just to be clear. I'll tell the Czech relatives they should have come with me to the game against Crewe when they had the chance before I would ever advocate leaving the Lane.

I just mentioned on SB but if the problem is getting more Blades into the ground then why not re-home the away fans to either one of the side stands or the corner between the Kop and JSS?

The away allocations in the PL are derisory so we need to get on the same page as others and sell to our own fans where we can.

People will use 'segregation' as an excuse but other teams manage it with a breezeblock wall and a line of stewards.

 

[Ron_Justice]

Come on, think big.

 

[PaulHalfway]

If the kop was extended and improved what is the cost say 15 million, take a loan over 15 years
The increases capacity of say 4000 seats and much improved catering area would contribute towards the annual mortgage payment
Sounds like a no brainer really, but this stand desperately needs sorting at some point
Rest of the ground is fine at the moment

 

[reedy63]

Unless we get a billionaire to take over. how are we going to afford ground redevelopment and buy players who can keep us in the premier league? at the same time.
The kop needs to be done.is it me or am I getting old? the steps up to the back of the Kop from john street it,s like climbing Mount Everest. fucking knackered when reach the gangway at the top. my excuse I,m 65. used to love running up the steps of john st side on the old Kop.when I was a kid mid-1960,s early 1970,s.so what do you prefer a team to keep us in the Premier League or ground redevelopment? my answer is a team to keep us up. the redevelopment.

 

[reedy63]

Then redevelopment. I mean.

 

[Ndiayewillalwaysloveyou]

So pigs can fetch in 33k twice this season (League 1) but we won't be able to fetch in more than 31.8k in the Premier league after averaging 29k in the division below? (If the capacity increased a couple of thousand)

Ok

 

[RWE]

Just seen a video of Upton Park’s last match on Twitter today which got me thinking I’d be very happy if we just got rid of the posts on the kop and maybe added some cover/concourse area at the back. Bramall lane is so historical and unique, I’d hate to have a ground that is too big for us, love it when it’s packed out and rocking. If we had years of that consistently then extending the kop or south stand would be ideal but for now I don’t think much needs doing IMO. Imagine moving from Bramall Lane to a fucking bowl stadium like West Ham, must be heartbreaking for them tbf.

 

[Ndiayewillalwaysloveyou]

Mate we sold out twice in the premier league the other year, once against man u and the other on boxing day, and I'll add to that we were genuinely chasing a European spot throughout that season. Not sure how we would get thousands more to go, Our crowds are absolutely superb because I don't believe we have that many more fans, so the amount that actually go is a brilliant turnout.

Why aren't you mentioning Liverpool at home? (Our biggest attendance)

And all your post is bollocks

 

[Blademan18891889]

Why aren't you mentioning Liverpool at home? (Our biggest attendance)

And all your post is bollocks

Our biggest attendance was man utd at home , 250 more people than against Liverpool at home which by the way wasn't even the 2nd biggest attendance, that was Brighton at home. And we did only completely sell out twice too. So before you claim my post is bollox, try checking the facts.

 

[bladesmanluke]

Come on, think big.

View attachment 160029

View attachment 160030

That looks at a push, 35k

 

[Ndiayewillalwaysloveyou]

Our biggest attendance was man utd at home , 250 more people than against Liverpool at home which by the way wasn't even the 2nd biggest attendance, that was Brighton at home. And we did only completely sell out twice too. So before you claim my post is bollox, try checking the facts.

Highest home attendance

31,774 (vs. Liverpool, 28 September 2019)​

Plus how are you going to sell out EVERY single seat to be a sell out? Fans aren't going to sit alone most of the time. A bigger ground would fetch in bigger crowds.