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How big a ground do you need to be able to compete in the PL

I notice 3 of last nights games had 50k+ crowds and not playing at home there are West Ham, Newcastle and Man Utd with grounds that hold that or even more. Add in WHL when it’s finished and that’s 7 clubs with big grounds which they regularly fill. I used to think when we were a PL club that you needed a 40k capacity in order to compete but now it looks like even that is on the small size. Clubs will obviously have good or exceptional seasons, Leicester for instance, but they are not going to be able to consistently compete long term. Chelsea are still up there but even with the money available to them the are starting to look like also rans against the teams around them that have the bigger ground capacity. Having a big capacity clearly doesn’t guarantee success, Newcastle and Sunderland for instance, but that probably says more about their ownership.
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  • edited February 2019
    Edit: If you cant be bothered to read my post then just read Beds above which is shorter and more to the point ;)

    I refer to what Bayern Munich once said... We could charge Premier League prices for tickets yet whats an extra £2m to us

    Ultimately I dont think it matters on the size of the ground in the Premier League; if TV Revenue wasnt so much then I'd say the Stadium was important

    Just take Bournemouth for example; they've finished 9th | 12th | 12th in their last three seasons with the smallest (?) ground in Premier League history
  • Gotta be 20,000 minimum 
  • With TV money it doesn’t matter how big your ground is . Just look at Bournemouth 
    I love how people forget, or don't mention, that Bournemouth have Russian oligarch funding them.  

    But the point is true, with out external funding you could, with good managment and recruitment, survive with a C30k ground.  To thrive with out external funding about 80k ground, near on a billion "fans" World wide and an official noodle partner in every country. 
  • Cafc43v3r said:
    With TV money it doesn’t matter how big your ground is . Just look at Bournemouth 
    I love how people forget, or don't mention, that Bournemouth have Russian oligarch funding them.  

    But the point is true, with out external funding you could, with good managment and recruitment, survive with a C30k ground.  To thrive with out external funding about 80k ground, near on a billion "fans" World wide and an official noodle partner in every country. 
    Could say that about all Premier League clubs; unfortunately the reach the top flight now you have to spend

    Burnley a probably a better example than Bournemouth then

    third smallest attendance, one of the few clubs in the top two tiers with British owners... Got a spot in Europe last season
  • Edit: If you cant be bothered to read my post then just read Beds above which is shorter and more to the point ;)

    I refer to what Bayern Munich once said... We could charge Premier League prices for tickets yet whats an extra £2m to us

    Ultimately I dont think it matters on the size of the ground in the Premier League; if TV Revenue wasnt so much then I'd say the Stadium was important

    Just take Bournemouth for example; they've finished 9th | 12th | 12th in their last three seasons with the smallest (?) ground in Premier League history
    Can't remember the exact quote but I think in 2017 that 6 Premier League clubs could have not sold a single ticket and still made a profit!
  • Each season is worth around £180m to a premier league club

    TV rights, sponsorship and prize money

    I think that is before tickets are even considered
  • Cafc43v3r said:
    With TV money it doesn’t matter how big your ground is . Just look at Bournemouth 
    I love how people forget, or don't mention, that Bournemouth have Russian oligarch funding them.  

    But the point is true, with out external funding you could, with good managment and recruitment, survive with a C30k ground.  To thrive with out external funding about 80k ground, near on a billion "fans" World wide and an official noodle partner in every country. 
    Well, if you believe Gareth Bacon, the Conservative Assembly Member for Bexley, Borisfanboy, and official Gullivan/Brady apologist, West Ham could play on Hackney Marshes and it wouldn't make much difference to their finances. Like everything Gareth Bacon says (and I have met him) it is clever but completely mendacious bollocks, however he said that on the record in an Assembly meeting and nobody contradicted him.

    The truth is  more nuanced. For example, what Gullivan really wanted, and got, from the OS was a big hospitality capacity, that is very profitable and they are -disgracefully - allowed to keep 100% of that revenue. The Valley's big weakness as an FAPL stadium is exactly that it has a low capacity fro prawn-sandwich customers. Again, this is relatively more important in London than in say Burnley, as the market for prawn-sandwich fans is bigger for a London club. 

    Otherwise 27,000 capacity is just fine in the FAPL. It is after all bigger than that of many clubs who were playing in the Europa League last week. The biggest stadium in the Czech Republic (Slavia Prague, now the de facto national stadium, where England will play in October) is 21,000.
  • cafc-west said:
    Edit: If you cant be bothered to read my post then just read Beds above which is shorter and more to the point ;)

    I refer to what Bayern Munich once said... We could charge Premier League prices for tickets yet whats an extra £2m to us

    Ultimately I dont think it matters on the size of the ground in the Premier League; if TV Revenue wasnt so much then I'd say the Stadium was important

    Just take Bournemouth for example; they've finished 9th | 12th | 12th in their last three seasons with the smallest (?) ground in Premier League history
    Can't remember the exact quote but I think in 2017 that 6 Premier League clubs could have not sold a single ticket and still made a profit!
    In 2016-17 finances showed that 11 of the 20 clubs could've played in front of zero fans all season and still made a profit
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  • No regulations about ground capacity is there?

    Bournemouth's ground holds about 11,000 and they have no plans to expand.

  • cafc-west said:
    Edit: If you cant be bothered to read my post then just read Beds above which is shorter and more to the point ;)

    I refer to what Bayern Munich once said... We could charge Premier League prices for tickets yet whats an extra £2m to us

    Ultimately I dont think it matters on the size of the ground in the Premier League; if TV Revenue wasnt so much then I'd say the Stadium was important

    Just take Bournemouth for example; they've finished 9th | 12th | 12th in their last three seasons with the smallest (?) ground in Premier League history
    Can't remember the exact quote but I think in 2017 that 6 Premier League clubs could have not sold a single ticket and still made a profit!

    It was 11 out of the 20 that would still have made a profit if zero tickets had been sold.
  • Wouldn't worry too much, it will never involve us.
  • No regulations about ground capacity is there?

    Bournemouth's ground holds about 11,000 and they have no plans to expand.

    Probably because like most smaller clubs in the PL they know they are just treading water until the season they get relegated.
  • edited February 2019
    With TV money it doesn’t matter how big your ground is . The ticket money is a small percentage of income nowadays . Just look at Bournemouth 
    This old chestnut is a long way from reality. Bournemouth are starting to struggle a bit this season, however that is not the main factor .. 
    Who would want to go to a 20,30 40, 50 thousand capacity stadium and sit amongst an attendance of 2,3,4 thousand ? .. I have been to the 60,000 capacity Valley and been amongst the faithful (or daft) 3,4,000 who bothered to attend, it's almost soul destroying. Why are Spurs investing million upon million in their new stadium ?
    To say that the millions to be made from ticket sales along with programmes, catering, sales from the club shop, the increasing amount of football tourism, corporate hospitality and such is irrelevant to the football business is just not so.
    The idea that football be effectively played behind closed doors with canned crowd noise for the exclusive pleasure of TV viewers is just tosh. The fans make football, the noise, the jeers, the chants the applause. Mere TV viewing with canned applause could never replace the experience of attending a game along with thousands of other like minded people.
    Football with few or no spectators at the 'ground' would be like the 'Trueman Show', a plastic version of reality.
    American football is arguably the most televised sport on the planet. It is played in huge stadia before thousands of fans and this despite blanket coverage on tv and radio. The US owners are forever building temple like stadia with even more capacity than their existing ones.
    Football, all spectator sport is not just about money, it's about the experience. Canny businessmen who own the majority of professional sports teams know this. These men both love the money and the game and as I typed above, the notion that they would forego the millions from attended games and just take the cash from TV and radio rights is just wrong wrong and wrong 
  • It needs to be bigger than the pitch
  • With TV money it doesn’t matter how big your ground is . The ticket money is a small percentage of income nowadays . Just look at Bournemouth 
     Why are Spurs investing million upon million in their new stadium ?



    to sell cheese?

  • Read on BBC Sport this morning that QPR could be moving to a 45,000 capacity stadium which is part of a £400m development. Not sure they could fill that.

    You need spectators in the ground, it creates an atmosphere. For example our home game against Sunderland, big ground, lots of noise just seems to make the game better or should I say the matchday experience.
  • With decent owners 27 111 seemed to have a fair amount of success in the not to distant past.
  • Always wondered what sort of crowds we might've got in the Premier League if we'd had a huge ground. I reckon with some cheap option terrace tickets, we could've got 40,000 for quite a few of the games.
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  • iaitch said:
    Read on BBC Sport this morning that QPR could be moving to a 45,000 capacity stadium which is part of a £400m development. Not sure they could fill that.

    You need spectators in the ground, it creates an atmosphere. For example our home game against Sunderland, big ground, lots of noise just seems to make the game better or should I say the matchday experience.
    The long-term proposals to redevelop the Old Oak Common area could change all that for QPR. (That said, it's not as if we've been able to capitalise on Greenwich Peninsula shooting up over the past few years.)
  • With TV money it doesn’t matter how big your ground is . The ticket money is a small percentage of income nowadays . Just look at Bournemouth 
    This old chestnut is a long way from reality. Bournemouth are starting to struggle a bit this season, however that is not the main factor .. 
    Who would want to go to a 20,30 40, 50 thousand capacity stadium and sit amongst an attendance of 2,3,4 thousand ? .. I have been to the 60,000 capacity Valley and been amongst the faithful (or daft) 3,4,000 who bothered to attend, it's almost soul destroying. Why are Spurs investing million upon million in their new stadium ?
    To say that the millions to be made from ticket sales along with programmes, catering, sales from the club shop, the increasing amount of football tourism, corporate hospitality and such is irrelevant to the football business is just not so.
    The idea that football be effectively played behind closed doors with canned crowd noise for the exclusive pleasure of TV viewers is just tosh. The fans make football, the noise, the jeers, the chants the applause. Mere TV viewing with canned applause could never replace the experience of attending a game along with thousands of other like minded people.
    Football with few or no spectators at the 'ground' would be like the 'Trueman Show', a plastic version of reality.
    American football is arguably the most televised sport on the planet. It is played in huge stadia before thousands of fans and this despite blanket coverage on tv and radio. The US owners are forever building temple like stadia with even more capacity than their existing ones.
    Football, all spectator sport is not just about money, it's about the experience. Canny businessmen who own the majority of professional sports teams know this. These men both love the money and the game and as I typed above, the notion that they would forego the millions from attended games and just take the cash from TV and radio rights is just wrong wrong and wrong 
    12th in the premier league, just 6 points off 7th and safe from relegation by early Feb. I wish we were struggling like them.
  • With decent owners 27 111 seemed to have a fair amount of success in the not to distant past.
    A temporary stay in the PL isn’t really a success. We didn’t even manage to qualify for Europe or reach a cup final and like a lot of other small ‘treading water’ clubs in that league what money the club made was spent trying, unsuccessfully, to keep us up. We haven’t been back since, yet.
  • With decent owners 27 111 seemed to have a fair amount of success in the not to distant past.
    A temporary stay in the PL isn’t really a success. We didn’t even manage to qualify for Europe or reach a cup final and like a lot of other small ‘treading water’ clubs in that league what money the club made was spent trying, unsuccessfully, to keep us up. We haven’t been back since, yet.
    Agreed, making up the numbers isn’t a success. 
  • edited February 2019
    With decent owners 27 111 seemed to have a fair amount of success in the not to distant past.
    A temporary stay in the PL isn’t really a success. We didn’t even manage to qualify for Europe or reach a cup final and like a lot of other small ‘treading water’ clubs in that league what money the club made was spent trying, unsuccessfully, to keep us up. We haven’t been back since, yet.
    Agreed, making up the numbers isn’t a success. 
    The target every year was to get to 40 points and stay up; and a ‘PL team is going to win the cup so why shouldn’t it be us’...and we all know how that last strategy worked out 

    it was great being in the PL but let’s not kid ourselves, we were always too small to do anything but make up the numbers for a few years until the inevitable relegation happened. The day the ground expansion plans halted was probably the turning point
  • With decent owners 27 111 seemed to have a fair amount of success in the not to distant past.
    A temporary stay in the PL isn’t really a success. We didn’t even manage to qualify for Europe or reach a cup final and like a lot of other small ‘treading water’ clubs in that league what money the club made was spent trying, unsuccessfully, to keep us up. We haven’t been back since, yet.
    It's not all about the size of the ground though 
    Sunderland 
    Newcastle 
    Leeds 
    Sheffield United 
    Sheffield Wednesday 
    Wolves 
    Etc etc Etc 
    Have all spent conciderable time outside of the top flight with large grounds.
    Sky money and sponsorships  count far more than stadium size. 
  • With TV money it doesn’t matter how big your ground is . The ticket money is a small percentage of income nowadays . Just look at Bournemouth 
    This old chestnut is a long way from reality. Bournemouth are starting to struggle a bit this season, however that is not the main factor .. 
    Who would want to go to a 20,30 40, 50 thousand capacity stadium and sit amongst an attendance of 2,3,4 thousand ? .. I have been to the 60,000 capacity Valley and been amongst the faithful (or daft) 3,4,000 who bothered to attend, it's almost soul destroying. Why are Spurs investing million upon million in their new stadium ?
    To say that the millions to be made from ticket sales along with programmes, catering, sales from the club shop, the increasing amount of football tourism, corporate hospitality and such is irrelevant to the football business is just not so.
    The idea that football be effectively played behind closed doors with canned crowd noise for the exclusive pleasure of TV viewers is just tosh. The fans make football, the noise, the jeers, the chants the applause. Mere TV viewing with canned applause could never replace the experience of attending a game along with thousands of other like minded people.
    Football with few or no spectators at the 'ground' would be like the 'Trueman Show', a plastic version of reality.
    American football is arguably the most televised sport on the planet. It is played in huge stadia before thousands of fans and this despite blanket coverage on tv and radio. The US owners are forever building temple like stadia with even more capacity than their existing ones.
    Football, all spectator sport is not just about money, it's about the experience. Canny businessmen who own the majority of professional sports teams know this. These men both love the money and the game and as I typed above, the notion that they would forego the millions from attended games and just take the cash from TV and radio rights is just wrong wrong and wrong 

    With TV money it doesn’t matter how big your ground is . The ticket money is a small percentage of income nowadays . Just look at Bournemouth 
    This old chestnut is a long way from reality. Bournemouth are starting to struggle a bit this season, however that is not the main factor .. 
    Who would want to go to a 20,30 40, 50 thousand capacity stadium and sit amongst an attendance of 2,3,4 thousand ? .. I have been to the 60,000 capacity Valley and been amongst the faithful (or daft) 3,4,000 who bothered to attend, it's almost soul destroying. Why are Spurs investing million upon million in their new stadium ?
    To say that the millions to be made from ticket sales along with programmes, catering, sales from the club shop, the increasing amount of football tourism, corporate hospitality and such is irrelevant to the football business is just not so.
    The idea that football be effectively played behind closed doors with canned crowd noise for the exclusive pleasure of TV viewers is just tosh. The fans make football, the noise, the jeers, the chants the applause. Mere TV viewing with canned applause could never replace the experience of attending a game along with thousands of other like minded people.
    Football with few or no spectators at the 'ground' would be like the 'Trueman Show', a plastic version of reality.
    American football is arguably the most televised sport on the planet. It is played in huge stadia before thousands of fans and this despite blanket coverage on tv and radio. The US owners are forever building temple like stadia with even more capacity than their existing ones.
    Football, all spectator sport is not just about money, it's about the experience. Canny businessmen who own the majority of professional sports teams know this. These men both love the money and the game and as I typed above, the notion that they would forego the millions from attended games and just take the cash from TV and radio rights is just wrong wrong and wrong 
    You say it’s an old Chestnut but It’s still absolutely right .

    Were did you get the idea that football is going to be played behind closed doors with canned applause ? 

  • With decent owners 27 111 seemed to have a fair amount of success in the not to distant past.
    A temporary stay in the PL isn’t really a success. We didn’t even manage to qualify for Europe or reach a cup final and like a lot of other small ‘treading water’ clubs in that league what money the club made was spent trying, unsuccessfully, to keep us up. We haven’t been back since, yet.
    Agreed, making up the numbers isn’t a success. 
    The target every year was to get to 40 points and stay up; and a ‘PL team is going to win the cup so why shouldn’t it be us’...and we all know how that last strategy worked out 

    it was great being in the PL but let’s not kid ourselves, we were always too small to do anything but make up the numbers for a few years until the inevitable relegation happened. The day the ground expansion plans halted was probably the turning point
    .............which for a club of our size was an incredible success.

    However i disagree we just made up the numbers. If we hadn't sold Parker we'd likely have got into Europe that season, then who knows what could've happened from there. Might have only been for 1 season, but we might have grown, got a 40k stadium and been perennial 7-10th placers. Who knows.
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