David Pleat reckons we would struggle to get fans if we hit the big time

[MACROBLUE]

Lets see if I can think of another seaside city, oh yes I think they call them BARCELONA nuff said.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

going away to cardidd, play offs last year and no mugs, and doing them 3-1 is no mean feat, were albion worth that scoreline ?

Most definitely. We completely dominated and looked like the home side. Shame about the penalty because in the words of Big Ron "they would have been lucky to get nil"

 

[trueblue]

But the thing is that matchday income is only a minority source of funds in the Premiership. The latest Times podcast included a discussion on club revenues, and they said that the big clubs (I think their examples were Man United and Man City) take only c25% of revenues from matchday income - the majority comes from broadcasting rights and sponsorship.

8 teams in the Prem last year averaged less than 30k attendance (5 less than 25k, and 2 less than 20k) and of those 6 (4,1) survived. So I'm not convinced that attendances are that crucial. I also don't think you can compare our crowds last time we were in the top flight to if we made it back in the short/medium term - crowds are on the whole much larger now anyway.

You're right about crowds not being the most important factor anyway. If they were, then a rugby league dominated town like Wigan would never have made it to the Premier League in the first place.

What makes me laugh though is that every single club mentioned on here as an example to follow has a massively rich owner who's been prepared to plough funds into the team - and not just a million here or there. We have a very rich owner obviously but with that much money to spare - who knows? TV revenue and sponsorship would only help to a limited extent as we have a very large brand new stadium to pay for (albeit on interest free terms - but surely that's going to swallow up a lot of the money unless TB converts to shares with a view to selling the whole club for a lot more at some point).

I could see us averaging 20-23000 in the PL with the occasional full house. Still, I'd be well happy with that.

 

[Gwylan]

What we DID 30 years ago is not APPLICABLE now, going to a match then was LITERALLY taking your life into your own hands. Going to places like Goodison and Maine Rd needed a HEALTH warning and if you GOT away from the game without at least BEING threatened you DID well.

I remember going to Goodison, stood in the home end and cheered for Brighton and no-one made any threats at all (the fact that I'd gone with about a dozen scousers may have had something to do with that though).

I'm pretty sure that Brighton could hold their own in the Premier League. The model I'd aspire to is Stoke: well-run team, not massive spenders by PL standards, good support and comfortable mid-table - I'd settle for that