[Albion] Statement of Intent

[Easy 10]

To be fair though, i doubt Man City did, until...

We get a gazllionaire in charge and buy hazard and mbappe and de jong, win the champions league, we'll be hoovering up those Asian fans.

Obviously ridiculous, but man city fans would have said the same when they were in the third division. At some point its inevitable one of these hugely wealthy types will buy up a non-big 6 club and do a Blackburn Mk II.

Man City dipped into the 3rd division once - we've spent most of our entire history there. They have always been a far bigger club than BHA in terms of fansbase, infrastructure and success. The two clubs are in no way comparable historically - they've always had a bigger platform than BHA to become, well, what they've become. Same with Chelsea.

 

[Easy 10]

.....I don't want us to be. Last thing I want to do is go to a 60,000 seater stadium that's almost silent and full of tourists (yes, that's you Arsenal). Very happy with plans for steady, incremental progress - aim in the next few seasons has to be to get to a position where we can relatively comfortably survive in the PL, give the top 6 a bloody nose now and again, play some decent football, bring through our youngsters and have the occasional decent cup run. Any ambitions beyond that are donkey's years away for me (maybe not TB though)

Totally agree.
The OP has had a bit of a funny turn by the looks, and has done a fine job in feeding the "delusional Brighton" narrative for the goonsquad to use for the forseeable. As if we ALL think like that.

 

[Bakero]

Was chatting to my barber a month or two ago and his son was something like 8,026 on the waiting list.

You'd think Barber's son could jump the queue. Impressive anti-nepotism.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

It's been well documented that after the long war and wilderness years the club missed out on a generation of supporters. Before we moved into the Amex there were threads on here about what our likely regular crowd would be once we were at Falmer. A common response was 15, 16, 17 000, many said lower. No-one, as I remember, seriously contemplated regular crowds of 20 let alone 30,000. That was almost unimaginable. At the start of this season we had a waiting list of 8,000 for season tickets. It shows how far the club have come in under a decade. Who knows what the level of interest and support might be in another 5 or 10 years? It could go the other way and if we get relegated no doubt that would negatively impact the attendances but Bloom is in this for the long term so it's likely we'll see continued supporter growth. Personally I think it’s a shame the club can't expand the Amex by a few thousand.

 

[el punal]

It is clear that TB isn't in this for the short haul or, necessarily, to make a profit out of his ownership.

It's fairly clear that he sees retaining Premier League status as vital and it follows that they'll be ambitions beyond this going forward.

With our ground capacity set and limitations on the transport infrastructure what do we do next? Most "established" Premier League clubs have looked to or expanded their grounds and 60k seems to be the target, so would it be possible that we'd look to move again? I'd guess we'd never be able to expand The Amex on the current site to anywhere near 60,000.

You’ve answered your own question. A couple of years ago Tony Bloom was at an Albion fans forum in Bristol, prior to our match against City. He was asked about increasing the capacity at the Amex and was this possible? Tony replied that the structure of the stadium would allow for maybe only 100+ seats increase. He also stated that he would rather have a full stadium of 30,000 every game rather than a half empty one of 45,000.

If you think the transport links are poor, particularly the train side of it not only to/from Falmer - especially for evening fixtures, but also from Brighton to onward destinations, then imagine how that would pan out with an even larger attendance.

The fact is we are not a big club and that’s not going change anytime soon. We will not compete structure or status wise with the likes of Liverpool, Man City/Utd, Arsenal, Spurs etc. If you want to realistically categorise us then compare us with Southampton, Leicester, Norwich as examples.

As many have stated already, better to compete on the pitch with decent performances rather than consider a pie in the sky 60,000 stadium.

 

[BeHereNow]

The club would probably increase prices by quite a bit before contemplating increasing the capacity, if that’s even possible.

For big games we probably could get 35,000. It’s the games against the lesser teams I’d be worried about not getting close to a sell out. Who knows, attendances might start to drop after the novelty of the PL wears off, and then we definitely wouldn’t need the increase in capacity.

If we were to have a stadium that big, we would need a lot more younger fans and to do that we would need to lower prices. Even though it would grow the fanbase a lot quicker than it is now, and also guarantee a substantial generation of fans, the club won’t do it because it’s all about the money. I get that, the players don’t pay for themselves, but we also know that ticket income isn’t much in terms of a PL club’s income.

If possible, I think an increase of only about 1,000 would be sensible if our attendances hold up for next season. Saying that, if we got another 1,000 season ticket holders in, who would they be? (Mostly) JCL’s and two teamers probably. Going back to my original point, I would rather these season tickets were taken up by young, passionate fans. I bet there are loads out there, they just can’t afford it. Because of this situation, I worry that we are missing out on thousands of potential hardcore fans, so I don’t think we will ever need a 40,000+ stadium, let alone a 60,000 one.

 

[Hampster Gull]

65k?

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Planning permission refused; no intention to re-apply (or so I understand it).

How long is the waiting list now? Well over 5K isn't it?

6.8k last May


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[Rogero]

Entry money in the premier is only about 5 percent of a clubs income as most is to tv money.

 

[dingodan]

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Yes I know, the problem is it is over 500 characters so a moderator has to update it. I emailed them already to ask them to update for me!

Take out all the 19s and 20s.

 

[On the way]

Two years in the top tier and entitlement seeps in. God help us.

Unfortunately it has begun.

 

[blue-shifted]

OP.

Do you have any thoughts as to the location of this £60k all seater?

Just asking as some of those supporting 15 years ago might remember that getting permission for the stadium we've got wasn't exactly a cakewalk. There also wasn't an inexhaustible list of viable sites we could get planning permission on which had transport links and manageable environmental impact. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this

 

[b.w.2.]

OP.

Do you have any thoughts as to the location of this £60k all seater?

Just asking as some of those supporting 15 years ago might remember that getting permission for the stadium we've got wasn't exactly a cakewalk. There also wasn't an inexhaustible list of viable sites we could get planning permission on which had transport links and manageable environmental impact. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this

Stadium on a pontoon in the channel? Linked to the mainland via a monorail?


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[blue-shifted]

It's been well documented that after the long war and wilderness years the club missed out on a generation of supporters. Before we moved into the Amex there were threads on here about what our likely regular crowd would be once we were at Falmer. A common response was 15, 16, 17 000, many said lower. No-one, as I remember, seriously contemplated regular crowds of 20 let alone 30,000. That was almost unimaginable. At the start of this season we had a waiting list of 8,000 for season tickets. It shows how far the club have come in under a decade. Who knows what the level of interest and support might be in another 5 or 10 years? It could go the other way and if we get relegated no doubt that would negatively impact the attendances but Bloom is in this for the long term so it's likely we'll see continued supporter growth. Personally I think it’s a shame the club can't expand the Amex by a few thousand.

Yes, I remember Dick Knight at one of those town hall hearings in (probably) 2003 say that the finances for the new stadium were based on an average gate of 12k. At the time that seemed fanciful to me at least.

I don't agree that we are necessarily right sized, I think in a hypothetical world where we managed to put in another 10,000 seats at the amex, I think we'd be averaging 37/38k and often selling it out. In saying that I don't ignore the colossal infrastructure and transport challenges that would have to be overcome, but I believe there is loads more support we could be wringing out of the Sussex area if we had somewhere to put them.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

We need that monorail first.

 

[durrington gull]

A stadium of 40k max would be more than enough if we were going well in Prem

 

[FIVESTEPS]

With the biggest catchment area in the country of 1million,why not aspire to have the biggest crowd?

 

[Palacefinder General]

We need that monorail first.

More frickin' likely than us ever playing in a 60k stadium!

 

[Nixonator]

Stadium on a pontoon in the channel? Linked to the mainland via a monorail?


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Not a bad shout, we should jump on this, or off it.