[Albion] The Ambition to being Top 10 club.

[Brovion]

... The massive sponsorship deal with Amex will certainly give a healthy boost to the bank balance, ...

Did I miss this? Have our current deals with Amex been renewed?

 

[Albion Dan]

Yes. £100m over 12 years I think.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Did I miss this? Have our current deals with Amex been renewed?

Yes, to the tune of £100m+ (and 'the widest ranging sponsorship arrangement in world sport' apparently).
The deal is a TWELVE year deal though, so the figures are really not very big, in PL terms

 

[AmexRuislip]

I Love tony Bloom's ambition and vision for our club. I know the subject of our ground expansion is sometimes a subject that may sound like a broken record.
But, after Bloom revealed his plans for the future and Paul Barber mentioning the fact we have over 8,000 members on the season ticket waiting list.

Surely expansion cannot be ruled out indefinitely. Grounds grow to match the identity of the team.
The day Tony's dream becomes a reality. And that can't be far away given our progress.. I'm just feeling a bit shut out by the situation..

Is the club going to become just an expensive exclusive business. Only for those who have managed to be one of the lucky 27K or so STH.
The club pride themselves on being able to cater for as many supporters as they can. Is that philosaphy going to slowly become not possible as the club grows.

Any thoughts on Tony's ambition, and what we need to become to be a recognised top 10 club.

Weve won our first game in style v Watford in PL season 3.
We are way beyond being a top ten club JUST YET, we have to prove ourselves a bit more, aspire to the staying power of Bournemouth and Burnley, who were where we were way back, and are now established top ten PL sides.
Our stadia is ample for the club of our stature, just see how we get on with Mr Potter, and the dream will continue.

 

[Albion Dan]

We didn't break the bank to get into the Premier League, which is exactly what Poyet wanted Bloom to do. So in that respect yes, Poyet was right in what he said. He had a hissy fit about it and the rest is history.

Not sure I agree. We incurred a huge debt the two seasons leading to promotion and Bloom invested alot more under Hughton than he did with Poyet. At the time I think Bloom thought he could get us promoted on the cheap which ultimately collapsed as an experiment with the dire squad that Hyppia was left with. Fortunately Bloom seemed to realise at that point that the best way to get promoted was a combination of quality manager and squad. That being said I'm very glad he didn't give Poyet the money he wanted to spend and the situation flushed Gus out for the huge narcissist he is.

 

[Albion Dan]

Weve won our first game in style v Watford in PL season 3.
We are way beyond being a top ten club JUST YET, we have to prove ourselves a bit more, aspire to the staying power of Bournemouth and Burnley, who were where we were way back, and are now established top ten PL sides.
Our stadia is ample for the club of our stature, just see how we get on with Mr Potter, and the dream will continue.

I would say Burnley and Bournemouth are far from consistent top ten clubs. Both were challenged with relegation last season.

 

[Notters]

If we have serious ambitions of establishing ourselves as a top 10 club, we would need to be playing in a bigger stadium, simple as.

An expansion to 40,000 would be great if possible... but if we are a top half Premier League side in 10 years time, we would want to be playing in a 50-60k stadium ideally.

A significant expansion of the Amex is surely possible... but presumably it's a huge, expensive project. Not going to happen anytime soon. I suppose the plan is to try become a top 10 team first, and then worry about expanding.

It isn't simple as though is it? The only thing that matters now (in terms of clubs' ambition and potential) is mega rich owners.

 

[Easy 10]

Not sure I agree. We incurred a huge debt the two seasons leading to promotion and Bloom invested alot more under Hughton than he did with Poyet. At the time I think Bloom thought he could get us promoted on the cheap which ultimately collapsed as an experiment with the dire squad that Hyppia was left with. Fortunately Bloom seemed to realise at that point that the best way to get promoted was a combination of quality manager and squad. That being said I'm very glad he didn't give Poyet the money he wanted to spend and the situation flushed Gus out for the huge narcissist he is.

Our wagebill was the 9th biggest in the division the year we went up, and our record transfer fee paid was the £4m or so we shelled out for Shane Duffy. It wasn't exactly done on the cheap, but there were plenty of Championship clubs splashing a LOT more cash around than ourselves to get out of that league.

 

[Stat Brother]

It would be an absolute kick in the goolies if the council bent over backwards to provide the land and planning, as all it'll be able to see is the £££'s flooding into Sussex and the city.

 

[stewart_weir]

I Love tony Bloom's ambition and vision for our club. I know the subject of our ground expansion is sometimes a subject that may sound like a broken record.
But, after Bloom revealed his plans for the future and Paul Barber mentioning the fact we have over 8,000 members on the season ticket waiting list.

Surely expansion cannot be ruled out indefinitely. Grounds grow to match the identity of the team.
The day Tony's dream becomes a reality. And that can't be far away given our progress.. I'm just feeling a bit shut out by the situation..

Is the club going to become just an expensive exclusive business. Only for those who have managed to be one of the lucky 27K or so STH.
The club pride themselves on being able to cater for as many supporters as they can. Is that philosaphy going to slowly become not possible as the club grows.

Any thoughts on Tony's ambition, and what we need to become to be a recognised top 10 club.

Expansion isnt needed to become a top 10 club. Its not the attendance that brings in revenue its end of season position, cup runs and especially merchandising (worldwide) hence reason club want to start doing pre season foreign tours

 

[Triggaaar]

Surely expansion cannot be ruled out indefinitely. Grounds grow to match the identity of the team.

Grounds do indeed grow to match the identity of the team. Spurs just built a new stadium to match their standing as a top 6 club, with a ridiculous waiting list for season tickets. But how many decades were they at the old ground? We only just built the Amex, so we're not about to knock it down. Bloom has said his goal is to become a top 10 club, not a top 6 club, and even top 10 will take time (if we manage it at all). I don't expect our capacity to be changing significantly any time soon.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Weve won our first game in style v Watford in PL season 3.
We are way beyond being a top ten club JUST YET.

The 'Top 10' target, comes from statement by Bloom at the fans' forum, on THURSDAY. It isn't a reaction to one good win.

 

[Albumen]

Make the experience more entertaining by having the stadium revolve around the pitch. Each row slowly turning a different direction to the next making sure you are back in your area by the end of halves.

Imagine the amount of friends you'll make in the row in front.

 

[Stat Brother]

Expansion isnt needed to become a top 10 club. Its not the attendance that brings in revenue its end of season position, cup runs and especially merchandising (worldwide) hence reason club want to start doing pre season foreign tours

The club turned that down for this season.
But the new deal with AMEX will Shirley have us on the American east coast sooner rather than later.

 

[Triggaaar]

If we have serious ambitions of establishing ourselves as a top 10 club, we would need to be playing in a bigger stadium, simple as.

No we don't. The majority of our income comes from TV revenue, we don't need a big stadium for that.

An expansion to 40,000 would be great if possible... but if we are a top half Premier League side in 10 years time, we would want to be playing in a 50-60k stadium ideally.

We don't have 50-60 thousand fans who can attend every match. And just finishing mid table isn't going to suddenly make them flock from elsewhere.

 

[Albion Robster]

The club wants to put more premium seating in. Likely in the NE corner. We've known this for a while.

I wasn't aware of this plan from the club. What it 'premium seating' ? The seats in the North East are already in place, the club cannot reconfigure the pitch of the seat. Are you saying the NE corner get access to hospitality as per of their match day package? Just curious to know how the club can make more money from this area of the ground.

 

[LlcoolJ]

The 'Top 10' target, comes from statement by Bloom at the fans' forum, on THURSDAY. It isn't a reaction to one good win.

Yep. Plus he (and Barber) also pointed out that this is a very long term (10-15 years) target. I was very impressed with the interviews, sensible, grounded and realistic but also optimistic. We're in VERY good hands.

 

[SUIYHP]

We need to buy the site at Black Rock and get planning permission for a 50,000 seater stadium. Then we need to expand the Volks Railway to cope with the increase in demand and re-route the park and rides. It would be easier to get people ferried directly to Brighton station post match, you could line buses up on the a259 and plenty of people could just walk back to town. It's sustainable, it uses up the wasteland down there, reduces the demand on the trains and when it comes to the big European nights we can really intimidate the opposition coach on its approach to the stadium. Anfield Road style!

I know you're joking, but this sounds far too close to what the #twats tried to do with that monstrosity of a stadium proposal a few years back.

 

[oneillco]

It will be unless there's an infrastructure miracle.



Tickets still remain for the West Ham match on Saturday.

Was pretty easy to get them for the Man City game at the end of last season too.

I'm trying to figure out what you are implying; the West Ham match appears to be sold out on the official ticket site, and this is still the school summer holidays. The Man.City attendance was 30,662 (sell out due to segregation needs) despite a succession of terrible results at home, and our average was 30,462. We have 8,000 on the season ticket waiting list.

 

[AmexRuislip]

The 'Top 10' target, comes from statement by Bloom at the fans' forum, on THURSDAY. It isn't a reaction to one good win.

Ok I STAND CORRECTED oh wise one.
I was just commenting on the fact of us not running before walking.....