12th Best Supported Club in Europe

http://www.talksport.co.uk/magazine/features/130215/top-20-best-supported-clubs-europe-revealed-where-does-your-clubs-averag-191763?p=8

It's all relative to the size of your stadium and what the capacity is.....however, what it does show is the huge amount of support from fans of German teams....incredible stats when you see how many German teams are in the top 10.

Look at Dortmund in at 2nd place....24,000 standing fans! Surely, that indicates that investment in 'bigger, more luxurious seating stands' is not necessary to dramatically increase turnover. FFP? Funny that, rip out some seats and go back to sections of the stadium that are standing only......and suddenly your revenue in potential doubled on match days.....the Germans hey? They have the strategy right!

This only opens up another debate:

Standing areas back again?

Me - i think it's time we relaxed the law on this and bring them back. It can only help PL clubs fighting in Europe over Platini's fucking ridiculous FFP rules.

Surprised about Milan !
Their stadium's nearly twice as big as ours

Maybe SMB will fill it

Not that it matters much, but I reckon the highest we could ever be is 8th.

With the FFP rules, I can only see our stadium capacity increasing by a few thousand. Even an extra 5k would bring in about £4M a year if we fill it out.

Come on Dawg....we could easily add another 20,000 if we made the South and West Stands into standing...keep the Colin Bell Stand for the fans who can afford it.....and keep the North Stand for family's.

67,000 easily.

We could build a 90,000 seater if we wanted to, but we need to fill it.

We are selling out every home league match but unless our performances and results pick up, I can see us dropping back to the previous years level where tickets were available up until late on for most matches in the first few months of the season.

Topdawg wrote:We could build a 90,000 seater if we wanted to, but we need to fill it.

We are selling out every home league match but unless our performances and results pick up, I can see us dropping back to the previous years level where tickets were available up until late on for most matches in the first few months of the season.

Nope...can't see that. I've tried on numerous occasions this year to get tickets...and yes, I could.....if I fancy the odd single ticket in any stand. Fathers want to take their kids to the game....even at short notice...but there are rarely any tickets available.

I reckon if we added 20,000 standing - at a reduced price.........most of the tickets would be snapped up IMO.

Standing HAS to come back......as much as we all have enormous sympathy for Liverpool fans and Hillsborough......that was over 2 decades ago.....and times HAVE changed.

Standing won't be coming back - at least for a few years.

If we had 20k tickets at a fiver each, I'm sure we'd sell them, but the club may not think it too worthwhile making the extra capacity for £2M a season. tenner a ticket makes it worth £4M a season which isn't too bad, but I think we need more cash than that.

Maybe with more corporate boxes involved we could get the numbers right in terms of extra income.

and some prawn sandwiches?

Standing tickets at £20 per match would equate to an extra £7-10m per season...add to that the corporate side, food, drinks, merchandise etc....and you can double it to £14 -£20m extra per season...which means an extra player or 2 players salary off the FFP.

Not only that..the atmosphere would be a lot better.

can't see us selling an extra 20k tickets at £20 a pop. remember, you are talking about 68,000 turning up to our home matches and I really can't see that without years of sustained success when you get the bandwagon jumpers (you know, the guys with 'BLUE' in the nickname).

Cheaper tickets will definitely increase support especially as times are hard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_attendances_of_European_football_clubs

Wow, we've jumped a few places since the end of last season....yet our average has gone down

The only reason German football is so popular is because they only charge 5 euors go get in.....ok 10 then.

Topdawg wrote:(you know, the guys with 'BLUE' in the nickname)

You Sir are a cad and a bounder !! I jumped on this bandwagon back in 1977