CB Fry

We're not Sunderland in 1995. More recently Sunderland blew our average attendance out of the water last time they were in the second tier. Sunderland historically have a history of far bigger attendances than we have ever had. We're not Sunderland in 1995 who were moving out of an old tired stadium to a new one. We're not Sunderland in 1995. We are not Sunderland in 1995. Season tickets are, aside from television revenues, the single most important revenue stream for any club. Being that TV revenues below the Prem are middling to poor, season ticket revenues are the single most important revenue stream for every club below the top tier. I don't care what you think about Sunderland in 1995, it's a pi ss weak response to a pretty universal truth in football. The fact you need to pick away at it shows how pathetic and petty you are.

First off - that comment is not a statement presented as fact. It's a comment proceeded with the word "I think". It's my opinion expressed on a message board. Everything I type on here is my opinion. So just to summarise your theory here - we need a bigger stadium so people that are too busy to have season tickets and go to games have the flexibility to not go to games. Season tickets, I am afraid, is the be all and end all. As much as the footings in the ground, they are base foundation of a stadium, a fan base, a balance sheet and a football club.

If you think a Man U ticket in a 32k stadium will cost the same as one in a 45k stadium you're off your head. In a stadium that big I think I'd be able to decide to go to that game on the morning of the game and drive the three hours from my house safe in the knowledge I'd get one. Sorry you people can't just keep airily parrotting "its supply and demand innit" and then apply any old cockeyed theory to it. I tell you what , lets see if we sell 20k+ plus season tickets. That's DEMAND. Or a waiting list for season tickets. Thats DEMAND. Lets see if we have no tickets on general sale for any game. Thats DEMAND. No one wants to wait for any of this to get to even close to happening. Just blinkered build-it build-it build-it foam hand waving delusion. Babbling on about chucking seats up and then talking about slashing prices in order to fill them, and at the same time passing on offer related rebates to season ticket holders to keep them sweet.....if you can't see any flawed logic then dismissive claptrap is all I've got for you sunshine.

So your gold silver bronze (which exists up and down the country and has done for at least twenty years, byt thanks for painstakingly explaining it like it was String Theory)...anyway your system there means everyone getting cheaper tickets. Another name on the list for Wes Tender who seems to be obsessed by that point. Thanks for being there.

Plenty are talking about reducing prices mate.

What, apart from the people talking about the Bundesliga model, the people talking about reducing ticket prices all over this thread. I don't see swathes of caveats from them about "BUT NOT FOR EVERYONE". So really I have no idea what point you are desperately scratching around for. If ticket prices are going to come down in this wonderful vision, then they will come down for everyone, that is the justification for expansion from pretty much every supporter on this thread. Truly, truly mental.

Exactly how do you put ticket decreases through but not for everyone? Do tell because I have seen the uproar on here from ST holders when special offers are announced.

1. Yes, MLG has suggested it before, and yes it always comes up. 2. Oh, I see, just cheaper tickets for the 20,000 new people. Of course, silly me. The original fans just carry on paying as normal. Fair enough then.

Pompey did not try an "exclusivity model" they just didn't bother investing in their stadium. Apple do control supply as part of their model. If Ipads were stacked high in the foyer of Asda at £200 a pop (true universal supply) they'd sell a hell of a lot more than they do now, but they wouldn't make anywhere near as profitably, and long term probably prove to be an error. Pursuing exclusivity in football clubs is actually very sensible. One factor in selling season tickets is that it is a guaranteed seat for the Man United game. If the stadium was so big that Man U tickets could be snapped up by wandering up on the day before, a key incentive to buy a season ticket is gone. Don't underrate exclusivity in football my old son. And maintaining a premium on tickets is also vital. All the bright sparks on here seem determined to massively downvalue cost per seat but this is madness from a business point of view. And building permanent seating on a football stadium is not the same as Tesco or Sainsbury's "planning for an upswing in demand", those flipping seats are there and will be there forever once they are in. I'll repeat again, most businesses including Tesco do not go out to sell as much of their thing as humanly possible. They sell as much as they can as profitably as possible. Massive, massive difference. Churning and churning and churning out more product than anyone really wants is not a sustainable business model. Funnily enough, a 32,000 stadium with 30,000 people paying £50/£55 a ticket probably is perfectly sustainable (after all, their is MASSIVE demand out there according to the geniuses on here) and requires zero capital expenditure whatsoever, so all that cash on the pitch. Lovely.

Just remembered Cortese's big idea this season to increase gates for unattractive games. It was to force people to buy a second ticket at full price if they wanted to buy a derby game ticket. Which is as far from " kids for quid because children are the fans of the future" as you can possibly get. We may be planning to expand sometime. But people need to forget the idea that we are doing it to make tickets cheaper for everyone.

Lets all remember that , this season, with 6,000 odd seats to fill for many games, there has been little, essentially none at all, in the way of "flexible pricing" to increase gates. Why you people think Cortese is going to spend fifteen million quid on seats and THEN introduce it I struggle to understand. Lots of talk about increased burger sales in the Cortesedome but again not a something we went for this season when we had ample opportunity. Any ideas, geniuses?

Well, I am debating the cost of the infrastructure development, because it would cost a lot of money. You don't need to be a "master" of ecomics to understand that. And what any sensible business does not do is establish the need by spending a load of money on infrastructure and hoping.

Sensible comment alert. Unfortunately you will be set upon by simpletons who have decided that anyone saying anything they don't agree with must upload their CV and have it compared to a millionaire.

Folk don't have the spare cash at £40+ a ticket and there are empty seats, so lets spend lots more money on new seats and charge less for them. Yes Frank, that is, without doubt, simple economics. Christ almighty.

Of course people have loyalty to a football club, that's why price hikes work, and running it like a discount airline would be ridiculous. And of course, how silly of me. He's waiting until we get to the biggest league in the world, and waiting until we've spent £xx million on a gigantic capital expenditure project and then he'll start devaluing the product. Of course he will. My qualifications is I understand supply and demand better than most of you divs on here, including you. You seem to think you are channelling Nicola Cortese's thoughts butyou have absolutely no idea he is planning reducing ticket prices to attract the kids on any kind of regular basis or that he looks at the club like a BMIBaby. Don't ever forget that you are speculating just as much as me sunshine.

That's funny, when have I ever said anyhthing about St Mary's being too big, "my logic" is not being applied in your stupid example. There are still people on here that say we should have moved to Stoneham (25k) and there was an absolute torrent of people saying that after we were relegated and they watched Pompey storm up the league with no infrastructure whatsoever - plenty then were saying our ground was too big for us then. Increasing the £ per seat in the Premier League on zero revenue is a far, far, far, far lower risk than spunking god knows how much on capital expenditure on infrastructure that we may or may not need. All the "risk" is in your suggestions, not mine. And managed, controlled supply is not "not very common" but it is very, very common. Most businesses I know do not go out to sell as much of their thing as is humanly possible. They go out to sell what they can make in the most profitable way possible. Apple could easily sell three times more ipads than they do now. But it almost certainly wouldn't make them more money. Controlled supply is a business principle in pretty much every walk of life from packets of crisps to Range Rovers. Why don't we have a 100,000 capacity stadium on £2 a seat? We can all make dopey extrapolations.

Tell your mate.

No it isn't. It's a way, but it is a freaking mental way. A more efficient way to do it is to see how many season tickets we can sell - is it 20,000 - not sure we have ever done that. Is it 24,000, which would be a really good indication of a maxed out stadium. Can we do that two seasons in a row. This may then tell us what our base level of support is. Another way is to put £5 on the ticket price. Then another £5. Then another £5. Lots of lovely cash to reinvest, and if we have this massive demand for tickets, no problem because all these fans just north of Basingstoke desperate to see us play Bolton on a Monday night will be ripping each others throats out for a ticket. Building additional seating as some kind of test to see how many fans we can fit in really really is mental beyond belief.

None of us really know what is being planned. Comparing a football club to a discount airline or hotel group really is nuts, unless the headcount costs of Easyjet is running at 93% of turnover. Those business are run as close to the bone as is humanly possible, a business model that is as far removed from a football club as you can possibly get. Being that we have been running massively under capacity this season, how come the club did so little to attract these little kiddie-winkie future supporters this season? We had 6,000 odd seats to play with for the last eight months or so to do just that. Why do we have to build seats to get these loyal supporters of the future through the door when we could have been aiming for maxing out the stadium with them this season? Just asking. Nothing in anything Cortese has so far done has shown a particular desire to devalue his product to bring people in, so I doubt that kids for a quid or anything like it is particularly on his radar. And I can question Cortese if I like, just like people on here question Adkins, or players, or previous managers, or polititians or anything. It's an internet message board, I'm dishing out opinions as creatively as I can to wind people like you up. So point and laugh, at you, I will.

Chill out. It's in the bag.

Fine. Just don't talk about it as 'competing' then. Massive stadium with loads of cheap tickets plus a construction bill to pay on top is not going to help us compete.

You're wasting your time my son. These people won't listen.Scarcity is one of reasons we'll sell lots of tickets for Bolton or whoever next season. The geniuses blathering on about 40k+ will tell you in all seriousness that we will fill it with slashing ticket prices and doing kids for a quid. When faced with spectacular logic like this, spending vast sums to drive over supply and value per seat DOWN, the only sensible thing to do is point and laugh. It's just nuts.

Signed one on Jan I think. Wouldn't rule out him going in summer.

I'd be amazed. Precisely the type of person we don't need and won't sign. Hungry and young not expensive and bloated. Defoe can go to Stoke, Villa or Sunderland. Or QPR if they stay up.