The Kraken

To be fair, Brighton does have a reputation for being a place where plenty of 'pieces get breached.

We don't have a membership scheme down here at St. Mary's any more.

Of course you're right it's all about who the opposition is. It always was the case in the Premier League against the top sides, and it always will be in whichever division we find ourselves in. Not necessarily to all fans of course, but to what I'd consider the majority, of course it does.

Reebox Stadium JJB/DW Stadium Amex (it's at Falmer but never been referred to as Falmer Stadium, as far as I'm aware) Ricoh Arena So there have been a few stadia built where it's only ever been known by the sponsor's name. But you're right, even if it doesn't have a "localised" name, locals will always be tempted to give their own name to a stadium, whoever the sponsor; if St. Mary's had just been called The Friends Provident stadium then fans would still have called it St. Mary's. If it had been at Stoneham I'm sure it would have been referred to as Stoneham, even if that wasn't ever in the name at all. How many city fans call their's Etihad stadium now? The naming rights issue is one that's never going to please everyone; it's a fantastic money spinner for a club, but it's also a bit corporate and lacking in personality. The St. James park thing though, it'll never quite catch on, just because you can't change that much history. Changing sponsor names works, because it's just a sponsor. Newcastle are now almost trying to deny their location, and with a massively reactionary fan base I can't see too many companies wanting to come in and run roughshod over all that. I think it's probably just a ruse for Mike Ashley to get his tacky Sports Direct brand plastered even more over the ground, plus of course a bit more national exposure.

ok

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: Would only come down to the era of the ref; that's a good one Stud.

Solent Blue Line buses hold 76 passengers, according to their website. 76 passengers at £12 per person = £912 per bus. 42 buses for a 3,200 capacity = £38,304. Not a bad little money spinner.

I very much agree with this; it takes very little to issue a "sorry, we have no comment". It's the likes of Jordan Sibley's job to speak (or not speak) on behalf of the club; he's all very eager to use his personal twitter to publicise SFC events and news. Yet far too coy/lazy/arrogant/something else to issue a very simple explanation as to why a respected member of the journalistic press cannot have the access or quotes he might require. Of course, while we're riding high it's really not an issue; the fortunes of the team will ensure we attract a lot of positive publicity. But still, there's no reason a flunkie like Sibley or whoever else couldn't have just said "Sorry Paul, but it's not club policy to comment on any newspaper editorials at this time". While we don't have to work with the press, I fail to see a positive result from working against them.

Just because we don't know all the details, it doesn't mean the club didn't know them. The management at the Dell had year on year figures relating to costs, revenues, waiting lists etc. We also moved because there were more issues than just normal ticket price, not least one of which was the installation of exec boxes etc that we previously didn't have, so we were able to tap into a huge revenue stream that we had been previously only been able to exploit to a minor degree. The financial incentive to move from the dell was clear at the time; it's much less clear to expand right now. And as my previous post should have told you, I'm not ruling out speculating with a bigger ground in future, far from it. Just hoping for proper due diligence to be done before we commit to it.

Gushing? Poor choice of words, if you don't mind me saying. I'm not asking for prices to go up at all; if anything the opposite. If we do get to the Premier League, and if we do find that prices are up towards £45 per game, then I for one will be attending far, far less frequently than I have been doing in the past few years. But I do accept that's the commercial reality of it; we were paying up to £35 for a ticket when last in the Premier League so it's naive to suggest we won't see prices in excess of that this time round. And yes, I'm aware of the other benefits that you mention of additional numbers would bring, and I agree with you. There would also of course be additional costs incurred, such as stewarding, staffing, utlities etc etc, but again you're right, it's far from a black and white issue. Don't think that I'm against ground expansion in theory; I'm absolutely not, and would love to see a need for it. And if my argument comes across as ultra-defensive, then it's just because I thoroughly don't understand the logic of bypassing most good business sense for the costly and premature expansion of a stadium when no-one really has a clue whether it'll be needed or not, and if it is to what extent.

I'm pretty sure he won't be given another chance. There was a radio interview with Adkins about Puncheon when we first binned him out on loan and Adkins was absolutely adamant that he'd never come back under him.

Yes, of course it's what the fans would prefer; but often what the fans would prefer, and what the club deems best in its interests, do not always go hand in hand. Look at Manchester Utd, they've undergone massive price rises in recent years which fans are up in arms about, yet from a business point of view they still sell out every week. So, and again from purely a business perspective, they have it right, whilst admittedly not adhering to the will of the fans in line with pricing. A 40K+ st Mary's stadium comes with a massive cost implication; absolutely massive. So if the club can first achieve the same/similar revenues without having the risk of shelling out many millions on a ground expansion, they would be crazy not to do so. I may not like that as a fan, but I do accept it as a commercial reality. And if further expansion is still vindicated on the back of that, then that is the time to approach it. If 32,000 people won't regularly pay inflated prices (and I'm only talking in line with other Premier league clubs), then there's an argument to be made that the demand for a bigger stadium just isn't as strong as some feel.

It's simple, and it's also the tried and tested method of virtually all clubs that get promoted. Norwich being a prime point in case; they've always been a team who have been relatively cheap to follow, but this year has seen a huge jump in price for match day tickets to the top games now coming in at £45 per ticket. Thankfully we seem to have a chairman who is not as completely naive and blinkered in the world of business as MLG appears to be; and I'm satisfied and confident that the sensible option of "increase prices then wait and see what happens for a few years" is the model that we'll see applied here if we do gain promotion, rather than some half-baked d*ck-measuring race for a massive stadium.

Really? I very much doubt that, even if there are toilets, they will actually be open. In any case, there are various rumours doing the rounds that it won't actually be coaches, but double decker buses being used, so the club can maximise the number of fans per vehicle and therefore minimise the total number of vehicles.

Did you read what I wrote? It was announced when we built the stadium that it would cost £3K per extra seat. In ten years, inflation has had an effect. Yet more constant speculation, and no reliance on any facts. I'll help you out with a comparison, a stadium much like ours, Sunderland's stadium of light. Built in 1997, the original stadium with 42,000 seats cost £16M to build. An additional tier of 7,000 seats in 2000 cost an additional £7M. Almost half the original cost.

Rather than speculating constantly, how about you provide some figures? The quoted figure when we were built was £1K per seat then, £3K per seat per addition. That was nearly 10 years ago; inflation, increased material costs, increased staffing costs, means that's gone up. But please, do provide us with your figures.

I'm not going more into this, other than to re-iterate what I previously said I heard about there being a "pot of money" identified for a number of projects which, upon restoration to the PL, would add value and provide a return on investment. Based on Wolves' figures of £6,000 per extra seat and your previous claims we should build up to a 50K stadium (18,000 extra seats x £6,000 per seat = £108M). You said 45K+ plus in this thread, you've said 50K before. Oh, and about West Ham; their £2M per year is pretty much "business rate payments". Which every club who owns a ground has to pay, to some level. All their tenancy agreement does is effectively give them a free stadium and then they have to pay running costs etc as other clubs who own their stadiums do. Including us. If we then got a loan for your £100M (even £50M), then we'd we paying well in excess of that. On that note, I'm now signing off on this thread, because it's descended into farce.

From what I understand of it, that's all part of the previous deal, which has been totally ripped up. So they're now just looking at an extended tenancy agreement, rather than shared ownership. Which means that once West Ham move in, they're under no obligation to do anything with their old site other than what they want to.

The running costs for the Olympic stadium is £5M a year; of which West Ham will only be committed to pay £2M a year. So yes, I'm dismissive of £2M a year when that stadium costs £5M a year to run. Please stop using analogies that make no sense. West Ham's annual contribution will probably barely cover the business rates dues on the site.

The training ground is, from what I'm led to believe, financed from a "pot of money" provided upon takeover that would, amongst other things, assist on a return to and within the Premier League; and therefore at such a point the return on investment would cover the cost outlayed. It's also a fraction of the cost you're looking at for a stadium. £50M on an unprecedented stadium that by your own words we can only fill by immediately discounting tickets and giving them away for free is not the same. There is no similar return on investment. Actually, I'm doing you a dis-service; you don't think a 40K stadium is what we're looking at, you think 45K - 50K don't you? So that's not £50M at all, that's closer to £100M. Just so we've got our facts and figures correct.

Actually they may not pay anything up front for the stadium; they won't own it, they will lease it. £35M has been set aside in public monet to convert the Olympic Stadium to a stadium fit for purpose after the games, whatever that may be. West Ham will (it's only rumoured for now) only incur a £2M per year tenancy charge. and will be able to sell their old ground; a tidy little profit for the porn barons. So nothing like our situation whatsoever.

What makes you think they're just going to give us £50M? Especially if they take your business plan of having to discount prices immediately and give away thousands of free tickets. They're successful business people and would recognise your idea as the hair-brained lunacy it truly is.

That's all very nice in your little make-believe world, but it still makes absolutely no business or commerical sense whatsoever. If you expend £50M, you want/need to see the quickest return on expenditure possible. If that is not going to be possible (and in your example you're saying it isn't), then it isn't a worthwhile investment to make. How would you secure funding for this venture? "Excuse me, I want to borrow £50M, but you won't begin to see a return on investment for at least another 10 years". Oh, and by the way, we're instantly going to be discounting everything! With a business plan like that you wouldn't find a bank or investor in the country to side with you, in fact you'd get laughed at.

West Ham are in a completely different situation to us: they won't own the ground, they won't even pay a fee for the new stadium, they will pay £2M a year to lease it; the amount of seats on offer is fixed; they're not looking to pay an enormous sum to get comparitiviely just a few more seats. They're making the most a massively Government-funded opportunity; it's an entirely irrelevant comparison. There is absolutely no commerical sense whatsoever in spending £50M on a bigger stadium, only to have to give seats away or discount them in order to fill the stadium.

Not this one again MLG; it's an utterly ridiculous argument. Why would you spend £50M on a new stadium expansion just to give free or massively reduced prices on tickets, and thereby not actually get your expenditure back? You wouldn't, it makes utterly no business sense whatsoever.