"However, CEO David Hopkinson said during a radio interview this week that the supply-demand modelling work the club have carried out would mean a new home of no bigger than 65-68,000. He also said that around another 10,000 could be added to St James"
https://archive.ph/5lfvA#selection-1339.0-1339.252
Depressing stuff and just as feared, a CEO takes all his inspiration from the NFL model of reduced capacity with high demand and high prices rather than letting as many fans in as possible.
As a fan from the midlands who hasn't been able to get to a game since the takeover this is especially depressing news. Feels like I've been locked out of watching my own club.
EDIT: Having watched the interview he says: "At least 10,000 more, all our modelling starts in the 65-68k range, I don't think bigger than that is good.
by jameswheeler9090
15 Comments
I think you’re reading into it too much
Wasnt there a season ticket waiting list of over 40,000? Surely it would be in the clubs financial interest to take advantage of that and build a larger stadium
He’s Canadian. Start with getting the facts right and we’ll work from there, eh?
That isn’t what he said.
Listen to the interview again.
They asked him how much SJP could be extended and he said somewhere in the 65-68k capacity mark.
Whoever paraphrased this interview lacks basic understanding.
You’ve been locked out of watching your own club by them increasing the capacity by 13-16k seats, ok
That was in reference to renovating the current stadium.
He also mentioned the idea of 75k in a new stadium.
Source, watched full interview yesterday.
Main thing is he says they haven’t made the decision yet which way to jump.
He also hinted if there is a new stadium it’s likely to be at Leazes because he talked about not moving far and not being in the middle of nowhere.
We know the options already, we just need the owners to work out which one is the best option.
It’s never been about local fans, it’s about the tourists and premium seats. They showed their hands during all the stadium surveys that were sent out showing all the huge lazyboy seat options in the prime locations around the stadium.
I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what people expect. More money = more growth. Hopkinson was brought in to grow the club as a business in the interest of the board and the ownership, naturally gate revenue is huge contributory factor of that. Of course it’s disappointing but it’s a necessary evil if we want to compete. It’s like the changing of the badge – yes, no one wants the badge to change, but when you break down their reasoning and the fact the hierarchy’s job is to grow the club’s revenue it makes total sense.
As I said, these are all evils but necessary evils. There is no point getting worked up or upset over it and railing against the club and its decisions on these sorts of matters. They’re not doing it to spite us or anything
It’s already documented that the club has been having numerous meetings and discussions through informal back channels to build on Leazes. They know it is the best solution but it carries a huge amount of political and legal risk, hence they cannot take chances with a pre-emptive public response/demonstration by going down more formal routes. They need to pre-emptively understand and plan for every council/legal/public response and have an answer for it. PIF are very good at this, they just need time. I think they’re going to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
Verbatim, he said 10-15k more.
He wants to keep a) the location (and there’s only so much you can do with the current space, largely due to the listed buildings) and b) to keep the atmosphere.
Putting 90k+ seats in there, leading to gaps if the opposition isn’t that enticing or we’re going through a bad patch, may actually be detrimental
https://www.reddit.com/r/NUFC/s/FT5I5KybcT full interview here
I don’t think it’s bad at all. Just going on what he said was a minimum expectation, St James’s would become the third highest capacity football stadium in the UK behind only Wembley and old Trafford.
Agree you could probably top 70k whilst maintaining a consistent full support, but the demand is extremely high right now with the club on the up and it may not always be that way. Football fans can be fickle and you need only look at the game on Wednesday to see the impact of too much supply. City were in a cup semi final with a two goal advantage and started free scoring, and the only atmosphere you could hear was coming from the travelling toon support.
If you gave me a choice of a 65k seater St James’s or a 75k new bowl, I think I’d stick with St James’s
If we expand to 65-68k we will sell out every single week. If we went to 75k, we’d probably have 10k empty seats in a load of games. Having a packed out stadium with demand is key. I’d be more than happy to have the 2nd biggest stadium in the country.
The maths for how big to build a stadium aren’t based solely on potential bums on seats for a game.
Modern stadiums have to be music venues, conference centres, hotels, shops, bars, restaurants etc, etc.
If you build a fucking mega stadium that’s too big can the local population in the area fill it? And fill it to regularly enough to pay the bills and costs of running the place?
Tottenham is wildly profitable because their stadium is in London. They make shit tons of money on gigs and events. But London has more people in it then the entire Northeast and Scotland combined.
We could have a huge concrete bowl with 120,000 capacity charging £10 a ticket, which would be great for us fans. But those days are gone, and they’re never coming back.
What I want is a bigger stadium with decent facilities and cheap beer. If that’s financially doable at 65-68-70 thousand then I’ll take it.
My understanding was that’s the maximum capacity of extending St James’ Park, which is understandable given the proximity to buildings and infrastructure in the surrounding area. A new stadium could potentially have a larger capacity, but again would be restricted for a city centre development.