Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Smudge

More Full Houses

Recommended Posts

A few weeks ago I posted a thread suggesting the new south stand was to small, a high percentage of people were quick to suggest otherwise, however with today''s announcement that the club is to break the 16,000 barrier in season ticket sales it seems I may have been closer to the mark than people thought. Lets look at the facts, the new stand when complete in February will bring the attendance to 24,000, of which up to 3000 will be away supporters leaving 5000 or less seats available to ''casual supporters & members''. Comparing this to last year 5000 tickets to ''casual supporters & members'' were sold weeks in advance leaving supporters who cannot be sure of attending until a few days before the game frustrated to say the least.
Before supporters reply to this thread it is worth bearing in mind that the games against West Ham, West Brom & Ipswich would be guaranteed 30,000 sellouts without question, 6000 additional tickets @ say £15 each would total £270,000 additional revenue, very handy money indeed. In a time when money in football is the key, Norwich it seems have simply missed the most obvious way of making it, instead the additional cost of re-construction of the second tier and the lost revenue in tickets sales from the last eight matches will prove a very costly mistake.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Given the perilous state of the clubs finances I wonder if the club have considered a method used by some Premiership teams to raise cash for ground development and signings. The idea is to use your history of season ticket sales to pay interest and capital on a loan. Effectively we would get the cash up front and securitise it with the future stream of season ticket sales. Now obviously we won''t be able to raise as much as Man City (who ironically are the only club I know who''ve done this so far) and the banks may be nervous about keeping this core support buying season tickets but surely it''s worth the board looking at.

I was surprised that the club did not go for the biggest stand possible and think the option not to complete the corner-in-fill was a real mistake (surely the costs are lower to get it all done as one project). We need to see the team perform on the pitch and we need seats to fill on the back of it, the two go hand in hand. If we could get both done at once through a cash injection then we''d be well on the way to making ourselves into a true Premiership club.

Go on Delia give you friendly Investment banker a call......

Any thoughts?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Exactly right Alastair, with the club borrowing £15m it would have made sense to complete the build in one go. It might well be a nice new stand but it is the revenue it could bring in that is the main aim.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
It was through a form of securatisation that City acquired the £15m loan. Others who have used this method are Leicester, Leeds, Bradford, Derby and the paupers from suffolk.

There seems to be a believe on this message board that if things don''t happen it is solely due to the club''s board not wanting it to happen.

Along with the acquisition of new players loans are a two way process. There is no guarantee that simply wanting a larger loan would have resulted in that loan being forthcoming.

While a 30,000 seater ground might seem a good idea the debt involved would be an awesome burden and could well put us out of business.

Sadly without Premiership football I doubt we would generate enough extra ticket sales to pay off the dent incurred. It would mean curtailing other spending or racking up an increasing debt. This is what happened with ipswich when you had the sight of Lord Sheepy appealing the the deluded multitudes to buy their season tickets with cash so the money did not automatically go to those who they borrowed the £25m.

Despite paying £4m they have yet to still begin to pay off that debt. First installment of £2m is in Sept 2004.

I think City have trod a very secure line between risk and return. Increasing the capacity yet still allowing enough money to bring in better players.

Until the absurd wage levels are shaken out of the system all clubs will have to tread carefully. It maybe a contributary reason behind what seems is a fairly tame Div 1 this season.

Steady as she goes is the watch word I''m afraid.




Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Its an interesting point. I suppose first off while you are correct that we were selling 5000 "casual tickets" that was largley because we had the cap on season tickets. We have sold just over 2500 of the 8 game tickets I believe, but you would have to imagine that a very large propotion of these are the same people who were having to buy tickets on a casual basis last season. Another key part in this is the situation regarding the away section. In the old South Stand, we had no option (due to seperation of fans at turnstiles, in the gantries etc) but to section off a large part of the normal away allocation area however few away fans turned up. The new stand will allow us to tailor the away section to the amount of away fans. For example, if a team only brings 1300 fans, we will now be able to fill up quite a large part of the rest of the normal away section with NCFC fans.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×
×
  • Create New...