16465 crowd V's Spurs - very poor = Hopefully lesson learnt David Mcnally!

[Miss Jane Marple 0]

I think, my dears, there are far too many red herrings on this board. But there it is.

 

[Bill 1,788]

"Another observation I made was that there were different faces amongst the season ticket seats around me yesterday"

 

I''m not sure nutty if this is what you are meaning but I know of a number who have season tickets to enable them to go to the big games. Not only does this work out about the same cost as a casual ticket, but it guarantees them a seat.

 

Some pass them on to friends, family or in one instance I do know rotate them amongst his staff. The only other connecting point amongst them is that I don''t remember the ones, I know of for certain, ever went to games way back, or even fairly recently.

 

I wonder how long they would keep those tickets were we to be relegated

 

 

[nutty nigel 7,527]

Yes and there are some, not so many, who sell the seat for big games thus recouping the cost of the season ticket.

 

People used to have season tickets because they were supporters who went to every game. Now people have season tickets to ensure they can attend the big games.

 

 

 

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="Miss Jane Marple"]

I think, my dears, there are far too many red herrings on this board. But there it is.

 

[/quote]

Can''t have too many  herrings Miss Jane.  Perhaps you and me should get together and try some on my boat down at Yarmouth.   I caught some fresh yesterday, up just off Cromer.      How''s about it?  Fresh herrings and an evening with Cap''n Haddock - how can you resist?? 

[Webbo118 0]

[quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]Be honest, a lot of people didn''t go to the Villa Cup game because, amongst financial reasons, they could only see Norwich losing, there wasn''t the belief. In fact, I bet we would have sold more tickets if this game had come up during our two promotion seasons. As for increasing capacity, there are risks on spare capacity reintroducing selective attendance. That said, the expansion of Carrow Road cannot simply be a financial decision any more than a transfer fee is. It is very much a civic ambition. Costs can be mitigated by naming rights and by making the building multi use although this is tough in a recession. We surely need new dressing rooms and spectator facilities in this stand as well as proper team benches so it isn''t just about the seats.[/quote]

Have I missed something?

[pete_norw 0]

[quote user="Webbo118"]

[quote user="RUDOLPH HUCKER"]Be honest, a lot of people didn''t go to the Villa Cup game because, amongst financial reasons, they could only see Norwich losing, there wasn''t the belief. In fact, I bet we would have sold more tickets if this game had come up during our two promotion seasons. As for increasing capacity, there are risks on spare capacity reintroducing selective attendance. That said, the expansion of Carrow Road cannot simply be a financial decision any more than a transfer fee is. It is very much a civic ambition. Costs can be mitigated by naming rights and by making the building multi use although this is tough in a recession. We surely need new dressing rooms and spectator facilities in this stand as well as proper team benches so it isn''t just about the seats.[/quote]

Have I missed something?

[/quote]

Have a guess.

[Bill 1,788]

"Have I missed something?"

 

yes

 

earlier in the thread there was reference to when we played Villa in the cup and league in 4 days - and why the two attendances were different

 

 

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

Call it a senior moment.

[Webbo118 0]

It - a senior moment.

[Jim Smith 2,317]

[quote user="City1st"]

You haven''t quite grasped this have you Kingsway. You talk of increasing the ground capacity as if it were a piece of knicker elsatic that can be stretched as you please. 35,000, 32.000 or in fact ''any expansion to 30,000+''.

 

In the real world any expansion will be brought about by adding another tier on top of an existing stand, or pulling down a stand and completely rebuiling it. The most likely would be rebuilding the main stand. Putting in 8000 seats there would cost around £20m,

 

That would give us an extra 4000 seats (roughly a seventh more than now). A seventh more in ticket income would be therefore be generated. However that presumes that ticket sales are as high there as now ie all season tickets sold, virtually all casual season tickets also sold. Even that would only generate around £1.6m. If the loan is to be paid over £10 years the capital payments would be £2m a year alone and the interest most likely around £1.5m per year, averaged out over the 10 years.

 

Yes there will be extra food/drink profits but they will have to offset the extra stewarding costs and the £1.4m loss in revenue from the Main stand members having to be seated elsewhere, per season.

 

We have pretty much reached our peak numbers wise. Yes ''big'' games will always have a high demand, way above supply as it will never be cost effective to built seating for those few games. Much of the talk on here is about how the club are putting the prices up too high, yet the whole cost of any ground expansion is based on those prices being maintained, if not actually increased.

 

The last two home games have pretty much blown away much of the nonsense about the ground needing to expand becato fit in the 8000 plus fans clamouring to get into Carrow Road. Maybe some of those still deluded might now care to tell the rest of us how this will be funded.

 

 

 

Yesterday and Wedsnesday should have woke up a few.

[/quote]

 

Whilst the crowds for the last two games have indeed raised a few question marks City First a few comments:

1. Would it really cost £20m to build a new stand? I know thats what bowkett said in headline terms but sounds an awaful lot to me.

2. Would all the finance definitely have to be borrowed? For example if we stayed up for 2 more seasons then with the ever increasing tv money it occurs to me that some money could be set aside without it having too catastrophic an impact on the football budget.

3. I don;t think its outrageous to say that we could/would have sold 3000 more tickets for Stoke had we had senisble ticket prices. Theu would have brought more fans for starters and i think most people will have been put off by the ticket prices on saturday. Those prices for Stoke at home were ridiculous.

The big unknown in this whole debate is how many season ticket holders would still have season tickets if we had a larger capacity because certainly in recent times having a season ticket has been the only way to guarantee getting a ticket to any match at Carrow Road due to the limitations of the capacity. If we have another 5,000 seats, the interesting question would be how many of those season ticket holders would decide not to renew on the basis that they feel that they can just buy tickets for games as and when they wish to attend. I''m not really sure that either the Spurs game or the Stoke game offer much assistance on that point other than perhaps to suggest that if season tickets remain good value, thus incentivising fans to keep them, fans would be more likely to renew their season tickets rather than have to pay the casual prices.

[PurpleCanary 5,556]

[quote user="Jim Smith"]

1. Would it really cost £20m to build a new stand? I know thats what bowkett said in headline terms but sounds an awaful lot to me.

 

[/quote]

 

Jim, as a guide it cost £9.2m to knock down the South Stand and build an 8,000-seat stand there. With inflation that presumably would cost a fair bit more now. Also - without knowing anything about building - I wonder if the logistics of knocking down the City Stand and rebuilding there are more difficult, and so more expensive, because the site would be hemmed in by Koblenz  Avenue, or whatever it is called at that point. There was plenty of space at the back of the South Stand/Jarrold.

The other point is that it has never been clear, as far as I am aware, whether the increase by 7,000 or 8,000 would be entirely achieved by a mega-City Stand seating 11,000 or 12,000 people (which would make it much bigger than the Jarrold) or whether it would be roughly the same size as the Jarrold, with a few thousand seats being created elsewhere, possibly in upper infills with the Barclay and the River End.

The figure that Bowkett/McNally gave was £2,500 per seat, which neatly produces a figure of £20m for 8,000 new seats, and they said the obvious plan was the expand the City Stand. But I don''t think they ever specified that it would provide all the extra seats. I gather than infills are much more expensive per seat than what are called straight-line stands (to which I assume the £2,500 figure refers), and don''t provide many seats anyway. One reason why the old regime didn''t infill between the Jarrold and the Barclay.

[Bill 1,788]

Would it really cost £20m to build a new stand?  I''m not sure either if that is a fair price. If it is not, it is merely a indication of how the club is trying to distance themselves from this idea.

 

Would all the finance definitely have to be borrowed?  Possibly not, but it would then put us at a further disadvantage to other clubs.

 

"we could/would have sold 3000 more tickets for Stoke had we had senisble ticket prices" What are ''sensible'' prices ? You think they should be lowered, but that takes us back to the massive flaw in the argument for building a new stand. There IS NOT the surplus of demand required, at the prices required, to pay for the redevelopment.

 

On your last point, you may have rather got it the wrong way round. The club would not lose out much were fans to stop being season ticket holders and bought on a casual basis as those tickets can be priced high for the games wanted. The really big unknown is how many of the casual fans might become season ticket holders, thus removing the demand for casual tickets and so driving down the price.

 

However way to look at it, attendances are very much price driven. Something that, up to recently, was denied emphatically on here - hence the extreme worth of the Spurs and Stoke games as indicators of that. We are also in the ''real second season'' syndrom whereby the novelty of being in the Premier League has worn off, and for some, games against the likes of Stoke, Wigan and Reading do not hold any great attraction, likewise these type of teams do not bring that many away fans, or have many ''plastic fans'' living nearby either.

 

I think we would need to see at least another couple of seasons to see how that pans out. Sure, we could sell 35,000 tickets if the price was ''sensible'' enough, but what seems to be overlooked by others on here is that you cannot simply drop prices in the new stand, they would have to be across the board which would have a quite hefty impact of income.

 

I can only wonder what the howls on here would be were the club to divert money from the playing budget to build the new stand and we were to get relegated - not necessarily a consequence, but one that many would claim.

 

 

ps one final question, where would you put the 4000 or so Main Stand season ticket holders, and would the club be able to cancel current season tickets to accomodate them ?

 

 

 

 

[RvWs 4 year contract 0]

[quote user="nutty nigel"]

 Those who went to the Spurs game are this season''s hardcore.

 

 

[/quote]Good news for me then....[:P]

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="City1st"]ps one final question, where would you put the 4000 or so Main Stand season ticket holders, and would the club be able to cancel current season tickets to accomodate them ?[/quote]There''s a simple solution City 1st. It''s generally assumed it will take a year to complete a new stand so......Reverse the last two home fixtures of the season and the two at the beginning of the following season giving at least an extra month either side of the close season (with international breaks this will stretch to almost six months), ensure every single component is on site and ready for when the whistle blows in the final home match, double the workforce and machinery and the jobs a good un. Simples! [8-|]

[Bill 1,788]

yes, what a wonderful reply

 

shame it didn''t actually address the question, so

 

...........where would you put the 4000 or so Main Stand season ticket holders, and would the club be able to cancel current season tickets to accomodate them ?

 

 

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="City1st"]...........where would you put the 4000 or so Main Stand season ticket holders, and would the club be able to cancel current season tickets to accomodate them ?[/quote]Read it again City 1st.....you wouldn''t need to put them anywhere. Doh! [;)]

[nutty nigel 7,527]

[quote user="City1st"]

yes, what a wonderful reply

 

shame it didn''t actually address the question, so

 

...........where would you put the 4000 or so Main Stand season ticket holders, and would the club be able to cancel current season tickets to accomodate them ?

 

 

[/quote]

 

I know the answer to that..

 

First of all we''ll put a new Doll''s House right in the middle of the South Stand for "Delia and the boys". We''ll add those dethroned season ticket holders to the 4,000 displaced from the Main Stand. Then we''ll have an allocation system where all season ticket holders apply for the remaining seats in the ground. The allocation groups will be as follows. Group One - current ST holders with ticket stubs from all the first three Capital Cup games this season. Group Two - ST holders with ticket stubs from 2 of the games and Group Three - ST holders with stubs from jut 1 game. The remaining seats, with 500 left for casual sales, will go to a ballot for ST holders with no stubs from these games. The 500 casual tickets will be on general sale for which the balloted out ST holders will have first option. The will be priced on a graded system which has a starting point of £999.99 for Stoke at home. God bless you Mr McNally Sir!

 

 

[Bill 1,788]

"it will take a year to complete a new stand"

 

with international breaks this will stretch to almost six months

 

yep, I can see the last game of the season being changed - it''s that easy .. no shades of Coventry v Everton 1985, no policing problems either, whereby any of those games might be against Spurs, Everton, Man City etc, no wondering why the rebuilding of the South Stand could not be done so quickly

 

"double the workforce and machinery"

 

now that is a cracker, maybe if they increased the workforce twenty fold they could build a new stand in the fortnight between games, or half time come to that .... just a case of getting the club to "ensure every single component is on site and ready" and enough workers ready to start

 

 

 

 

[Jim Smith 2,317]

Well we would either have to do what we did previously and get dispensation to reduce the away allocation or we would have to find a creative solution.

I am not a construction expert but it surely cannot be beyond the realms of possibility for them to come up with a way of building a new tier above the City stand in order to expand capacity whilst keeping the existing stand open during (at least most of) the project. Existing stand then becomes the lower tier. I''m not sure if it has been proven to be an old woves tale but wasn;t it previously claimed that the existing stand had been designed with that future possibility in mind. I am aware that this would involve stopping up the road and, depending on the land ownership position, might also involve some cost of land acquisition so that would all have to be looked at carefully.

I''m not advocating doing this for at least 2 years though if we do it at all!

PS City First - i think the club would ultimately be worse off if season ticket holders didn''t keep their ST''s and bought casual tickets as I think the ultimate result would be that many of those season ticket holders would lose the habit of going and would end up only going a handful of tims a season if the ticket prices continue rising as they are. They will, however, keep going tio most games for as long as they have a season ticket because (i) they''ve already committed to paying for it and (ii) its still reasonable value. 

[Miss Jane Marple 0]

[quote user="Captain Haddocks Fish Supper"]

Can''t have too many  herrings Miss Jane.  Perhaps you and me should get together and try some on my boat down at Yarmouth.   I caught some fresh yesterday, up just off Cromer.      How''s about it?  Fresh herrings and an evening with Cap''n Haddock - how can you resist?? 



[/quote]

 

My dear Captain haddock, how forward of you!

I actually prefer a nice piece of fresh haddock. You may have read that story about me called ''The Thumb Mark of St Peter''. That will explain why. 

[kingsway 94]

The Board have long ago said that a complete new City stand would be better than building an upper tier above the now ageing City stand with its 1980''s facilities!

 

Anyway whos to say this stand will be done first?

 

I''d of thought that it would make more sense to build an upper tier above the Jarold stand cause I''d of thought it would be possible to do this without any reduction in capacity?

 

Back to the issue this threads about -. Steve Gedges piece on the Spurs ticketing in todays EDP was spot on like nearly everything he comments on in his excellent column in todays pink un!

 

Last weeks ATT for the Spurs game was proof the ticket prices were overpriced end of story and thankfully we''ve now got realistic prices for the Villa cup game!

 

Sensible ticket prices, without the current complete abuse of the grading system with only the League games against the top clubs given the top A category billing and value for money ST''s could see Norwich City FC enjoy 30-33,000 average crowds in the top flight I think!

 

Those against stadium expansion should note that its very possible with the above ethics on ticketing applyed for the club to average 5000+ more than what they currently do in a 35,000 stadium. now 5000X an average of £20 a ticket (which would most likely in reality be more than that)= £100,000 extra income from ticket sales per game. Then multiply this by 19 (the amount of home League games) = £1,900,000 extra income from ticket sales per season. This doesn''t include extra sales of programmes, club merchandise, car park income and refrshment income!

 

Now averaging an extra 5000 per game is possible when you consider how crowds have increased since the 1990''s when none of us not even myself would of ever envisaged it!

 

The new TV deal starting next season when (if we''re still about the Premiership scene) our income will go up from £48M to £70M, combined with the club becoming debt free means that stadium expansion is possible without having an adverse effect on the playing budget or the clubs overall financial well being. The club would of expanded the ground in a similar manner when we were Premiership in 2004/05 but for finances and likewise the Jarold stand would of been built in the mid 1990''s had we remained in the top flight at that period!

 

Stadium expansion goes hand in hand with growing the club to levels I and many others feel its capable of getting to!

Well the only way we''ll find out if I''m right or if the anti stadium brigade are right is if the club does take the plunge and increase the capacity. I''m looking forward to the day but won''t believe it till it happens!

[nutty nigel 7,527]

Now I like a bet but am not a big punter. The most I''ve ever risked is £20. But I''d stake a ton that if we build a new stand we will be relegated within 2 seasons. The money for the stand can only come from the playing budget. Whichever way you spin it that''s where it will come from.

 

Now to go on to your other point Kingsway - I couldn''t care less what miserable old Steve Gedge says. He just writes opinions in the newspaper like others write opinions on here. He is not the font of all knowledge and writes what people want to read in order to sell newspapers. Are you seriously telling me that a fiver is the difference between you staying at home and going to the game? Honestly?

 

 

[Bill 1,788]

"Those against stadium expansion"

 

eh ! Who has stated that they are against any expansion. What has been pointed out is that it will be a drain on the clubs resources. Fine if we are in the PL, but a few million in the Championship could be crippling. Or perhaps you could point out where someone has stated that they are ''anti-stadium'', because I am happy to point out where I have posted up the I am in favour of a bigger stadium.

 

"now 5000X an average of £20 a ticket (which would most likely in reality be more than that)= £100,000 extra income from ticket sales per game. Then multiply this by 19 (the amount of home League games) = £1,900,000 extra income from ticket sales per season"

 

Are you totally mad !

 

Because in your loony world you would have the current casual tickets also sold at £20 Or do you envisage those who currently buy a ticket at £55 will continue to do so whilst the 5000 newbies and glory hunters will get in for £20 ?  The £30 losses on each those original casual tickets will wipe away one and a half of your new tickets.  Which at the moment would pretty much knock out most of that £1.9m. Even taking your nonsensical figures at face value they will not even pay the interest on the loan.

 

"extra sales of programmes, club merchandise, car park income and refrshment income"

 

Have you any idea how little these make in relative terms, more so when you factor in the extra stewarding/staff costs ?Perhaps you might also care to tell us all where this extra car parking space will be.

 

 

 

 

 

[kingsway 94]

Yes Iam a loony which is why I supprt Norwich City and why I spend time on here trying to expand the wisdom of others!!!!

 

For a start I think the correct adult price for the Spurs League cup game last week should of been £15 the same as I paid to watch two Champions League in friendlies during the pre season. That said I''d of paid £20 but £30 was ridiculous, a point proven by the low crowd!

 

The 5000 extra fans on average I envisage would include season ticket holders, kids and OAP''s so I just used the £20 per ticket average as the lowest denominator. I did state it would probably be more than £20!!!

 

The "lowest denominator figure comes up with £1.9M extra income which in reality would probably be more than that!

 

Like I said in my last post we''ll see whos correct when/if the stadium gets made bigger!

 

 

[kingsway 94]

Oh and by the way, Steve Gedge speaks more sense than most do on here!

[nutty nigel 7,527]

Keep buying the paper then.

 

There''s some really good posters on here who''s opinions I value much more than Steve "my glass is two thirds empty" Gedge.

 

 

[Bill 1,788]

The actual figure for 5000 fans at todays ticket prices is around £2.14m - which is the over the total season income divided by attendances.  The problem for you there is that the figure is based on current ticket prices ie £55 casual tickets. How many fans would be left to buy those tickets if there were another 5000 or so more seats ? We had around 700 empty seats on Saturday, how many more would there be with an extra 5000 seats ?

 

 

If you think there are another 5000 fans out there who will pay the current prices then clearly you are a loony. It is also highly unlikely that the £2.14m figure would ever cover the loan. The interest perhaps but not the capital. Where is the extra car parking going to come from, on top of the new South Stand tier, perhaps ?

 

 

ps I wouldn''t hold your breath just yet in regard to ground expansion, there''s too many old farts who not only object to being turfed out of their seats in the Main Stand, but are expressing strong objections to subsidisng a bunch of glory hunters.

 

 

[blahblahblah 2]

Speaking as a casual, I''d rather pick and choose my games, get in when I can get a ticket and afford to go, and have a competitive team to watch.  It took several seasons to for on-pitch spending to get back to a competitive level when the Jarrold Stand was built, and that was a neccesity.

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

New stands are like children; if you wait until you can afford them you would never have them.

 

How many times, there cannot be a purely financial case to build a new stand other than with a long term view and in football that is very difficult to take.

 

This is about other things such as prestige; size of gates attracting advertising and investing; new facilities inside the stand and atmosphere.

 

New builds relegate clubs but standing still degenerates in the longer term hence grand old dames of football sit in the lower leagues with huge overhalls of facilities needed and wholly unacheivable.

 

Reinvest profits or pay tax on them, isn''t that right Tangy?

[nutty nigel 7,527]

You make a very good point Rudolph. And I agree with you. And for me the Premier League isn''t the be all and end all of everything. But there needs to be an acceptance that if we build a new stand the risks are failure on the pitch. It''s always been so which is why Norwich have never built a stand until they had to. Of course we could get relegated whilst channeling all the revenue into the first team. But the new stand would make it more likely. For me odds on.

 

But you like I have enjoyed supporting Norwich in succesful and unsuccesful seasons. Most of those seasons we have managed to enjoy ourselves and those memories we treasure don''t revolve around playing the top clubs. However at the recent fans forum both Bowkett and McNally coveted Premiership football next season above anything. The big bucks involved make it an absolute must in their eyes. And I can''t see that changing the next season or the next. So unless they change priorities I can''t see them taking any risks unless the Sky gravy train runs dry and grinds to a halt.