Liberty Stadium Capacity To Be Increased

[Abertawe]

Good news, we'll soon be a legit PL club.

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Swansea City's expansion of the Liberty Stadium to cater for the huge demand for Premier League football has been given the go-ahead.

Councillors approved the club's plans to increase the stadium's capacity from just under 21,000 to 33,000.

A condition was imposed that a liaison group is set up comprising of councillors, the club and members of the local community.

It is the smallest ground in the Premier League.

There are more than 8,000 waiting for season tickets.

Swansea council had been recommended to approve the work, which will be carried out over three phases.

 

[ForeverUnited]

That'll be a big step for Swansea.

 

[JustinQPR]

A second tier all the way around? Or just on a side or two?

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Be very careful though because your still not really as such a premiership sized club.

a lot of your support is still glory-hunters enjoying the top flight experience.

Wigan I see have drifted into 10,000 crowd territory which I can see dropping into their 7-8,000 crowds if they drop into L1 then they go right back to the size of club they were in mid 90's.

Your doing well as a progressive club, but you could have a huge empty darlington style bowl if you got relegated with that huge increase.

 

[Whitechapel]

Good for Swansea. You might hear the home fans over the away in the near future. Top stuff.

 

[Madejski]

Have to agree with the Carlisle fan above, there will be thousands of fans attending games who are there for the Premier League experience.

I remember in 2007 when we had plans for a 38,000 stadium with an initial 30,000 because we were always selling our 24,000 allocation. Had we stayed up the next season the extension would have been built.

Now down in the Championship we only get 17,000 attendances on average, so had we gone ahead with the expansion our stadium would be half full. And we're certainly not the only club who could say this.

 

[mnb089mnb]

I can understand why they're doing it, but I think we've got a situation in the Football League/Premier League now where there's approx 50 teams with grounds that are so large they'll only ever be filled by Premier League football. It's no fun being in a crowd of 15,000 in a 30,000 arena.

 

[Tilbury]

Good news, we'll soon be a legit PL club.

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Swansea City's expansion of the Liberty Stadium to cater for the huge demand for Premier League football has been given the go-ahead.

Councillors approved the club's plans to increase the stadium's capacity from just under 21,000 to 33,000.

A condition was imposed that a liaison group is set up comprising of councillors, the club and members of the local community.

It is the smallest ground in the Premier League.

There are more than 8,000 waiting for season tickets.

Swansea council had been recommended to approve the work, which will be carried out over three phases.

Loftus road is smaller.

 

[Dazza]

Have to agree with the Carlisle fan above, there will be thousands of fans attending games who are there for the Premier League experience.

I remember in 2007 when we had plans for a 38,000 stadium with an initial 30,000 because we were always selling our 24,000 allocation. Had we stayed up the next season the extension would have been built.

Now down in the Championship we only get 17,000 attendances on average, so had we gone ahead with the expansion our stadium would be half full. And we're certainly not the only club who could say this.

I always thought the potential increase to 38000 was too much.Even in our last season in the premier league there were a fair few games where we didnt sell out.

 

[Modernist]

Be very careful though because your still not really as such a premiership sized club.

a lot of your support is still glory-hunters enjoying the top flight experience.

Wigan I see have drifted into 10,000 crowd territory which I can see dropping into their 7-8,000 crowds if they drop into L1 then they go right back to the size of club they were in mid 90's.

Your doing well as a progressive club, but you could have a huge empty darlington style bowl if you got relegated with that huge increase.

You can't look at the future with 'what if we get relegated twice' lol, the whole point is they have the chance for a huge increase in revenue which will inturn help them stay in the premiership, if they don't do it now then when?. They have waited 3 seasons of comfortable premiership survival, its very smart and exactly the right thing to do.

 

[mnb089mnb]

You can't look at the future with 'what if we get relegated twice' lol, the whole point is they have the chance for a huge increase in revenue which will inturn help them stay in the premiership, if they don't do it now then when?. They have waited 3 seasons of comfortable premiership survival, its very smart and exactly the right thing to do.

Swansea are a sensible club. I'd hope they do think about "What if we get relegated twice LOL" as it's happened to much 'bigger' clubs than them. I'm pretty sure they will.

 

[Madejski]

It won't be a huge increase in revenue though, almost all of the money Prem teams make is from TV rights.

10,000 seats at £25 a ticket is less than £5m over the course of a season extra revenue. When soon you'll be able to get £99m for coming bottom, it really doesn't make much of a difference.

That works out to be a ~5% increase in revenue for a 50% increase in stadium capacity.

 

[mnb089mnb]

Hopefully it means it can be used as a venue for higher profile Wales games in the future. Considering how much of a chip on the shoulder they have about Cardiff down the road (something that's reciprocated), it wouldn't surprise me if they went for an attendance that was a few seats more than however many the Cardiff City Dragondome holds now.

 

[Modernist]

It won't be a huge increase in revenue though, almost all of the money Prem teams make is from TV rights.

10,000 seats at £25 a ticket is less than £5m over the course of a season extra revenue. When soon you'll be able to get £99m for coming bottom, it really doesn't make much of a difference.

That works out to be a ~5% increase in revenue for a 50% increase in stadium capacity.

5 million is certainly worth it to get more fans watching them, if no-one cared about attendances no grounds would ever be developed or built.

 

[Abertawe]

It'll be done in phases so if the worst should happen, we can scrap it.

Pretty sure agreements are in place to take ownership of the ground too, so the potential to use the ground for other events to create revenue will be there.

 

[PUSBCCFC]

Swansea are a sensible club. I'd hope they do think about "What if we get relegated twice LOL" as it's happened to much 'bigger' clubs than them. I'm pretty sure they will.

You are correct.

Even if you take us (Coventry) for example, we built the Ricoh Arena in anticipation of a return to the Premier League and constant sell outs, now we are getting our lowest crowds in our history (bar Sixfields last season) and the ground is now owned by a rugby club!

 

[JJ1532]

Loftus road is smaller.

I was gonna say, Loftus Road is easily smaller. By around 3k in fact.

 

[Jarv]

Swansea seem to be a well run club and barring a huge run with injuries one year if they're smart they should be able to establish themselves for the long term.

there are 2 clubs that come up. Yoyo clubs like Norwich, Birmingham Derby, QPR and those that stick around. Swansea seem to be one of the second despite most people outside of Swansea expecting them to finish in the bottom 3 in their first season (me included).

It's not just the extra revenue from the seats sold it's the long term fan base building . some of the waiting 8000 will be families and getting kids hooked will help build the fan base who in the future will bring their kids as long as it's affordable enough.

They've been here 2 and a half seasons and aren't going down this year. it's the right time to be ambitious. lets face it there will easily be 3 worse teams than them next season.

Good to see Swansea trying to or going to get ownership of the ground too.

 

[Abertawe]

American investment, good or bad idea?
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/...wansea-city-investment-conundrum-how-8685619?

 

[PUSBCCFC]

American investment, good or bad idea?
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/...wansea-city-investment-conundrum-how-8685619?

The Americans haven't been the most popular owners in the past...

 

[Madejski]

It's not just the extra revenue from the seats sold it's the long term fan base building . some of the waiting 8000 will be families and getting kids hooked will help build the fan base who in the future will bring their kids as long as it's affordable enough.

Yes but that's what they all say. If you stay up it works, if you go down it doesn't.

We were selling out 24,000 every season in the Prem, people on waiting lists for STs/normal ticket but since relegation we've gone down to our normal crowd size of about 16-18,000.

Some will say 'oh it's the Reading plastics', but the same is true for much bigger clubs with better history than ourselves like Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Derby (you can name almost any club that has been relegated in the last ten years).. There is masses of demand for seeing the best league in the World, not necessarily the club that the games are being viewed from.

Not just financially but also smaller crowds of people happy to be there are generally better for atmosphere (obviously better atmosphere than a half empty stadium). Look at the new stadiums being built in Italy, Juventus and Milan are downsizing, not due to financial reasons, but because they want the full stadium effect on atmosphere. I'm sure Juventus could be better financially with a stadium greater than 41,000 seats but that's not all they want from it.