Extending the KC Stadium

I would expect the first stage of any serious consideration would be a feasability study, that could include various ticket models.

 

I saw recently a spokesman for the Hillsboro victims arguing against re introducing safe standing in premier league grounds. Whilst I fully sympathise with the anguish he and the others directly effected by the disaster feel I think it has been categorically proven, ironically by the Hillsborough inquest itself that the cause of the tragic loss of life was not the standing per se but the policing that took place on the day.
It seems completely illogical for top flight stadium in Germany many of which are considerably bigger than English grounds, to allow safe standing and not allow it here.
Personally I don't mind sitting but think there should be the option, it's not the solution to the lack of capacity at the KC expansion is.
Wasn't there some suggestion that additional rows of seating could be installed in the present structure which could increase capacity by 3-4000 ? These would extend the seating further back into the stands also wasn't the wider gantries and rows in the KC based on the not entirely erroneous belief that egg chasers were generally ....fatter.. Bit like the capacity at the old wembley was reduced to 95,000 for challenge cup finals because of the excess lard of the average rugby league fan

 

Possibly, yeah. I'm not arguing that higher attendances wouldn't bring down ticket prices, just that our current attendances aren't reaching our current capacity. I can't see how the structure suddenly changing is suddenly going to convince people to put on a City scarf and head to the KC. We need to be doing more at community and grassroots level, for starters.

 

What makes you think it hasn't happened already ? That was when the stories about not having the foundations for an East extension emerged under Bartlett/Duffen

 

I think it was more like 3-400 ..... 3-4000 would be almost a new North/South stand

 

Try persuading the 1000's (well it seems like that) from Hull that travel down the M62 to watch Leeds that they should support Hull.

There are also 8-10000 local sports fans who would rather watch RL than Football, a problem most other PL clubs do not have

 

It might help you argument if you got your basic facts right
' we often hover around the 22,00 -23,000 mark ' no we don't our average gate last season was 24,117 which is around the 95% capacity figure. Given that due to segregation we cannot ever get 100% capacity that figure of 24,117 is pretty close to 97 % of available capacity.
Your argument that until we sell out every available seat for every game then we don't need an expansion is complete bollocks and based on your inability to check the facts might help if you had any understanding of our history as well

 

Where do you get the 1000s going down the M62 from ? Sure there are Leeds fans in hull just as there are hull fans in Leeds and because of historical and demographic reasons there's probably more of the former than the latter. But are you seriously saying there's thousands do non committed football fans in hull who think ' I fancy watching a game now shall I try to get a ticket to watch hull city in the premier league , no I know I'll travel 60 miles to watch a shower of **** at bellend road get beat '
How do you arrive at the 8- 10,000 sports fans conclusion ? City's average gate is nearly twice the combined average of hull and rovers. If you prefer egg chasing to football then that's your choice plenty like both but more prefer football

 

I understand our history very well, I spent the better part of two years writing about it, so a little less of the condascending attitude wouldn't go amiss. History has nothing to do with this, we're talking about now.

As for our home attendances last season, 8 of them didn't breach 24,000 and they were against mid-table to lower in the table teams, (Fair enough I got the figure wrong, which should've been 23,000-24,000). Which backs up my point; we know that the bigger teams are going to draw out all the little scrots who support the bigger clubs when they come to town, so the attendances are always going to be higher anyway. Plus the fans who have waited decades to see us play them might stump up the cash to make the trip. However, if we can't make a spectacle of playing the likes of Burnley, Leicester and Palace, then how is sticking another tier to the stand going to help? In short, it isn't.

Also, it isn't just the fans filling the seats, it's the amount of fans who can't get tickets. How many fans will the club be turning away, telling them that the West Ham game will be sold out? If we aren't turning fans away, then that suggests there are still plenty of tickets to be sold.

 

Its not all about attracting supporters. It's attracting the daytrippers.

What a lot of clubs do is sell tickets to promotion companies who bang in a hotel, a restaurant voucher and sell them as packages.

Especially with COC2017 coming up and good level of football we'd be a good attraction.

Then there's US style dynamic tickets. Which is a thread on it's own.

 

I suspect I'm going to answer this as I go along, but here goes anyway...

We're the new kids on the block, so there's still a draw for away fans to tick us off the list, after all, for established Prem teams, a new ground in the league's a bit of a novelty. My question is, is there anything from other clubs that would hint at the novelty wearing off over a time? I guess some of that slack will be taken up by local Prem fans, and the bigger clubs with a waiting list will still bring numbers, but how many times would you travel to. let's say Southampton?

 

Nobody wants a day out to hull, lets be honest. Theres a stigma attached to the city that its a **** hole and for many it will never change.

We should be focusing on getting the most out of our home fans and trying to add incentives with the 2017 stuff, but we won't be seeing many day trippers till then, Hopefully if people come in 2017 then they'll see the better side of hull and come the following years.

Also, our atmosphere is too **** to attract that many away fans. People love going to grounds where there's an aura about the place. The KC is a library compared to many stadiums.

 

We will sell out the west ham game and I suspect if our team gels we'll sell out most games this season. I think you're argument is fundamentally flawed and if as you say you are familiar with our history you will know that a successful team in hull can draw gates of over 30,000 at least. If we had an increased capacity it would enable us to make more tickets available at affordable prices, allow for turn up and pay on the day and allow those who are put off by the knowledge that getting one ticket let alone say one for a friend or a child is pretty difficult .
Your logic simply doesn't add up if we were running at 60 to 70 % capacity maybe you'd be right but even allowing for the lower figures you refer to that's still 90% . Any business ( and I hate to use that word) which is hitting 90% + take up figures would look seriously at expansion in order to attract new custom. Unless ,as you seem to believe , contrary to your professed knowledge of our history ,we have hit the limit of our support an expansion of the KC makes sense if we are to move forward as a club. Yours is a recipe for stagnation I'm afraid.
When you've finished your book or whatever send me a copy and I'll do a facts check

 

We are running at over 90% now FFS. I think we can all agree the Cat A games sell out and would easily sell an extra 5-10K more simply because of the attraction of the team we would be playing. The fact that it's treacherous fans isn't the issue their money is and at £50 a pop it's not something we should concern ourselves with.
I'll pop the numbers on here again. 10K x 50 x 6 (Cat A games)=£3M per season. The fact we don't sell out for any other game doesn't matter a bit as long as the high earners do.

We could still with your plan and wait FOREVER for 100% though and then we will stagnate and end up back in the championship.

 

It's a massive assumption that we would sell another 10k for every Cat A game, and as others have pointed out the SMC would end up having to actually give the council money, we would be taxed on any extra income, costs for each game would be increased for the extra 10K when it happened (policing, stewarding etc probably up by 40%)

If as also suggested each extra seat may now cost 1500-2000 then £15-20 million would take some recouping (remembering we would probably also have to pay interest on the money borrowed to do the building) & lets not forget the loss of income while the building work is being done, with such a project taking 9-12 months minimum

Let us also remember the big what if we were relegated ? Where does the money come from then with 16k in a 35k stadium ?

 

There's absolutely no proof of that at all, it's an assumption based on nice old Mr Allam willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of pounds in a day to make sure we are happy. If we have 25,000 people willing to pay £35 a ticket now, why would the owners suddenly drop the prices and continue taking in the same amount when more fans are buying tickets? To fill the extra seats? Well why aren't they doing that now? If anything, they'll keep the prices the same so that they make more money.

I don't think we have hit our limit at all, just that expanding the stadium isn't going to be a cheap affair and I think there are better ways to get people into the stadium at present which we should be looking at, such as community schemes, tickets for local schools, hospices etc. The Lokeren game (which you seem to have skirted around mentioning), was an opportunity that had the potential to be a total sell out (like Trencin was). So why wasn't it? Why wasn't one of the biggest games in our history maxed to capacity? Because they just didn't do enough at club and community level.

 

Only got to look at the Trencin game...make tickets cheap enough and people will turn up in there droves to watch a decent level of football !

 

It would not be possible to consider ticket price reductions until the cost of the building work was full recouped so probably 10 years if we remain in the Premiership & sell out the increased capacity for the class A games