Now we have been promoted, do you think St. Marys should be extended to whatever it can be extended to? We have the Rugby World Cup in 2015 and St Marys is one of the venues, but the RFU don't want to extend the stadium.
No it's not, it's the Rugby Union world cup. But of course they're not going to pay for the expansion! Why would they? But we should expand the stadium as soon as possible. We sold out lots of games last season and in the premier league demand will be even higher. Every game that is played before it happens is lost revenue.
I needed the option: yes, but not yet. The massive cost is not warranted by a recent promotion to the PL. That is how clubs get into financial trouble.
No, because then it'll be empty in parts. When we are stable and stay up a couple of seasons ten it should become an option.
Is it? Well I learnt something new today. Not that I care about either. Anyway, I also think no at the moment.
Agree. Would the fans fill it..? Of course they would. Over a 100 years ago, Saints had a stadium that eventually took 30,000 supporters, and they would occasionally fill it, even though there was very little in the way of elite football. Southampton was also a much smaller town back then, but the population has grown. The outlying areas are also populated and the supporters will turn up again. During the early years of St Marys, the average attendance was around 30,000+, and this was with a team of no star players [unless you count Beattie and Le Tiss had retired] and performing the miracle of staying in the Premiership, sometimes comfortably in 8th position. Compare that with the club today, having real ambition [certainly more ambition by a country mile, than this fan has ever seen SFC have] and commitment to being the best, and supporters will eventually come along in their droves. I said at the time of completion that 32,689 was too small, and it will eventually prove to be too small and limit the club. Expansion doesn't have to happen this season or even the next. But eventually, it will happen, because Cortese will make it happen. There are some who will say... we couldn't even fill The Dell on occasion, when the safe capacity was 15,251. Of course, there will always be a few spare seats. If one waited for proof only from every single seat being sold all the time, expansion would never take place. Expand the stadium and more people will turn up. I have no idea what the upper limit of appeal there is to watch Saints play in the Premiership and perhaps Europe and the Champions League, It could be 40K, 45K, 50K, whatever. But I'm damn sure it's not 32,689.
This topic has come up a few times now, and every time someone eventually provides stats to show that it makes sense, and yet people still doubt we would fill it. Have to question the ambition of some of you guys!
It's the timing that's important. Remember that ticket sales are not our only source of income. A lot of money comes from TV coverage. Cortese will not make this move until he is sure the huge cost of expansion will be recovered within a reasonable time.
I don 't think we need a stadium expansion yet until we have been in the premier league a few seasons & well established. Once this is the case we should be thinking about a brand new state of the art out of town 60 thousand plus seater stadium that will should our intent on pushing into the top 4 if it has to include a shopping centre, casino, etc who cares if it helps pay for it! what worries me about st mary's is that the club has to pay a rent for land it stands on also the transport links are terrible!
Don't doubt we will fill our present stadium for most PL games, but we didn't fill it very often in the Championship when we were in top two all season. It's not lacking ambition to take care to protect the future of the club. I bet Nicola has all the sums and looked at all possibilities...I'll trust him to get it right.
Of course, but ticket sales are enormously significant. Expanding to 40,000 would potentially increase ticket sales by a third, and would certainly mean millions per year in extra income. If he is confident of staying in the PL, then paying off the outlay is a formality, and it certainly pays itself off quicker than the investment in the training facilities. It just seems like a no brainer to me. You might be onto something there, the only logical reason to delay expansion is if there are plans to move to a new stadium.
There has also been talk on the possibility of moving yet again. When stadium was built I think the planning capacity could have been up to 45,000. The question which Nicola will need answering is cost effectiveness of building from scratch elsewhere against improving the capacity of the current ground. Whichever he decides I don't see it being done for a couple of years or more.
