Molineux Extension

[Newbridge Wolf]

I understand where people are coming from regards stadium size, but thats just making it unappealing to redevelop. We would look at 45-50k in my opinion to justify the capital outlay involved. We won't sell out every game, but we will for the big ones, prices could remain reasonable and we will have good ticket availability for the casual fan, and the new ones. Something we don't particularly have at present.

If we are a serious long term project (I have no reason to doubt this at present) I would like the club to reflect that with serious investment in the ground. I think the decision will be made the end of the season either way personally.

In regards the article, it sounds like FOSUN have challenged the Council what they can offer the club, to help its progress and justify its investment. Joining forces with the Uni sounds positive and gives some confidence in the whole scheme

 

[Tony Towner]

Just to make Paul happy. We might fill a 45k crowd for games against Utd and Liverpool, but it would be full of plastic Mancs and Scousers

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

An extended period of relative success coupled with easier access to tickets would undoubtedly increase our fanbase in the region and indeed wider afield

 

[Pablowolf]

They'll have to build another half dozen pubs.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

I'd rather we have a full 40k to 45k every week than 10k empty seats on the off chance a casual fan might want to do something one Saturday. We sell out every game currently, with an apparent 10k on the waiting list, but if you really wanted to go every week I bet there's less than three games this season that you couldn't have got tickets for with a little bit of forward planning. And I'm not talking about massive financial outlay either.

Our group of fans have seven season tickets. If one couldn't make it in years gone by the uptake was very low from people who wanted it. This season, it's still normal to get turned down by a couple of people before someone says yes. The same people that are on waiting lists or who are members. They want to go occasionally if they have nothing better to do [and they also like a freebie]. 'Occasionally' doesn't fill 10k extra seats (on top of the 30% increase I'm already advocating).

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I'd rather we have a full 40k to 45k every week than 10k empty seats on the off chance a casual fan might want to do something one Saturday. We sell out every game currently, with an apparent 10k on the waiting list, but if you really wanted to go every week I bet there's less than three games this season that you couldn't have got tickets for with a little bit of forward planning. And I'm not talking about massive financial outlay either.

Our group of fans have seven season tickets. If one couldn't make it in years gone by the uptake was very low from people who wanted it. This season, it's still normal to get turned down by a couple of people before someone says yes. The same people that are on waiting lists or who are members. They want to go occasionally if they have nothing better to do [and they also like a freebie]. 'Occasionally' doesn't fill 10k extra seats (on top of the 30% increase I'm already advocating).

Yeah, agreed. I've struggled to get rid of spares at points this season.

People will sit on a waiting list when it costs nothing or virtually nothing to do so. Doesn't necessarily mean they're ready to spring into action and shell out up front for a year's worth of games if we somehow magically created 10k seats over the summer.

United have a huge waiting list, have done for years, I could pretty easily get a ticket there for a league game against the likes of Palace or Brighton if I wanted to.

This point was lost on Timbo when he wrote about it a few weeks ago.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

I go to lots of games, I'm lucky. But I've never been going somewhere, work or otherwise, and I've fancied going to a game and I haven't been able to get in or buy a ticket (if you know in advance).

I listened to my Brother in Law's neighbour, a black cab driver, moan for years about not being able to watch Arsenal. Fast forward to Boxing Day and we're visiting for Christmas - I get three tickets for me, my Brother in Law and ask his neighbour if he wants to come with us. Guess what...

 

[Derby Wolf]

I'd go as high as 45,000.

It won't sell out every week but big league games, derbies and hopefully European games would. It would be a potential venue for any competition bids and we could benefit from concerts whilst the council continue to destroy the Civic.

The extra empty seats could be given to schools and have a secondary or extended family enclosures, or they could have concessionary tickets for services, NHS etc. Make attending individual games more accessible for low earners.

The expansion needs to be parallel to a progressive ticketing strategy that accepts there is a ceiling on disposable cash for the vast majority of people from Wolverhampton and surrounding areas.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

I'd go as high as 45,000.

It won't sell out every week but big league games, derbies and hopefully European games would. It would be a potential venue for any competition bids and we could benefit from concerts whilst the council continue to destroy the Civic.

The extra empty seats could be given to schools and have a secondary or extended family enclosures, or they could have concessionary tickets for services, NHS etc. Make attending individual games more accessible for low earners.

The expansion needs to be parallel to a progressive ticketing strategy that accepts there is a ceiling on disposable cash for the vast majority of people from Wolverhampton and surrounding areas.

There definitely is a ceiling on available disposable cash and I think that's been reached. In the last, recently published, financial figures I think ticket income equated to about 6% of turnover. This I'm sure is about the PL 'norm'. Any ticket prices rises from this point onwards make little impression on the overall accounts. They should be frozen or reduced from the point where we establish a regular PL income.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

However you can also give tickets away [local schools] and there is no guarantee of uptake. In fact I know it's relatively poor or certainly was until recently.

 

[Derby Wolf]

However you can also give tickets away [local schools] and there is no guarantee of uptake. In fact I know it's relatively poor or certainly was until recently.

Plenty of options I just pulled local schools out my arse. Contrary to my username I live in Derby and they have a "future fan" scheme.

If you've got a 7-11 year old who has never attended a game you can register yourselves to get two free tickets to a designated game.

If we designated say Brighton or Norwich as a Future Fan day or like the Family for Football we've done in the past it could encourage higher gates. Admittedly, if it was Brighton they wouldn't want to come again!

 

[Premier Quality]

I’m on the waiting list for a season ticket - getting tickets at short notice makes it really hard to arrange for me and my boy to attend - I only want two tickets, sitting next to each other, if we aren’t aware we can go, we’ve normally made plans, and ideally I wouldn’t have to drive as it’s a seven hour round trip, but at short notice prices go up.

season tickets gives us certainty (out with dates being moved), relying on last minute stuff makes it really hard.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

Plenty of options I just pulled local schools out my arse. Contrary to my username I live in Derby and they have a "future fan" scheme.

If you've got a 7-11 year old who has never attended a game you can register yourselves to get two free tickets to a designated game.

If we designated say Brighton or Norwich as a Future Fan day or like the Family for Football we've done in the past it could encourage higher gates. Admittedly, if it was Brighton they wouldn't want to come again!

I'm massively in favour of schemes like this if you do have empty seats. I certainly wasn't digging at your schools idea. I do know though that it's not overly successful [not just at Wolves] as blocks of tickets are given to a school, pupils take them home and parents for whatever reason don't/won't/can't take them to the game. There is also no data capture to establish who's attended and so no chance to 'on sell'.
If there's one thing America does well, it's their Armed Forces recognition days for serving personnel and veterans. Again it's good to see but rarely has an ongoing sales impact.

 

[Tony Towner]

Plenty of options I just pulled local schools out my arse. Contrary to my username I live in Derby and they have a "future fan" scheme.

If you've got a 7-11 year old who has never attended a game you can register yourselves to get two free tickets to a designated game.

If we designated say Brighton or Norwich as a Future Fan day or like the Family for Football we've done in the past it could encourage higher gates. Admittedly, if it was Brighton they wouldn't want to come again!

Derby have one of the best community projects in the country. Win the Midlands award for it most years and have also won the national version

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

You want 45k (ish) minimum to be UEFA elite graded, I think. The rules for that are actually a lot lower, but 45k ish gives you a chance of being awarded the Europa League final.

I can't envisage us expanding the ground enough to be considered for the Champions League final - 70k would be ridiculous!

 

[Boozad]

However you can also give tickets away [local schools] and there is no guarantee of uptake. In fact I know it's relatively poor or certainly was until recently.

Our local school always sold out of their allocation every time the club offered them an incentive. It's why I didn't have a season ticket back in League One, think I missed six or seven games in total and virtually every other game we went to was a 4 for £40 either through the club or the schools.

Well, didn't need a season ticket for years anyway, you could always get a ticket.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Ignoring Coronavirus etc, if we had a game in two or 3 weeks time and had 37000 seats to sell, I don’t think we’d sell out.

So as a result, demolish the steve bull and rebuild it with all the non matchday stuff we don’t have and put in all the corporate stuff we need to make money. If we can get an extra 5k seats in then happy days. But the main reason to do it is because it’s not fit for purpose and we need the corporate and non matchday stuff rather than the potential to let a few extra people in. Demand at the moment isn’t as high as “10k in the W/L”

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Ignoring Coronavirus etc, if we had a game in two or 3 weeks time and had 37000 seats to sell, I don’t think we’d sell out.

So as a result, demolish the steve bull and rebuild it with all the non matchday stuff we don’t have and put in all the corporate stuff we need to make money. If we can get an extra 5k seats in then happy days. But the main reason to do it is because it’s not fit for purpose and we need the corporate and non matchday stuff rather than the potential to let a few extra people in. Demand at the moment isn’t as high as “10k in the W/L”

Problem will always be that we lose a huge amount of capacity for up to two years.

From that point of view, we could have done it when we went down to League One. We didn't need the stand to even be there at the time...but of course Morgan had largely had enough by then and it would hardly have gone down well to carry on building massive new stands when we'd just had two relegations.

 

[PuntsWolf]

Problem will always be that we lose a huge amount of capacity for up to two years.

From that point of view, we could have done it when we went down to League One. We didn't need the stand to even be there at the time...but of course Morgan had largely had enough by then and it would hardly have gone down well to carry on building massive new stands when we'd just had two relegations.

I know, but I’m not paid to know about football stadium architecture [emoji2]

Surely they can blitz it and out together some kind of temporary arrangement. There’s pretty much enough room for a temp stand between the existing stand and the pitch. I remember Blackpool put a stand together between potion and the start of the league.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

I was on the parliament then as you remember. Moxey actually thought it was the perfect time to start phase two when Saunders introduced us to the nether regions of English football. Morgan disagreed.