Does Ground Capacity Matter?

[OldRobert]

Interesting little snippet in my paper today from the Brentford Chairman:

Brentford’s PL plans

Brentford owner Matthew Benham has changed his thinking over the club’s new ground and is stripping out all non-football facilities.

The new planning application for the Chiswick site near their current ground at Griffin Park will also see capacity reduced from 20,000 to 17,500. Benham, who has made his fortune in gambling, believes the only sustainable football model is to be in the Premier League and that the amount of TV rights money each club now receive makes attendance numbers far less important.

So Benham plans to spend the money saved by building a cheaper stadium on players capable of taking Championship Brentford to the top flight.

Presumably from that he's going to build a basic stadium for fans without bars/restaurants etc. and spend every last cent on trying to get to the promised land? If indeed TV money is going to 'run' clubs, then surely the next stage is to do away with fans altogether, and play crowd noise through loudspeakers. After all, the public are a damn nuisance, they always want something, like somewhere to sit, something to eat and drink and somewhere to pee.

 

[morty]

If it was that easy then we would all be doing it!

Football is nothing without fans, and in our case, Norwich City would have been in deep doo doo if it wasnt for our fantastic fanbase. And I am sure if you asked most players they would tell you that they would rather play in front of a decent crowd.

Some people really dont appreciate how much our owners care about the fans and the club, compared to guys like this.

Being cold, he is right though, I saw a stat along the lines of the sky money for prem clubs this season means they could let every single fan in for free all season, and still turn more profit than they did last season!

 

[Fenway Frank]

The phrase " we pay the players wages " is obsolete now in my opinion. Yes, it helps, certainly in our case with so many season ticket holders, but with so much sponsorship ( I've lost count of all our sponsors) then it isn't so important any more.