If/When We Get Promoted rush For Season tickets Will be Enormous

[The White City General]

We need to expand the ground and then we could keep the prices the same. If not, I could totally understand them increasing the prices. With 18k capacity our ticket sales are much less than other clubs so to compete we need to charge higher prices.

James we have been here before and your grasp of the economics of the situation seem to go missing all the time when it comes to expanding or building a new ground.

If and it is a big IF we can expand the ground would you care to put a boll park figure on it. This so callled expansion of the ground would involve levelling the Ellerslie Road Stand and rebuilding it maybe even doing the same with The Loft. I think we are talking about £15 million upwards probably somewhere up around the £20 million mark. At the present rate of inflation that could take 5/6 years to recoup that in season ticket sales priced fairly but with respect to the time value of money could be something like 8 years.

In the short we may end up with a reduction in capacity or possibly ground sharing with Fulham. What happens if we get relegated one season into the increased ground capacity, will we continue to fill it (thats if we actually do manage to fill it in the first place)?

I can only see 2 ways to fund such a venture as promotion would really clear our debts not fund this.

1. The owners dig deep and make a long term financial committment to the club (unlikely)
2. The sale of players (likely)

Just the way I see it and please don't talk about building a new ground as expansion will be the more realistic and financially safer option.

[qprjames]

James we have been here before and your grasp of the economics of the situation seem to go missing all the time when it comes to expanding or building a new ground.

If and it is a big IF we can expand the ground would you care to put a boll park figure on it. This so callled expansion of the ground would involve levelling the Ellerslie Road Stand and rebuilding it maybe even doing the same with The Loft. I think we are talking about £15 million upwards probably somewhere up around the £20 million mark. At the present rate of inflation that could take 5/6 years to recoup that in season ticket sales priced fairly but with respect to the time value of money could be something like 8 years.

In the short we may end up with a reduction in capacity or possibly ground sharing with Fulham. What happens if we get relegated one season into the increased ground capacity, will we continue to fill it (thats if we actually do manage to fill it in the first place)?

I can only see 2 ways to fund such a venture as promotion would really clear our debts not fund this.

1. The owners dig deep and make a long term financial committment to the club (unlikely)
2. The sale of players (likely)

Just the way I see it and please don't talk about building a new ground as expansion will be the more realistic and financially safer option.

No no no, your right. Lets have no ambition and stay as a small club. Theres no need to to try and grow our club while we have a great chance. We can stick in our shed and accept that we will never be able to properly establish ourselves as a premiership club-at the same time we should definately try and keep our capacity down because we wouldnt want the financial befinits in the long run of larger crowds.

Clubs like Wolves, Birmingham and Cardiff are just plain stupid by wanting to grow their clubs by expanding and building new grounds

Even bloody Blackpool massively increased their capacity in the prem.

[Ric-Roc]

if the club didn't limit ST sales we would never sell 16k. Not in a million years - stop deluding yourselves.

100% disagree.

[silvercue]

100% disagree.

we'll leave it there then - I am clearly right though.

[qprjames]

100% disagree.

I dont think we would be a million miles off that. Don't forget when we got promoted a few seasons ago to the championship we sold 10k with a cap. There was still more demand. In the prem I reckon we would sell at least 14k

[silvercue]

I think 14 would be about the number - depending on price.

[The White City General]

No no no, your right. Lets have no ambition and stay as a small club. Theres no need to to try and grow our club while we have a great chance. We can stick in our shed and accept that we will never be able to properly establish ourselves as a premiership club-at the same time we should definately try and keep our capacity down because we wouldnt want the financial befinits in the long run of larger crowds.

Clubs like Wolves, Birmingham and Cardiff are just plain stupid by wanting to grow their clubs by expanding and building new grounds

Even bloody Blackpool massively increased their capacity in the prem.

James again once your struggling to get your head round this.

Wolves and Brum are both massive clubs by comparison to us, I mean they are 1 and 2 clubs in pretty big northern cities and well Cardiff as a city has a population of one million. Blackpool example is a poor one as well they have been rebuilding their ground for the past few years. All these clubs have either space to expand or cheap land by comparison to us to build on. Blackpools ground as it stood was not fit for purpose for the Championship let alone the Premiership where as ours is.

My guess is your quite young and find it easy to blurt out any old thing on the subject without considering the logistics of the situation

[qprjames]

James again once your struggling to get your head round this.

Wolves and Brum are both massive clubs by comparison to us, I mean they are 1 and 2 clubs in pretty big northern cities and well Cardiff as a city has a population of one million. Blackpool example is a poor one as well they have been rebuilding their ground for the past few years. All these clubs have either space to expand or cheap land by comparison to us to build on. Blackpools ground as it stood was not fit for purpose for the Championship let alone the Premiership where as ours is.

My guess is your quite young and find it easy to blurt out any old thing on the subject without considering the logistics of the situation

Yawn.

You seem to forget the size of London. Tell me, how many fans were Fulham getting in the championship? Ohhhhh 14,985. Funny that. What they getting now? 24000!

General...I think its you that cant get your head around it.

[silvercue]

Yawn.

You seem to forget the size of London. Tell me, how many fans were Fulham getting in the championship? Ohhhhh 14,985. Funny that. What they getting now? 24000!

General...I think its you that cant get your head around it.

Fulham virtually give tickets away though.

[qprjames]

Fulham virtually give tickets away though.

Erm no they don't! I absolutely garuntee you their turnover will be much greater than ours. The benefits of more fans supporting a team is also key.

We always used to be a bigger club than them...but they've done a great job of putting their club on the football radar in the last few years. We should do all we can to copy the.

[LoftusRoadLad]

QPRjames...the General is right.

[qprjames]

QPRjames...the General is right.

Ok..so you honestly think that we wouldn't sell 25k against Chelsea, United, Arsenal, Fulham ect next season?

Give me a break.

[vblockranger]

Ok..so you honestly think that we wouldn't sell 25k against Chelsea, United, Arsenal, Fulham ect next season?

Give me a break.

maybe them 4 games but the rest..........nope dont reckon we would

[qprjames]

maybe them 4 games but the rest..........nope dont reckon we would

I would include Liverpool, Spurs and Newcastle in that also. Thats 7 out of 19 home games we could sell 25k(dont forget we sold 18k for Norwich this year and could have sold more). On top of that it would be cheaper tickets which would mean more new fans and in the long term the club could grow.

If Fulham can do it, why cant we? Maybe our fans don't want to see the club change, but for us to grow-we definitely need a bigger capacity.

[The White City General]

Yawn.

You seem to forget the size of London. Tell me, how many fans were Fulham getting in the championship? Ohhhhh 14,985. Funny that. What they getting now? 24000!

General...I think its you that cant get your head around it.

Why do our supporters use the example of Fulham all the time? We are QPR not Fulham there is a massive difference between our clubs in terms of location, the type of supporter who supports the club and the amount of loyal fans.

I have spelled out to you the logistics of the situation which you have chosen to ignore (probably because you don't understand them). I'm sure if we had a 25k capacity stadium already we'd be giving ST's away like Fulham for 400 sheets and offering promotion after promotion on games when promoted.

It is not a question of whether we can fill the stadium at this stage its a question of how do we get from where we are to an increased capacity without committing financial suicide. Fans like you would be happy to see the club take massive financial risks just so you can boast to your mates that we are becoming a big club. As a club we carry a massive debt, promotion will clear that but the streets are not quite paved with the gold some niaive fans would have you believe.

The question is with regards to increased capacity is are we doing it to cater for the other teams support for a few big fixtures a season or are we doing it for ourselves as a fan base. I think personally a bit of both but I at this stage I certainly don't think it justifys expanding let alone building anew ground. Unfortunatley seeing as you have never seen us play top flight football your delusions are such that until you see us getting 12-13k against the likes of Wigan, Blackburn, Blackpool on a Tuesday night you'll never believe it.