United announce new stadium plans

next_number_seven

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90,000 doesn't really sound like future planning. If we're investing hundreds of millions on a new stadium it should be 120-150,000.

Other than that, it's great to see the new owners being so pro active.
Is it realistic to sell 90,000 tickets every match?

The new Camp Nou will be 105,000. Wembley is 90,000.

I think we should go for 91 or 92,000 so it's the biggest stadium in the UK and 2nd largest in Europe.
 

Red in STL

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I went to Old Wembley and New Wembley and whilst Old Wembley had so much history and nostalgia, even then, back in 96 when I went, it was knackered looking. New Wembley is perfectly fine. I don’t know why people think it’s an eyesore. The arch is pretty impressive and inside it’s very nice. It’s not a modern marvel but it’s perfectly fine.

I went to the Camp Nou about ten years ago and it looked like it had been bombed. An empty concrete bowl, as run down as you can possibly imagine. And most of the seating is miles from the pitch. The Bernabéu is a much better example of a massive stadium that had a close feeling.
I too have been to both, Old Wembley was knackered by the late 70's never mind the 90's!

I've been to the new one once and was sat in the very back row, not great but nothing bad either, it's the first stadium I can recall being in with escalators though

I've been to the Millennium Stadium a few times, high up I actually felt a bit wonky, it's pretty steep and not a place for us older folks that aren't quite so steady as our younger brethren!
 

BluesJr

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Is it realistic to sell 90,000 tickets every match?

The new Camp Nou will be 105,000. Wembley is 90,000.

I think we should go for 91 or 92,000 so it's the biggest stadium in the UK and 2nd largest in Europe.
League and CL games? So easy. Still not enough seats.
 

Hughes35

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Is it realistic to sell 90,000 tickets every match?

The new Camp Nou will be 105,000. Wembley is 90,000.

I think we should go for 91 or 92,000 so it's the biggest stadium in the UK and 2nd largest in Europe.
I think it is, yes. I guess only the ticket office really know how many applications and calls they get. I know for a fact that if I had the chance to buy a season ticket I'd take it though and I know loads of people that would.

Worst case, you could drop the prices slightly and easily sell 100K every match.
 

Buster15

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I went to Old Wembley and New Wembley and whilst Old Wembley had so much history and nostalgia, even then, back in 96 when I went, it was knackered looking. New Wembley is perfectly fine. I don’t know why people think it’s an eyesore. The arch is pretty impressive and inside it’s very nice. It’s not a modern marvel but it’s perfectly fine.

I went to the Camp Nou about ten years ago and it looked like it had been bombed. An empty concrete bowl, as run down as you can possibly imagine. And most of the seating is miles from the pitch. The Bernabéu is a much better example of a massive stadium that had a close feeling.
Like you I have been to both old and new Wembley and obviously the new one is so much better.
I have also been to a tour of Tottenham new ground and that is hugely impressive.
A lot of thought has been put in to maximise its use as well as revenue. All very clever. Something along those lines but half as big again would be brilliant. But probably far too expensive.
 

sparx99

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I think it is, yes. I guess only the ticket office really know how many applications and calls they get. I know for a fact that if I had the chance to buy a season ticket I'd take it though and I know loads of people that would.

Worst case, you could drop the prices slightly and easily sell 100K every match.
I know I’d go on a lot more ad-hoc basis if I could buy tickets a few days before or on the day. That doesn’t even show up in demand.

Missing out on the members ticket sale in the summer usually meant I’d only get to the games I got tickets for. It could never be spur of the moment.
 

Hughes35

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I know I’d go on a lot more ad-hoc basis if I could buy tickets a few days before or on the day. That doesn’t even show up in demand.

Missing out on the members ticket sale in the summer usually meant I’d only get to the games I got tickets for. It could never be spur of the moment.
Yea, me too. I think A LOT of people would buy more ad hoc tickets.
 

Gawge

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This is an interesting thread...

I do think it's an interesting question though.

Recently Newcastle fans have been kicking off because the club have been doing 'spot checks' at away games to check that the people in the seat matches the name on the ticket.

On the face of it, it's easy to say greedy club, these are long time fans and they can do what they want with their tickets. However, does it not just get to a point at any 'big club' where a small group of people have access to the tickets, and they will forever have access to the tickets as long as they get used (however that is, whether giving it to a mate, selling for face value, or selling for a hefty profit).

Is it fair that someone who has had a Season Ticket for 30 years gets first dibs, but then sells on 60% of the tickets and only goes to the big games? Nobody else will ever get a chance.
 

lex talionis

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It has to be a new stadium, but the aesthetics of Old Trafford can be retained. The prevalence of brick, the white sheathing or whatever it’s called above the stadium, and even the elevated pitch bed…no problem.
 

daba

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I think scrapping season tickets is unlikely as others have stated, the uproar would be monumental.

One way that I could see working is building it into membership system:

‘Season Pass’
- Pay a high upfront annual fee (eg. £600)
- Have priority on a chosen seat for every league game
- Ticket price for games at £20
- If ticket is unclaimed 1 or 2 weeks before it becomes available for Casual Pass

‘Casual Pass’
- Pay a low upfront annual fee (eg. £100)
- Have priority on unclaimed tickets
- Ticket price for games at £50 or £60

Then any unclaimed after that can go to general sale where you don’t need a membership for £80, £100 or however much the club want to rinse the more one-off or tourist fans for.

I only thought of this over about 10 mins so there are certainly flaws to it. An obvious one being ticket reselling, however I’m sure the club could introduce some sort of software (eg. Facial recognition) to manage this in the new stadium. Could also have a system for where Season Pass members can allocate their unwanted ticket directly to a Casual Pass member, with a limit of 6 different members they can allocate to in a season. Just spitballing now but you get the gist.
 

MancunianAngels

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I think scrapping season tickets is unlikely as others have stated, the uproar would be monumental.

One way that I could see working is building it into membership system:

‘Season Pass’
- Pay a high upfront annual fee (eg. £600)
- Have priority on a chosen seat for every league game
- Ticket price for games at £20
- If ticket is unclaimed 1 or 2 weeks before it becomes available for Casual Pass

‘Casual Pass’
- Pay a low upfront annual fee (eg. £100)
- Have priority on unclaimed tickets
- Ticket price for games at £50 or £60

Then any unclaimed after that can go to general sale where you don’t need a membership for £80, £100 or however much the club want to rinse the more one-off or tourist fans for.

I only thought of this over about 10 mins so there are certainly flaws to it. An obvious one being ticket reselling, however I’m sure the club could introduce some sort of software (eg. Facial recognition) to manage this in the new stadium. Could also have a system for where Season Pass members can allocate their unwanted ticket directly to a Casual Pass member, with a limit of 6 different members they can allocate to in a season. Just spitballing now but you get the gist.
Apologies but this is nonsense.

Season Tickets have worked fine since the ground went all seater. Communities have been built in different parts of the ground.

People pass their tickets on from time to time, usually because real life gets in the way occasionally. The amount of people abusing the system is tiny.

Ultimately, the club wants rid of many season tickets because it would rather sell match by match hospitality packages

It's my biggest issue with the new ground proposals. The club will use it for one last social cleanse of the support. People on here will be making threads in 5/10 years bemoaning the lack of atmosphere in a new stadium and nobody will think why its happened.
 

ForeverRed1

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Is it realistic to sell 90,000 tickets every match?

The new Camp Nou will be 105,000. Wembley is 90,000.

I think we should go for 91 or 92,000 so it's the biggest stadium in the UK and 2nd largest in Europe.
United would fill 100,000 seater every week. Tickets are like gold dust.
 

MancunianAngels

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United would fill 100,000 seater every week. Tickets are like gold dust.
No they're not. Biggest myth going that.

With reasonable prices, United could sell 80-85,000 tickets for "normal" matches. Probably sell around 90-95,000 matches for the biggest games.

They need to rethink the ticketing policy if they want to fill anything close to 90,000 seats every week.

With the way games are being moved for TV (in most cases with short notice), it would be very difficult to sell out over 80,000 for a midweek game that starts at 8:15.
 

next_number_seven

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Clearly our new stadium capacity should be 90+3 k :keano:
I was thinking either 92,000 to represent the Class of 92 or 93,000 to represent 1993 the first PL win.

The Stretford Paddock guy said it should be over 100,000 just to completely dwarf every other club as they'll never reach 6 figures attendance.
 

Dan_F

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No they're not. Biggest myth going that.

With reasonable prices, United could sell 80-85,000 tickets for "normal" matches. Probably sell around 90-95,000 matches for the biggest games.

They need to rethink the ticketing policy if they want to fill anything close to 90,000 seats every week.

With the way games are being moved for TV (in most cases with short notice), it would be very difficult to sell out over 80,000 for a midweek game that starts at 8:15.
Agree, it’s unnecessary. Hospitality will be worth far more than an extra 10k seats anyway.

I’d really worry about the type of fans you’d see if it went up to 90-100k. Anyone able to buy them, tickets being sold on the day, similar to Barcelona.
 

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A fan group has expressed displeasure after Manchester United cited youth players’ development among the reasons for moving their seats at Old Trafford. South Stand United was formed after supporters in block S122 of the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand were informed their regular seats would be unavailable next season.

The group says it is planning to protest at Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final against Liverpool and has been irked by United’s chief operating officer, Collette Roche, saying the location could help young players’ development. “We believe, especially for our younger players, that having a side view of the action is optimal to their development and future performance, and being located close to the suite they access is also important,” Roche said in a letter seen by the PA news agency.
Can anyone explain wtf is going on here? What’s the link between moving ST holders out of the south stand and youth development? :confused:
 

horsechoker

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Can anyone explain wtf is going on here? What’s the link between moving ST holders out of the south stand and youth development? :confused:
Sounds like they want the youth to analyse the game. I suppose making players watch what NOT to do on the pitch is important too.
 

daba

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Apologies but this is nonsense.

Season Tickets have worked fine since the ground went all seater. Communities have been built in different parts of the ground.

People pass their tickets on from time to time, usually because real life gets in the way occasionally. The amount of people abusing the system is tiny.

Ultimately, the club wants rid of many season tickets because it would rather sell match by match hospitality packages

It's my biggest issue with the new ground proposals. The club will use it for one last social cleanse of the support. People on here will be making threads in 5/10 years bemoaning the lack of atmosphere in a new stadium and nobody will think why its happened.
Oh I’m not saying I want to change it, just following on the conversation about the signals that clubs are looking to chip away at season ticket holding as a concept. I was only providing a solution that would make that change more seamless if that was ever something the club would look to do.
 

MancunianAngels

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Agree, it’s unnecessary. Hospitality will be worth far more than an extra 10k seats anyway.

I’d really worry about the type of fans you’d see if it went up to 90-100k. Anyone able to buy them, tickets being sold on the day, similar to Barcelona.
As I said on another thread about this, United have the opportunity to do something really meaningful with extra seats.

If they want to fill it, make sure a good 5 or 10,000 tickets are in the hands of Greater Manchester schools and families. Give kids the opportunity who live round the corner to attend most games. Make it as affordable as possible.

For all the talk of community engagement and local regeneration, that would have a generational impact more than anything else they have proposed so far. It would create a culture of young lads and lasses going to the match together and would ultimately benefit the atmosphere 5 or 10 years down the line.
 

Malons

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Looking at it purely from a financial incentive side of things, do regular season ticket holders provide as much monetary value to club?

They get their seats for less than it would generate the club if they sold that seat to 19 different people on an individual basis over the season. ST holders are not very likely to be handing over money in the souvenir shop every week, as a tourist just there for one game might do. And if it's a different tourist every single week in that seat, with each trip from each tourist a 'destination' spending experience, that financial gap grows furter.

Someone going to Old Trafford for the first time is going to hand over far more cash than someone who has been going for 20 years and doesn't want to buy everyone in his family a gift celebrating the day he went to see United

Plus the limited availability of away tickets and the inflated sell-on price. It's not unexpected a club will look at that and ask if Tony, ST holder for 20 years, can get a couple of hundred quid for a seat in the away section re-selling it to Bob, why can't the club just sell that ticket individually to Bob and make more than they did sellling it to Tony?

I think it would be a mistake as there are other factors at play. But when you're still in debt and looking to finance a stadium as well as try to compete on the field, nobody should be surprised.

A non-regular match goer will stock up on merchandise and maybe even treat himself and his kids to some hospitality. From a pure financial point of view, it is clear that type of match day ticket holder is more valuable each week than someome who gets bus to the ground as he had for 30 years, watches the match, leaves and is having his tea back home 45 minutes later.
 
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brontelicious

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I'd take better transport links to the stadium over another fifteen thousand seats.

I live in Bramhall (no, I'm not loaded, believe me) and it can take two hours to get home on a matchday, mainly because of how long it can take on the tram home. I have to race to Exchange Quay or the Old Trafford cricket stop.
 

whitbyviking

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As I said on another thread about this, United have the opportunity to do something really meaningful with extra seats.

If they want to fill it, make sure a good 5 or 10,000 tickets are in the hands of Greater Manchester schools and families. Give kids the opportunity who live round the corner to attend most games. Make it as affordable as possible.

For all the talk of community engagement and local regeneration, that would have a generational impact more than anything else they have proposed so far. It would create a culture of young lads and lasses going to the match together and would ultimately benefit the atmosphere 5 or 10 years down the line.
That would be my suggestion too; 5-10k seats for example, sold/gifted to the younger or less privileged sections of the city. We have lost a lot of the younger support across the country, and Europe for that matter, to Man City judging by the amount of Haaland shirts kicking about.
 

MancunianAngels

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That would be my suggestion too; 5-10k seats for example, sold/gifted to the younger or less privileged sections of the city. We have lost a lot of the younger support across the country, and Europe for that matter, to Man City judging by the amount of Haaland shirts kicking about.
I think city have taken some of the casual fanbase but United still dominate Greater Manchester and probably large parts of the UK.

Issue is that United's core support probably don't engage with the club in the same way due to the costs. The club will regret that if we continue to be rubbish on the pitch. Going to the match can become a habit that's very easy to lose if you can't afford it.
 

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I think city have taken some of the casual fanbase but United still dominate Greater Manchester and probably large parts of the UK.

Issue is that United's core support probably don't engage with the club in the same way due to the costs. The club will regret that if we continue to be rubbish on the pitch. Going to the match can become a habit that's very easy to lose if you can't afford it.


I'd love to see cheap tickets for school kids.
 

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As I said on another thread about this, United have the opportunity to do something really meaningful with extra seats.

If they want to fill it, make sure a good 5 or 10,000 tickets are in the hands of Greater Manchester schools and families. Give kids the opportunity who live round the corner to attend most games. Make it as affordable as possible.

For all the talk of community engagement and local regeneration, that would have a generational impact more than anything else they have proposed so far. It would create a culture of young lads and lasses going to the match together and would ultimately benefit the atmosphere 5 or 10 years down the line.
A wonderful investment for the mid to long term, which the Glazers wouldn't be interested in, but I hope our new owner (part for now) will be.
 

Malons

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Letting in thousands and thousands of kids for free to try and challenge the growing number of youngsters supporting City now, would be ineffective.

Kids will follow whoever is successful. Charge going rates for the seats (yes with discounts for kids as always) and invest that money back into the team will attract more kids to the club long term than tuning the match day atmosphere into a Soccer Aid match or a TV recording of Gladiators
 

MancunianAngels

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Letting in thousands and thousands of kids for free to try and challenge the growing number of youngsters supporting City now, would be ineffective.

Kids will follow whoever is successful. Charge going rates for the seats (yes with discounts for kids as always) and invest that money back into the team will attract more kids to the club long term than tuning the match day atmosphere into a Soccer Aid match or a TV recording of Gladiators
This is absolute nonsense.

Kids will usually support who their parents support. If what you were saying was correct, you wouldn't get teams like Oldham getting crowds of 8,000 in Non League. You wouldn't get clubs in the Championship with crowds of 30,000. You wouldn't get Newcastle with 50,000.

If local kids can't afford to attend matches, their relationship with the club becomes more strained. They're not going to watch city all of a sudden though.

There's more chance the ground becomes a Soccer Aid experience when nobody can afford to go every week and the ground becomes full of tourists.

It's also funny how the club has funds to buy Antony for 100 million and Mount for 65 million. Its funny how people demand the club spend 300 million on a group of players they'll probably want sold 6 months later. Yet when it comes to lowering ticket prices, that's simply not possible.
 

parmenio

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There has to be a sense of realism to the project. The club is extremely unlikely to take on nearly 2bn in debt on a stadium with only football gate receipts to back it up. We are going to need a multi-purpose stadium to secure any level of public money to contribute towards the project. Modern construction techniques mean that this should be able to be accomplished without compromise towards the primary user - the football club and fan experience.
Naming rights will no doubt come into play. Have to at this level. 90k capacity seems about right imo.