70000 Ibrox

[Mustang mad]

If we build to 60-65k, to make up the financial diff every season against them, they will quickly just rebuild their main stand and be at 70k or so, so we are behind the curve again.

be bold, ambitious. A 70-72k arena would solve the st waiting list, allow walk ups / tourists and possibly allow for a reduction in pricing of certain tickets for certain games , which would help attract more people.

i think we put it on the back burner for now though. Get a winning team and that itself will show the need for expansion.

 

[steven allen]

If we build to 60-65k, to make up the financial diff every season against them, they will quickly just rebuild their main stand and be at 70k or so, so we are behind the curve again.

be bold, ambitious. A 70-72k arena would solve the st waiting list, allow walk ups / tourists and possibly allow for a reduction in pricing of certain tickets for certain games , which would help attract more people.

i think we put it on the back burner for now though. Get a winning team and that itself will show the need for expansion.

They don't have the money to rebuild their main stand

 

[choppy72]

Let me say this to the doubters, West Ham at their old ground would get around 35,000. Now at their new stadium they're getting around 58,000. where have all those extra fans come from? it's not because they're winning trophies. Only that Euro Conference one in the last umpteen years. A winning Rangers team should be able to get another 10,000 fans at least. Not being able to pay on the day is a barrier, get rid of that & see what happens. just my opinion.

London is full of tourists more than any other U.K. city and the PL is a tourist league - that’s where W Ham numbers come from.

 

[choppy72]

I never said Rangers wouldn't be paying it back. What I said was Rangers could get access to cheap loans due to the financial clout of the new owners.

Let say we borrowed £200,000,000 over 30 years at 5% interest, we would pay back circa £12,000,000 per year.

An extra 20,000 season tickets at £600 per year could cover that. If not 20,000 season tickets then a mixture of corporate hospitality and other money making ventures.

It is achievable (with huge corporate backing).

Link to Bolognas recent redevelopment costing £200 million, although I appreciate it is not as big as wharves would require:

What security are we proving to borrow £200m?

 

[choppy72]

You don’t need to fill the thing every week. What is allows you to do is sell as many season tickets as you like, have more hospitality seats and be more attractive to the walk up fan. Could even offer lots of discounted kids tickets to get the next generation hooked.

50k stadium is a massive problem. Essentially a man can’t wake up on a sat morning and go to the stadium and buy a ticket for him and his family. In addition we are starting off every season a few million behind Celtic.

I wouldn’t go to 70k but I’d certainly want us to be around 60-65

The truth is most week there are 5-10,000 empty seats in the ground.

We need in the first instance to make them easily available to the man without a ST.

 

[tazzabear]

Hideous!

 

[Corriebear]

No chance and it’s not required. What’s the average age of a season ticket holder? Less kids are going to the game these days. In 20 years for now I wouldn’t be surprised if crowds were down.

 

[Dado_Prso_9]

The truth is most week there are 5-10,000 empty seats in the ground.

We need in the first instance to make them easily available to the man without a ST.

Exactly. You shouldn’t need MyGers to be able to buy a public sale ticket. Get Bisgrove’s pyramid scheme in the bin.

 

[Bluenose Rab]

I always have a plan B

Shoulda gave you the job after Warburton

 

[SuperAllyScoresAgain85]

The truth is most week there are 5-10,000 empty seats in the ground.

We need in the first instance to make them easily available to the man without a ST.

Towards the end of the season the attendances dipped for sure but generally you’d be lucky if there were 2000 empty seats in the stadium most weeks. 10,000 absolutely not a fucking hope.

 

[trueblue77]

I’m not sure if Leeds are a good comparison for an expansion timeline but the 49ers bought a 15% stake in them seven years ago. Their stadium expansion plans have only just been announced. It’s only been two years since they took their shareholding from 44% to 100%. Their ground has a capacity of 37K.

 

[Big D]

The truth is most week there are 5-10,000 empty seats in the ground.

We need in the first instance to make them easily available to the man without a ST.

Not sure it's as many as that, but there's certainly tickets available outside for pretty much every game and even on the club website right up until kick-off for many games. And there's usually 30,000+ empty seats at the fulltime whistle, so already not a great look (a riddy in fact). Road and transport links around the stadium would also need improved to make a bigger capacity viable. Currently roads are gridlocked post-match, subway is often inadequate (depending on kick-off time can sometimes be non-existent) and parking is an absolute shambles.

 

[choppy72]

Towards the end of the season the attendances dipped for sure but generally you’d be lucky if there were 2000 empty seats in the stadium most weeks. 10,000 absolutely not a fucking hope.

Plenty games have 10,000 empty seats - cup matches and end of seasons.

V few are there only 2,000 empties.

The big issue is ST holders not using their seat and not subseating it.

 

[jigster]

I’m not sure if Leeds are a good comparison for an expansion timeline but the 49ers bought a 15% stake in them seven years ago. Their stadium expansion plans have only just been announced. It’s only been two years since they took their shareholding from 44% to 100%. Their ground has a capacity of 37K.

Leeds have talked about an upgrade for close on 25 years so its not a new thing and every new board owner paid lip service to the " idea " of new/upgrade for the club

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2001/sep/07/newsstory.sport3

 

[jigster]

Plenty games have 10,000 empty seats - cup matches and end of seasons.

V few are there only 2,000 empties.

The big issue is ST holders not using their seat and not subseating it.

i seatsub my seat regularly and it sold twice last season out of possibly 8-9 times and its a decent seat maybe 4 rows behind the exits in the Copland rear, i'd say our capacity is fine out with 4-6 games a season

 

[Tdawgloyal]

Plenty games have 10,000 empty seats - cup matches and end of seasons.

V few are there only 2,000 empties.

The big issue is ST holders not using their seat and not subseating it.

Can see them adding a policy that you need to attend/seatsub at least 15 games a season or something like that. Which i see no issue with as not everyone can attend every sungle game but most can seatsub

 

[trueblue77]

Leeds have talked about an upgrade for close on 25 years so its not a new thing and every new board owner paid lip service to the " idea " of new/upgrade for the club

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2001/sep/07/newsstory.sport3

We’re in the same boat as them then. Feels like we’ve been talking about it forever. Hopefully it happens under the 49ers before long. There are many good examples over multiple threads on the subject as to why we should expand.

 

[Grommitt]

All I’m pointing out is people bought ST because the demand was so high -if the new spare capacity means you can pick and choose your games then I think it’s almost certain a % will walk away from ST purchases -I don’t pretend to know how that would pan out in detail
But it is a danger .

This is true for me. I would not buy a ST if I could walk up and buy on the day (or a couple of days ahead).

Living in London, my ST will be on Seatsub most home games this season due to transport costs and difficulties, especially if we end up in the Europa League and playing games on Sundays.

 

[Clicker]

Depends on how successful the team is, and that depends on whether they have made the right appointment as head coach and get the player recruitment right.
If we start winning the league regularly and performing in Europe there will be a demand, if not there won’t be.

 

[Maughlan]

As it is I think the stadium is probably too small.

In my lifetime I’ve seen the supporting culture change from relatively small average weekly attendance to the post Souness season ticket culture which has sustained for the best part of 40 years.

All I’m pointing out is people bought ST because the demand was so high -if the new spare capacity means you can pick and choose your games then I think it’s almost certain a % will walk away from ST purchases -I don’t pretend to know how that would pan out in detail
But it is a danger .

I understand the rationale, the argument has merit. I may even have said similar in the past. For me we need to do the basics first with Ibrox such as sorting out the corners and see where it gets us to. Longer term and finance depending, I hope we have the ambition to move the stadium on again, possibility with a third tier on the Govan.

Personally I can’t see anything happening until we are winning again consistently for a couple of seasons or some form of enhanced European league transpires at our level, maybe something by 2028/29 but I could be miles off it.

 

[Kinghornloyal]

No, but I can see a scenario where sponsorship can fund a large portion if not all.

All this “we wouldn’t sell out 60k+” nonsense, is exactly that, nonsense.

I’ve said it before, the novelty of a revamped Ibrox will see ST’s fly off the shelf.
We don’t need 60k every week. We only need the ST sales.

It worked for the 20k a week filth and look at the state of that shite hole.

I get that however sponsorship amounts are very limited in the league we play in. There's a reason why we havnt made massive deals ever compared to elsewhere. For example the Kindred new deal is the biggest shirt sponsorship we have ever had. It's not worth mega millions. Also the alleged exploration of stadium sponsorship or naming was looked at and was allegedly £5m a year. That's where we are playing unfortunately. So I don't see any scenario where a company could put any serious money into helping us expand

 

[choppy72]

I get that however sponsorship amounts are very limited in the league we play in. There's a reason why we havnt made massive deals ever compared to elsewhere. For example the Kindred new deal is the biggest shirt sponsorship we have ever had. It's not worth mega millions. Also the alleged exploration of stadium sponsorship or naming was looked at and was allegedly £5m a year. That's where we are playing unfortunately. So I don't see any scenario where a company could put any serious money into helping us expand

I’d be pretty surprised if we got £5m a year sponsorship for stadium naming rights.

Apart from the crap league we play in - the fact is sponsoring us or them in isolation alienates a big proportion of potential customers.

The CR Smith sponsorship of both clubs, whilst unpopular among fans, was the best route from a PR basis.

 

[tazzabear]

Why, we had 70000 plus in the stadium in the seventies when we were successful. we could have them again

How many ST holders who’d be there ninety percent of the time?
How many ST holders would we have?

 

[Neilston Unionist]

Whatever happens I hope the current layout is maintained somehow as a 50k stadium has no right to be as loud as it is at times. Clearly something in the design that helps.

 

[tazzabear]

The truth is most week there are 5-10,000 empty seats in the ground.

We need in the first instance to make them easily available to the man without a ST.

Seat sub is good but needs to be better used.
Not sure how the club can create a better uptake.

 

[Mustang mad]

They don't have the money to rebuild their main stand

pretty sure they do , or they could easily finance it like we would.

 

[Bri RTID]

Does anyone think our American cousins will extend Ibrox to hold 70000 if the current Board sells up?

I think....we may need to move

 

[tazzabear]

No, but I can see a scenario where sponsorship can fund a large portion if not all.

All this “we wouldn’t sell out 60k+” nonsense, is exactly that, nonsense.

I’ve said it before, the novelty of a revamped Ibrox will see ST’s fly off the shelf.
We don’t need 60k every week. We only need the ST sales.

It worked for the 20k a week filth and look at the state of that shite hole.

I just don’t see it, bud.
There are not a lot of games we sell out of.
I think it’s the lower capacity that makes the demand for ST’s what it is.
The bigger the capacity the better a chance of tickets on the day unfortunately.
I’d love the bigger stadium but I think it would be need to be heavily financed with hospitality places.

 

[sh3lldon]

cant see there being any appetite for it anytime soon, we still have so much work to be done in many more pressing areas before this becomes a consideration think people are getting well ahead of themselves

 

[buz1872]

Murray made a complete arse of the stadium improvements, the beam back project was just a scam to use his steel at inflated costs to the club same as the club deck that money should have gone into refurbishing the main stand, he told the architects to come up with plans that required a lot of steel in the projects

 

[GovanFront4]

Exactly. You shouldn’t need MyGers to be able to buy a public sale ticket. Get Bisgrove’s pyramid scheme in the bin.

Plenty of clubs are running membership schemes it’s just the way football is heading. I do think there is a better way to do it though.

 

[spotlight]

I would love us to have the capacity to sell out the bigger games. 80,000 even and have it designed that 15k to 20k top tiers are only opened when the demand is there.

That’s the way it should be done.

 

[Dado_Prso_9]

Plenty of clubs are running membership schemes it’s just the way football is heading. I do think there is a better way to do it though.

You should be able to log on and buy a public sale ticket and when they’re gone they’re gone. Asking folk to pay £50 a year for the privilege of being able to buy public sale tickets is just a con.

Aye you get other advantages like the waiting list (again, a con that it’s locked behind the MyGers paywall), but you’re right there has to be a better way to get non season ticket holders easier access to tickets.

 

[Davieloyal]

A team on the park first for me

 

[Fr-Bear]

I don’t understand why folk think we should stick to smaller increase to stadium because 10,000 folk decide to leave early or not turn up to cup games against minnows. Who cares, your building for potential and future changes.
Go for 80k and that covers most scenarios such as old firm games, big European nights, concerts, other potential sporting events and allow maybe 10k-15k more in season tickets. And still accommodate for a decent sized away support if they take it up. We know the Celtic fans would. And it also works for any anticipated increase to their tickets sales if they modernised their main stand.

We don’t want to half arse any increase and be back again after it saying we should have added 10k more.

 

[Calvinist]

As David Holmes once said “You are only limited by your own ambition”

 

[Robert Marshall]

I don't see a scenario where we will spend say £100m on increasing capacity. It would require the club to agree to go that far into debt to finance it. Can we afford to pay this back in say 10 or 20 years. The current guys may sell up after a period and we are then left paying off the loan. The new seats/tickets wouldn't even cover the repayments let alone allow us to make profit. In my opinion. I'm saying an extra 10k seems bringing in £5m a year doesn't touch the sides of paying the loan off so yes they stadium would be bigger. Better atmosphere for some games but how does it benefit the club financially until the debt is cleared.

Stadium refinancing would be paid over 30 years or more
Same as domestic mortgages, we could borrow off if a Pension. fund
Use the top tier as a cask turnstile
The figures do stack up
Extra 15000 ST at an average of £500 gives you £7.5m Preseason plus Hospitality
It is possible

 

[gordon_blue]

Surely we would then be able to host a UEFA final, and a big rock concert.

 

[GersLoyal74]

I'm not on the waiting list for a season ticket but id consider it if it became easier to get one.
There will be a lot more supporters like me.
So it's not just the 10k or 15k waiting list we need to consider.

But we do need to think about the infrastructure, getting to and from Ibrox is a nightmare and you'd need to consider how to accommodate an extra 10 to 20k.

Stadium naming rights will come into part funding it, we're now linked with the 49ers so bigger brands will come to the table.

 

[govanite]

A must as them have had a financial gain over us for decades and this is why they are in a dominant postion and will be till we increase capacity.We also need to encourage the local population as Govan will be the new westend in the next decade .Also we need to build a hotel .Every top club has a club hotel.

 

[The Blue Hunter]

17500 extra ST at £600, gives us an extra £10m plus a season, £100M Plus over 10 seasons. the Yanks will love that

But what do we think the cost would be to develop that ?

 

[The Blue Hunter]

Hopefully. We must go over 60k with any substantial increase. Otherwise we are 'declaring' on 60k say and them fuckers will just increase aswell

They might increase but they will need to demolish have there stadium to do that as is crumbling and in need of urgent repairs

 

[The Blue Hunter]

They don't have the money to rebuild their main stand

Correct

 

[SuperAllyScoresAgain85]

Plenty games have 10,000 empty seats - cup matches and end of seasons.

V few are there only 2,000 empties.

The big issue is ST holders not using their seat and not subseating it.

Cup matches… so maybe two of them a season.

End of season games… what we talking like 3 or 4 here. All because we are out the title race. The place would be packed if we were still in the hunt and is for most of the season.

 

[The Blue Hunter]

I get that however sponsorship amounts are very limited in the league we play in. There's a reason why we havnt made massive deals ever compared to elsewhere. For example the Kindred new deal is the biggest shirt sponsorship we have ever had. It's not worth mega millions. Also the alleged exploration of stadium sponsorship or naming was looked at and was allegedly £5m a year. That's where we are playing unfortunately. So I don't see any scenario where a company could put any serious money into helping us expand

The new owners are roper buissiness men this will be done for real money from now on

 

[Calum955]

We are so limited by our current capacity.

Was talking a young guy at my work here who is 18/19…him and 5 of his pals want to get season tickets together but virtually impossible to get 2 seats together never mind 3/4/5

Makes you think how common that problem could be…I think very common indeed.

Then it leads you down to potentially losing a generation of fans/or at least losing interest in attending games.

 

[Kinghornloyal]

What will be done for real money. Sponsorship???

The new owners are roper buissiness men this will be done for real money from now on

It has zero to do with who the owners are with what is allowed under PSR or whatever its called. Owners can't just create mythical over inflated sponsorship deals from friendly companies. Sponsorship amounts need approved.

 

[Portadown_Bear]

If we build to 60-65k, to make up the financial diff every season against them, they will quickly just rebuild their main stand and be at 70k or so, so we are behind the curve again.

be bold, ambitious. A 70-72k arena would solve the st waiting list, allow walk ups / tourists and possibly allow for a reduction in pricing of certain tickets for certain games , which would help attract more people.

i think we put it on the back burner for now though. Get a winning team and that itself will show the need for expansion.

Would they fill a 70k stadium?

Apart from the games against us and some European matches I would have my doubts.

 

[Grommitt]

You should be able to log on and buy a public sale ticket and when they’re gone they’re gone. Asking folk to pay £50 a year for the privilege of being able to buy public sale tickets is just a con.

... there has to be a better way to get non season ticket holders easier access to tickets.

This! I have 4 or 5 mates coming over from Germany and Austria later this season, and finding ‘public sale’ tickets for them is going to be a nightmare!

And they're not particularly interested in ‘big’ games; they’ll be fine with e.g. a St Mirren or a Falkirk, but that scarcely makes it any easier.

 

[trueblue77]

I'm not on the waiting list for a season ticket but id consider it if it became easier to get one.
There will be a lot more supporters like me.

You’re spot on. My season ticket many moons ago was as simple as lifting the phone, once. Got no chance now due to work/circumstances/lifestyle etc. of building the points required. Same as Europe away. I was in the old travel club and got to games. Got no chance now. I was in the home end in Bilbao and paid as much as some of our supporters would for a season ticket. It pisses me off that sometimes it feels like you can’t give your money away at our club unless it’s something even the regulars aren’t interested in.