Stadium Size

[Schip]

Well I thought I'd open a topic on stadium sizes, as the upcoming days might be one of the last changes of getting a cheap expansion.

I was thinking about expanding my stadium, but I'm still not sure yet.

I currently have a 28K arena that fills up when I'm playing the top 2 teams in the league, while my supporters (+/- 1000) are satisfied. When I'm playing the 6th and 7th placed teams the arena is filled for app 50%.

The rules (or a lot of topics on hattrick forms) state you use multipliers of 20,25,30 for a bad, average and good period of your team respectively.

Browsing around I see a lot of you already have expanded to 40K+, as well as my league competitors. Don't you have problems even remotely filling your stadium in the first half of the season?

So, a few points I would like you all to comment on:
- what are your stadium size and supporters club
- how's your arena filling up
- are you generating enough cash (or should you (have) take(n) a different approach)
- what were the reasons to get to your current stadium size (especially when you decided to expand lately)

thanks all, Schip

[Kemal]

Well, for me it was pretty much a given to upgrade the stadium due to the fact I was still playing in my 7K starting hut, so perhaps my comments aren't of that much value to those that are considering to expand now due to the increase in costs, but the main reason I expanded to "only" 15K is that, with my expected 440 supporters next year, had I chosen for even a bigger arena, I would have had problems filling up the stadium fully at a regular basis for the next 2 seasons or so at least, so I figured the extra weekly upkeep cost for more seats now would not outweigh the cheaper construction costs this season.
I've played 2 games so far at home with high on life supporters, with 376-384 being member of the club, and that resulted in 8100 people watching vs the no6, with overcast weather, and 7100 people vs the no8, with heavy showers.

Money would not really be a problem if it were profitable to upgrade further, unless my next league would be so tough that I'd need to buy reinforcements for the squad, which would be quite expensive of course.

[Melifluous]

Current Arena Size = 35799
No. Of Supporters = 1281
Highest Gate = 35497

Melifluous

[Kingreno]

quote:So, a few points I would like you all to comment on:
- what are your stadium size and supporters club
- how's your arena filling up
- are you generating enough cash (or should you (have) take(n) a different approach)
- what were the reasons to get to your current stadium size (especially when you decided to expand lately)

-25.000 with 887 supporters (+12 to +24 p/w)

-The arena fills up rather well, but no full house yet. I will not expand any further just yet, though I do have the cash.

-Economic report:
quote:
Cash funds: 239 735 € (193 367) €
Sponsors: delirious
Supporter Club: 887 members
Supporters: content


This week

Revenue Expenses
Crowd 0 Arena 16 298
Sponsors 46 653 Wages 25 023
Financial 0 Interest 0
Temporary 300 Temporary 2 000
Staff 30 000
Youth squad 20 000
Total revenue 46 953 Total expenses 93 320
Expected income/loss -46 368


Last week

Revenue Expenses
Crowd 143 147 Arena 16 298
Sponsors 46 288 Wages 25 023
Financial 0 Interest 0
Temporary 360 Temporary 3 000
Staff 30 000
Youth squad 20 000
Total revenue 189 795 Total expenses 94 320
Last week's income/loss 95 475

That is roughly 25k profit per week. The Homematchincome was from a 19k crowd. If I'd add some money for youthpullsales, it is going fine.

-I decided not to expand because I expect an average season next year, 25*#supporters, which is roughly 25k. Also I do not believe it is worth investing for a mere 5000 seat upgrade. And to end the decisionmakingproces, when I sell 5 Outstanding/Briljant Defenders it won't matter that much if an upgraded stadium costs 200k or 600k.[mischief]

[Dell19]

In the last two home games on an average to poor run I've got an attendence of 16k and 15k with a maximum capacity of 20k and a fan club with 799 members. I'm hoping for a good run next season where I will have my supporters in a better mood. Looking at the tam that currently top my division, 20k may be a bit too small for next season so the plan is to upgrade the stadium by 5-8k to cope with increased attendences and still get a cheap expansion.

The funding for this is mostly going to be debt and player sales. I plan on trying to sell a couple of players. I also may try and sell a player for 125k in the hope of generating a large sum of cash so that I can easily afford a stadium upgrade although I will need to buy a replacement player in this case.

[yndy]

Last season I had filled my 42K arena twice and with the prices expected to double I was planning an upgrade. My upgrade at that time was supposed to last for 2 seasons. With an estimated 150 supporter growth per season and about 1400 supporters to start with, I estimated to have 1700 supporters in two seasons time. I multiplied that with the over-optimistic multiplier of 35X and got to 59500. I don’t know why I built my arena at 59990.

My average attendance this season was 37K so far. I had 2 games where the attendance was over 42K and it generated me extra profits of EUR 112K. OTOH, additional costs were EUR 150K. It turned out to be a bad deal for me to increase the stadium so early and so much, I should have probably waited until now to do the upgrade but I hoped to have a longer cup run this season and gather extra revenue from there as well.
In any case, the profit from my arena was about 1 million EURO in the current season.

[ProPain]

I expanded from 14750 to 28000 last week. I suspect that will suffice for the 6th division and I gather I'll be staying in 6th for at least 2 seasons, probably more.

Also I'm not very worried about the construction prices increasing. My expanse from 14750 to 28000 cost me 316K. The higher attendance of this week (23350 visitors) earned me back 70k (80-higher maintenance costs) I gather I'll earn back my investment in a season once I promote, even faster when I perform well in the cup.

I think that's pretty quick and even when prices would double you'll still be earning your investment back in 1,5 to 2 seasons.

[English_brit]

Total capacity: 75000

Supporter Club: 1542 members

Had a 45k stadium which I'd sold out a couple of times.

Had the 400-500k spare and didn't need to invest it in my team so saw it as a good investment.

I'm top of my division in Level 5 atm and planning on throwing the qualifer if I win the title. So should be doing well for the next couple of seasons.

Got to round 4 of the Cup last year so should fill out most of the stadium for a couple of games if I can make it that far again and as I'll do well in my league for the forseeable future should gain supporters quickly.

I saw it as a good investment.

[Energy]

I'm looking into expansion as well and did some calculation on the different seats available. To me it seems that that type 3 (seats with roof) are the most profitable with an ROI time of 10 home matches. E.g. compared with VIP rooms who have an ROI time of 16 home matches (based on full capacity of extra seats). The best order to fill up seems:

type 3 (return in 10 home matches)
type 1 (12.6)
type 2 (14.4)
type 4 (16)

Compare this with the basic percentage of all seats (1:63%, 2:25%3:9.5%, 4 2.5%) and the worst case fill rate off ur stadion (20 times ur fanclub) u should be able to decide which seats to buy at least quite easily.

for example: If u have a fansize of 500, u could fill up a stadion of at least 500x20=10.000 people. 9.5% of this is 950 seats of type 3. So, at first spend ur money at building at least 950 seats of this type. Or u could go for an average or good fill rate (25 or 30 times ur fansize club depending on ur current position in the leageau and ur forecast for next season.

[yndy]

When I increased my own stadium, I used the statistics of my own matches and ended up with this percentages [ 1: 62.7%; 2: 25.7%; 3: 9.3%; 4: 2.3% ]. Never went past 90% of capacity anyway.

[Mistfit]

I know I'm prolly jumping the gun here but I with my first sell out crowd I thought I might start planning an expansion

My arena:

Total capacity: 12000

Terraces: 8000
Basic seating: 3000
Seats under roof: 1000
Seats in VIP boxes: 0

Date: 8/8/2005 at 01.00
MatchID: 45606866
Arena: Mistfit's_Marauders Arena
Crowd: 12000

Sould I think now on expanding or should I wait till next season?

[socralynnek]

how big is your fanclub, Mistfit?

[Mistfit]

453 gaining 15 - 20 per week

[socralynnek]

Normally, one should have fanclubsize*30 as stadium size, so you should expand, especially because you are in league VI and so you will have a fanclub increase for a long time. So you should definitely expand soon, according to what your financial side allows.

[Dell19]

It really depends whether you are going up or not. If not then upgrade, if yes then perhaps not.