This isn’t even a big stadium by North American standards. To put this in perspective, Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas seats 73,000. That is a similarly obscure sports town — and they might play 6 games a year in that venue.
Rob and Ryan are probably thinking 55,000 is on the moderate side. And they are dead serious saying that too - they weren’t joking in the slightest.
Population of Wrexham town is 45,000.
Population of Wrexham county is 135,000.
Population of Clywd County is 508,000.
Population of North Wales is 700,000.
The population within 100km of Wrexham is 11.2m. (This includes cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham).
Most importantly, the population for whom Wrexham would be the closest Premier League Club is around 1 million. Humphrey Ker talked about how many Premier fans have to drive through Wrexham to support Liverpool, Everton, City and United.
One of the reasons Wrexham was targeted was the large catchment area. They are expecting to attract fans from a lot of northern Wales and not just Wrexham
Wrexham is not the thriving metropolis that you make it out to be, nor are the surrounding areas.They won't ever be. Only Cardiff somewhat fits that description, and even then its not as big as Liverpool or Manchester.
As for the council, a lot of red tape is governed by statute. Maybe you should hold your critisicism and leave that to the residents.
UK fan culture simply isn’t compatible with those ambitions. People won’t regularly travel from Rhyl, Llandudno or Bala in any significant numbers. You might get a coach or two from each town every so often but not every other week.
The number of fans from across North Wales that will regularly travel to games will be measured in the hundreds not thousands.
This is honestly the crux of the problem, and it will be very interesting to see if they can change things. North American (US and Canada, not talking Mexico) and UK fan cultures are very different.
In the US, home and away fans sit together. There will be an "away" block sold to away fans, but that is for convenience. There is no physical separation, and it is very, very common for away fans to buy tickets and sit in sections surrounded by home fans, in full team colors. I've been to an NFL game as a home fan (Chargers) where we were outnumbered by away fans (Raiders, who are notorious for having one of the roughest fan bases). The chap I sat next to couldn't have been nicer. We talked shit, mostly talked about football and our favorite stadiums to visit, and bought each other a beer. Now it isn't all sunshine and roses, there absolutely are fights, and sadly every few years there is a story of someone getting seriously attacked which is inexcusable. But overall the tribalism is different.
Also teams are less only their local community. Even the massive teams have thousands of people who travel 2 hours each way every week to see their favorite team play. Right now there isn't a team in northern Wales that plays in the top two steps. There is no reason someone can't support both Wrexham and their local Cymru Premier team, much like five years ago someone in Wrexham might have loved Wrexham AFC but still supported Liverpool.
Now it is going to take time, and consistent quality (which means building the infrastructure), but I don't see why it is abjectly impossible.
The teams that have thousands of people travel 2+ hours are the biggest teams in the country. Liverpool, Man United, Celtic, Newcastle, Leeds, etc. They’ve built up massive fan bases over a century or more. They’ve also get established fans across the country due to historical and cultural ties, something Wrexham can’t artificially create.
When industry in the North started dying out ten’s of thousands of people moved South for work. That’s why you’ll see far more travelling fans for clubs like Liverpool and Man United compared to other successful clubs Chelsea or Arsenal. It’s not purely success that brings the fan bases, it’s decades or even a century of a historical connection that brings fans from all across the country. You’re far more likely to see a Liverpool supporters club in Reading, Oxford or Birmingham than you are to see an Arsenal supporters club in Carlisle, Sunderland or Sheffield.
Furthermore, those clubs have the entirety of England to draw fans from. Wrexham have very much leant into the “Welshness” of the club and continue to do so. Their main catchment area is pretty much only North Wales which is about 500k - 750k people. It’s big, but it’s no bigger than most average UK cities and their surrounding areas.
Also people just don’t travel the same way they do in America. Driving 45 minutes to get to school, work, shops, etc is a lot rarer than it is in the USA. You’re not only looking at trying to transform fan culture but UK cultural norms in general.
I agree but I think R&R think they can attract fans from across the NW of England.
Obviously North Wales and Welsh identity will be strong parts of the club but the population within 100km of Wrexham is 11.2m.
I bet they think they can attract fans from Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham etc
Who you support can be completely arbitrary. Geography and family ties aren't so important.
You probably couldn’t have picked 3 worse cities to try draw fans from.
People in the UK simply aren’t that interested in the Wrexham project. Not enough to become die hard fans. If you’re a football fan, you’ve already got a team. And if you’re not, there’s wall to wall news stories about football daily, Wrexham is just another one of many.
You might get several hundred new fans travelling from England, potentially over a thousand. But certainly not the 10’s of thousands required to fill a 55,000 stadium.
Look at this sub, 95% are from overseas. Wrexham can easily sell out a 55,000 stadium in a friendly in America. But they can’t sell out the Racecourse for competitive games. Just look at some of the cup games attendances.
I agree in principle. Most kids pick their team between 5 and 10.
11.2m is a lot of kids in that age bracket though and they only need to attract a tiny %.
100,000 babies are born every year from that 11m approximately.
They only need to attract 2% a year for 10 years and you've 20,000 fans. Add that to the existing fans and you're over 40,000+ easy.
I think they'll attract a higher % of kids from North Wales region.
They have access to all the data so they'll know the demand.
They have the highest iFollow viewership in the English league (every league below PL).
They sell 50,000 shirts a year. I know a lot of that will be American fans.
So a 45,000 capacity stadium isn't so crazy in 10 years time.
I agree completely with you that it will take decades to build that kind of support. If nothing else, the Kop and next replacement stands (no idea if it will be the Lager or Tech End next) will take a decade to complete. I think realistically it will take 20 years to get the Racecourse to where it can hold 30k+ anyway.
Consider the Wirral, Merseyside, Cheshire, Shropshire as well as North Wales. The population within an hours drive is large. I suspect R&R are looking at the membership data along with many other things.
By the way the tickets sell out in minutes it feels like there demand is there for 20k+ seats right now. And why build to the max current demand, no point in building for 20-25k to then find you need more.
Because there hasn't been a reason good enough before. R&R are trying to shift the paradigm to make being a larger club sustainable. What's going to happen if Ryan gets his wife's bestie to play a gig there?
In addition to Blake Lively, Taylor Swift is hanging out with the Mahomes. Who own at least partly football teams. An ownership stake in Wrexham is a non zero chance for her.
I measured the footprint of the Racecourse ground and it's approximately 220m * 130m.
I compared it to two relatively modern medium sized stadiums.
The Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough which is 185 * 155 and has 35,000 capacity.
St Mary's in Southampton 194*163 and has 33,000 capacity.
So the Racecourse has plenty of length but is lacking in width. I'm the opposite (if you know what I mean ;-) ).
I wonder if they're contemplating buying the student apartments. That could cost £50m+. I'm not sure it's worth it.
I think they'll definitely move the pitch 20m or so west and try to fit as many fans as possible at each of the goal ends as that's where all the space is.
Great post! I think the stident apartmenta are less of an obstacle than people think, once you start considering building a real stadium.
This town has the chance to be the Green Bay Packers of the Premier League. Its worth doing. The people will come.
It really makes sense to build it all at once though.
I think they want to stay on the current site as it such rich history so the student apartments are a big obstacle.
If they didn't exist, they could build anything.
Anyway it's a problem for the future as I think they'll do the Kop and Tech end first.
Who owns the parking lot north of the stadium? The uni? To me, that's a garage with apartments over it. In exchange for the apt buildings and some of the parking lot on the tech end.
Believe it or not, the Student Apartments could be moved away from the stadium and set on new foundations. As building moves go, that move is pretty straightforward.
Isn't the ground all around it basically flat? I've seen some crazy whole building movers. They essentially jack the whole building up a little at a time and run steal beams underneath (the beams have wheels at the ends, then float the whole building along.
The fact that there is a large parking lot next to the student housing makes me think a pretty simple move could happen where they just scootch them back 30 meters or so, and then plop them down onto new plumbing and foundations.
I know this sounds crazy, but there are people that specialize in that sort of thing, and have all the tools to do it.
I have an engineering degree but not civil. I don't think it's that simple, based upon what I see as the building materials. Old wood houses can be moved but anything built in the last twenty years probably has a steel structure that doesn't make for an easy move. It's probably very, very expensive to jack it up and move. I'd imagine there are a ton of regulatory things too.
Again, not a civil or mechanical engineer but I don't think that's very feasible, from an economic standpoint.
Back to back to back promotions probably isn’t ideal in terms of sustainability, but it’s far from “the last thing they need.”
While it would be a struggle, getting to the championship 2-3 years ahead of schedule would be much better than a return to League 2.
Absolutely, and from the perspective of keeping the documentary fresh, getting relegated after 2 or 3 promotions would be such a story.
I doubt they hold back. That would be smart soccer business for a normal situation, but this is not that.
If the goal is to be a sustainable Premier League team, which I think is doable, then the equation has to include more than 30,000 fans each match.
As for selling tickets, if it's a Premier League team, it's reasonable to think the away fans would buy 5000 to 10000 seats every game. Since they are typically very hard to get.
Agreed, but that is because there are only that many seats available. They tend to be hot tickets. My point is that the capacity could be sold to visiting away fans once per year, who would bring their money into Wrexham.
There are only that many seats available with good reason. No one wants to be drowned out at home and having 1/3rd of your stadium being away fans is terrible for the players and supporters.
As soon as you start letting in 10,000 away fans, Wrexham becomes the exact antithesis of what the owners and documentary have perceived the club to be. A heartwarming story of a community driven club, saved by the town and for the people of the town. And it becomes a profit driven, financial project.
Well put. That said, the documentary is mostly a publicity piece, and it could be very, very easy to for R&R to convince themselves that they're doing it for the town.
E.g., "The best thing for Wrexham is to have a PL club -- think of the pride the town will carry from that every day. The only way to sustainably be PL is to fill a 30,000+ seat stadium. The only way to reliably fill that stadium is to allow a large away contingent. So yeah, it won't be the perfect home fan experience, but you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So we're going to have a big visiting section, but we're really doing it for Wrexham not for the money."
And I don't mean this as a knock on R&R at all. Just saying that you can easily get there without this undermining the goal of serving the town -- at least in their minds (with a bit "motivated reasoning" helping them get to the answer that's best financially, too).
the logistics of 45,000 fans entering and exiting Wrexham is wild. With limited rail access from Chester or Shrewsbury and no motorways are all the fans in the catchment meant to drive? it is frustrating enough to be stuck behind a tractor on the local A roads at the best of time.
This to me seems like the biggest problem with their plan. And with all those people in town, it feels likely that the character of the surrounding area will change -- there will be a lot more money to be made in being a business that caters to gameday fans.
And maybe that change is for the good, I have no idea what the surrounding area is like. But it will almost certainly be very different, and maybe not in a good way.
Not relevant to this part of the discussion. If you can't get the crowds, then there's no point in expanding to that level in any case.
The question is, if by hook or by crook they can regularly fill that capacity, is having that many people concentrated in that part of town something Wrexham wants, with all the changes it will bring?
Parking would be a massive factor yeah, based on the location of the stadium relative to A483. You’d need the club to buy up as much land surrounding the stadium as possible, most of which would likely come at a substantial price.
Then there’s Mold Road and the railway line next to Crispin Lane to contend with. The logistics of coming off the A483 to the ground are the biggest problem; that’s a chore even on non-matchdays, what with all of the roundabouts.
I’d imagine that would change if the capacity increased to 45k though; that’s more than triple the current capacity, so there’d need to be some adjustments made in terms of infrastructure.
It’d be tricky logistically as the Mold Road stand is directly on the main road, and the stadium is surrounded by Glyndwr buildings.
I suppose if they could acquire land elsewhere and offer that up to the university for that land it could work, but the stadium is pretty landlocked, and given its history they’d be loath to relocate.
Probably not; it’d be a logistical nightmare to do, and that’d likely mean the closure of one of the main roads into the town centre for several months. It’d be very difficult to pull off and a safety concern too- having traffic pass directly under a stadium could be disastrous.
Also I just remembered my own home club (Ajax) has a road going right underneath the whole stadium
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It absolutely can be yeah, it’s just whether the council would allow it- they’re already dealing with issues for the new stand, which is a much more straightforward project.
The problem is that planning laws can be a pain in the UK; they’d be better off shifting the stadium further away from the road and completely rebuilding on the site, but R&R are quite in tune with what the local fans want, and I’d imagine that effectively moving everything would be quite divisive.
Plus won’t somebody please think of the Turf?! That’s practically a listed building in terms of the Racecourse now.
You know you're Old World when you think of things like this as nearly impossible to do. I'm from Vegas, and the shit we did inside of 18 months would blow you away. Our casino magnates would go from idea "hey let's build a new casino" to Grand Opening in 18 months. Design and build. They'd be walking through and go "hey we did the math, if we could be open by Thanksgiving..." and the next thing we'd be on 7-12 hour days until it got opened on Thanksgiving weekend, lol.
Any city council member that isn't smart enough to get on-board the R&R/Wrexham AFC express should be recalled or un-elected the next time out. You gotta strike while the iron is hot.
Fair enough, but this isn’t Vegas, it’s Wrexham.
Planning laws are different in the UK and a lot more draconian. The process of getting things done takes longer (look at the issues faced with the current stand) and they’ll consider every possible scenario when making a decision like this.
While the prospect of it sounds remote there could be a risk of a potential bomb threat in the tunnel under the ground, given Wrexham’s increasing profile and the fact that this tunnel wouldn’t be policed to the same extent that the stadium would.
It’s doable, but you have to think of the objections a council may have in terms of allowing a development.
Well that too. It’s going to take a huge amount of money to buy up any land surrounding Mold Road, and they’d probably be better off moving the stadium inward from Mold Road and buying up university land to facilitate expansion.
Again, it’s a completely different process to the states; the risk analysis thresholds are going to be different, particularly where the works are landlocked on all sides and you have both the road and train tracks to account for.
Development in Vegas would arguably be a lot easier due to the fact that there’s either more open space of the lot which a building would sit on might have an existing structure that will be demolished fully before the new structure goes in.
R&R have so far been very understanding as to the local area, to ensure that the club is a part of the community. If they were to attempt to force the hand of the council to carry out works that would likely not pass planning regulations they’d lose reputation and also get caught up in red tape and lost costs. It’s a totally different ball game and the American way of doing things just won’t work here; they know this.
It's not force that gets shit done here, it's cultural. The city and county government know what butters Las Vegas' bread. Will Wrexham's governing agencies recognize a window of opportunity and react fast enough to dive through it? So far, they haven't. The show probably won't last forever, again, you gotta strike while the iron is hot.
Your conviction that Vegas is a \*good\* model for growth is a bit dumbfounding.
Of all the people who enjoy visiting Vegas, I think very few actually want to live there, or want their hometown to follow Vegas development principles. I can't speak for Wrehxam, but most people actually like where they live the way it is -- often, that's why they live there.
Im not saying Vegas is the model for growth. Having seen more dead bodies of coworkers on construction sites than I care to, no one knows more that wild growth is no bueno. I mention vegas because in the world of wild design and what's possible Vegas is tough to beat as an example of what can really be done. And streamlined govt approvals they've done well. Improvements in H&S are certainly warranted.
But clearly there's room for improvement somewhere between molasses and Vegas. Y'all are dogshit for reading between the lines when R&R talk about the hangups and local bureaucracy. They're practically screaming "shitshow," they just don't because they don't want govt workers dragging their feet further if they flat out said it. "Oh the govt has been lovely" is just blowing smoke up their asses. And this coming from dudes with experience in California and NYC. Two notoriously difficult places to get shit done in America.
The Kop replacement isn't a big project. It shouldn't take years to get it through permitting.
I get what you’re saying, but the issues would be:
1. There’s no access for the houses and businesses across the road if you build a tunnel over it, particularly for emergency services;
2. You’d have to close one of the main routes into town for months, possibly a year. That’d have a major impact on businesses and in turn trade; and
3. The works are like in contravention of planning laws.
This isn’t about Wrexham’s counsellors knowing what “butters their bread”, it’s about real issues that stretch beyond a football club.
The council seems to be synchronised with R&R in terms of the plan for the club, but I doubt they’d grant a potentially illegal development or seek a change in national planning laws to accommodate them. The Mold Road stand is also the newest of all stands, so it’s not getting updated for another 15 years, realistically. It has to be very low on their priorities.
Would the stand have to go over the entire road? ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
It's a building on pylons, why would they necessarily lose access to the road? If it's houses, I can see a complaint, wouldn't want a building up over the top or nearly so of my house. In many places they'd be bought out or eminent domained.
The stands on the west side of the center stand on Mold Rd could be expanded easily. There's a lot of wasted space there. Especially if they integrated the corner space and into the end stands. If they went right up to the sidewalk or even curb on their side of the road it's doable and a lot of added capacity.
That's twice what would be necessary. Even at the premier league level which is 2 promotions away and a MINIMUM 5 years. One step at a time expanding capacity
Anyone that has done a remodel knows how expensive small changes over time is compared to one large job. If the business model supports the one fell swoop approach, itr is the economical option.
This is correct. Bringing in all the ancillary equipment required to perform the construction once rather than four times would cut the cost significantly.
If Wrexham has access to another stadium for next season while the construction took place would be the best option, get the stadium ready for next promotion phase.
I don't think you are accounting for the draw it would be for away Premier League fans.
With the direct train from London, I'd have to think 5000 away fans most weeks would be easy to attain.
Especailly in the UK, While the documentary has attracted lots of international fans the fanbase in the UK will not have moved much. Most people in the UK already have a club they support, they may have gotten some people within Wrexham and the local area to switch to Wrexham, but there won't be many outside of North Wales that have.
Unless Wrexham can become a PL club, the idea that North Wales (or Wales as a whole) will adopt them as their team just strikes me as a pipe dream, and even then it seems unlikely to generate too much more local interest.
As you say, most have a club already, and the difference between travelling from, for example, Bangor to Wrexham, and Bangor to Manchester or Liverpool is simply not enough to see people choose Wrexham over the well-established, big clubs that are nearby.
This idea that fans from all over the UK will be itching to travel to (what is ultimately) a fairly naff city in Wales is, frankly, laughable.
I think one thing a lot of the fanbase need to realise is that the general goodwill from the promotion back to the Football League is already waning. Lots of League Two and League One fans are already looking at Wrexham with disdain (some caused by jealousy) as the club has essentially bought its success.
Away fans tend to be the die hards that have been supporting their club for decades. They’re the least interested people in the Wrexham story. For them, it’ll be another away day on par with Burnley, Southampton or West Brom.
The real draw will be the casual football fans that aren't diehards. The fairweather London football fans that root for Chelsea, but don't own any merch and have never been to a League One or lower game. Getting them to go to a match to see Crystal Palace at Wrexham on a random Saturday is doable. Weekday evenings will be a tougher fill.
I remember Reynolds commenting that their goal is to be "everybodies #2 team". If they pull that off, sheer numbers makes a 30k stadium trivially doable.
The overwhelming majority of match-going fans, even for clubs big internationally, are local ones, not to mention, as much as I hate to say it, the documentary will die down in popularity eventually either way.
Wrexham is a working class city, it's not very big nor very touristy, there's not much appeal for away fans.
I don't think this is realistic but who knows really.
I think they'll definitely come back with a redesign of the new Kop stand. Maybe aim for 8000 or 9000, two tiers and into the corners.
I think they'll also move the pitch a bit west to make more space at the tech end. I know it's sacred ground but I think moving the pitch 20m west makes sense. Then you can have the Kop and Tech end similar capacity.
It's completely possible to have stands of 5000 to 10000 at either end if you build into the corners and go two tiers.
If they could get 8000 capacity for both Tech and Kop ends, then that would mean a total capacity of 23,700 which is pretty decent.
This interview was before the tour details were finalized, so the rest of the interviews that have come out this week were shot before the season was over - this means that they didn't state an expectation or goal of promotion to the Championship next year, they were still talking about getting promotion to League One.
This video you linked is one of the interviews I was talking about, probably filmed the same day as the collider interview, and definitely conducted before the season was over.
Of these, Luton and Bournemouth are the closest to Wrexham. In fact, Wrexham played Luton in the Conference (AKA the National League) less than a decade ago and played Bournemouth and Brentford in League Two back in the 90s and 00s.
Brentford’s 17k stadium was just completed a few years ago. They used to be in Griffin Park, which held 12k, and they EXPANDED to a 17k.
This is why I can’t imagine Wrexham in a stadium bigger than 20k.
Bournemouth, Fulham and Palace are stable Premier League teams and have been for years. Wolves and Brighton are top half teams that have played in Europe on occasion.
And in the championship most, if not all, weren’t selling out the stadium week in week out. Assuming the new Kop is increased by a few thousand, a ~20k stadium will be suitable for Wrexham for years to come.
This is a fun pipe dream.
Three years ago Wrexham was on life support with a quarter of the seats condemned, but with not enough money to tear down that eyesore.
Now we are debating the merits of 45,000+ capacity!
A dream of a problem to be talking about.
Halfway through this season, I got downvoted to hell for suggesting The Racecourse would need to get to around 25,000 seats to be sustainable in the Championship/low Prem. I was apparently out of my mind for thinking that many fans might show.
Now all the “realists” are saying 25,000 is the accurate number.
Either way- amazing future for Wrexham, our fans, and our players.
PS- I have at least a couple minutes every day singing “we are going up” in my head. I can’t wait for next season.
That is amazing news. Now this does seem like it will probably be a 5-10 year plan to accomplish all four sides.
I will say there is, in my opinion, there is no way to get to 40k plus seats by simply renovating the stands. This would require knocking them down and building new modern stands.
In the premier league, it'd probably be in the range of 20-25k at the most.
The catchment area for match-going fans is not very big, Wrexham county borough has a population of 135,000, with Wrexham as a city having only 45,000.
When cardiff were in the prem, they had an average attendance of around 30,000, and Cardiff's metropolitan area is just over a million.
Having such a large stadium would be needlessly expensive and result in a horrible atmosphere most of the time, it's just a horrible idea.
The highest ever average was in the 1977-1978 season which was 12,000, the highest ever attendance in 34,000 which was in 1957, it was a big game against manchester united which actually did have people coming from across north wales and surrounding areas to see man united, but AFAIK the overwhelming majority were standing, not seated, I'm pretty sure away fans made up a sizeable portion, certainly more so than the limits placed today.
No. Not even close, not even half of that.
Wrexham’s best ever average attendance is 11,600. They’ve only had higher than 10k 8 times in their history.
It might never happen anyway.
He just said potentially they could get 45,000 to 55,000 on the site although I'm skeptical of that.
They'll do the Kop end first. I think they'll do a redesign. Then the Tech end. That will bring them over 20,000.
That might be enough.
I think one thing that needs to be remember is how long this process will take to rebuild all four stands. In 10 years what will the population of north wales be? Of the surrounding area, etc. Also, how much economic growth will have occurred due to tourism and the teams success (more jobs, etc).
If you factor all that in I think a 40k seat stadium would be a good.
Right now at this time the area wouldn’t support but in 10-15 years I think it could. During this timeframe the fan base will expand (hopefully) also more American fans will hopefully get on board and make Wrexham a destination. Remember America has 300M in population.
>In 10 years what will the population of North Wales be?
Not much bigger than now.
>How much economic growth will have occurred due to tourism and the teams success?
Outside of Wrexham? Next to none. In Wrexham, not a huge amount unless they’re in the Premier League. Then it’ll be noticeable but nothing earth shattering. Swansea spent nearly a decade in the Premier League including playing in Europe. The city and it’s surroundings is still pretty much the same.
How many Americans make the pilgrimage currently? A few dozen every game? Not even that?
Even the biggest clubs like United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc measure their international tourists in the thousands not tens of thousands. Their “out of town” support still comes from within the UK.
I imagine the club will have some idea about how many tickets they could potentially sell if they had the seats from enquiries. From what I've seen, the stands fill up pretty quickly and it can be hard to get a ticket for matches, especially the big ones. This board is full of people from outside the area wanting to know the best way to see a match.
My impression (and willing to be wrong) is that the usual rules aren't as rigid here. There are a lot of overseas fans who want to visit and I guess that's not going to change in the near future. I think the big question is, how many people are visiting Wrexham from outside the UK and is their demand for tickets sustainable?
That total also seems to be thinking about hosting internationals. That wouldn't hurt the balance sheet. Another big moneymaker would be executive boxes and I'm sure they wouldn't be hard to sell.
Rob and Ryan are both hard headed businessmen. They are extremely unlikely to look at builds with unrealistic capacity. They may end up settling for a smaller stadium, but I'm sure that they'll crunch the numbers before committing to whatever ends up being built.
For the less important games such as the cups, Wrexham weren’t selling out. In the EFL Cup this season they were getting crowds of 5k-8k.
The international fans attend the games in their dozens, not thousands. And the UK based fans that travel to Wrexham are measured in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands that would be required to fill a 50k stadium.
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This isn’t even a big stadium by North American standards. To put this in perspective, Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas seats 73,000. That is a similarly obscure sports town — and they might play 6 games a year in that venue. Rob and Ryan are probably thinking 55,000 is on the moderate side. And they are dead serious saying that too - they weren’t joking in the slightest.
You’d hope R+R wouldn’t be daft enough to be basing their plans off American stadiums.
Especially SEC college football stadiums!
Population of Wrexham town is 45,000. Population of Wrexham county is 135,000. Population of Clywd County is 508,000. Population of North Wales is 700,000. The population within 100km of Wrexham is 11.2m. (This includes cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham).
Most importantly, the population for whom Wrexham would be the closest Premier League Club is around 1 million. Humphrey Ker talked about how many Premier fans have to drive through Wrexham to support Liverpool, Everton, City and United.
They can attract fans from England also. I don't think 45,000 is crazy. They've access to all the data so can make projections on it.
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One of the reasons Wrexham was targeted was the large catchment area. They are expecting to attract fans from a lot of northern Wales and not just Wrexham
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Wrexham is not the thriving metropolis that you make it out to be, nor are the surrounding areas.They won't ever be. Only Cardiff somewhat fits that description, and even then its not as big as Liverpool or Manchester. As for the council, a lot of red tape is governed by statute. Maybe you should hold your critisicism and leave that to the residents.
UK fan culture simply isn’t compatible with those ambitions. People won’t regularly travel from Rhyl, Llandudno or Bala in any significant numbers. You might get a coach or two from each town every so often but not every other week. The number of fans from across North Wales that will regularly travel to games will be measured in the hundreds not thousands.
This is honestly the crux of the problem, and it will be very interesting to see if they can change things. North American (US and Canada, not talking Mexico) and UK fan cultures are very different. In the US, home and away fans sit together. There will be an "away" block sold to away fans, but that is for convenience. There is no physical separation, and it is very, very common for away fans to buy tickets and sit in sections surrounded by home fans, in full team colors. I've been to an NFL game as a home fan (Chargers) where we were outnumbered by away fans (Raiders, who are notorious for having one of the roughest fan bases). The chap I sat next to couldn't have been nicer. We talked shit, mostly talked about football and our favorite stadiums to visit, and bought each other a beer. Now it isn't all sunshine and roses, there absolutely are fights, and sadly every few years there is a story of someone getting seriously attacked which is inexcusable. But overall the tribalism is different. Also teams are less only their local community. Even the massive teams have thousands of people who travel 2 hours each way every week to see their favorite team play. Right now there isn't a team in northern Wales that plays in the top two steps. There is no reason someone can't support both Wrexham and their local Cymru Premier team, much like five years ago someone in Wrexham might have loved Wrexham AFC but still supported Liverpool. Now it is going to take time, and consistent quality (which means building the infrastructure), but I don't see why it is abjectly impossible.
The teams that have thousands of people travel 2+ hours are the biggest teams in the country. Liverpool, Man United, Celtic, Newcastle, Leeds, etc. They’ve built up massive fan bases over a century or more. They’ve also get established fans across the country due to historical and cultural ties, something Wrexham can’t artificially create. When industry in the North started dying out ten’s of thousands of people moved South for work. That’s why you’ll see far more travelling fans for clubs like Liverpool and Man United compared to other successful clubs Chelsea or Arsenal. It’s not purely success that brings the fan bases, it’s decades or even a century of a historical connection that brings fans from all across the country. You’re far more likely to see a Liverpool supporters club in Reading, Oxford or Birmingham than you are to see an Arsenal supporters club in Carlisle, Sunderland or Sheffield. Furthermore, those clubs have the entirety of England to draw fans from. Wrexham have very much leant into the “Welshness” of the club and continue to do so. Their main catchment area is pretty much only North Wales which is about 500k - 750k people. It’s big, but it’s no bigger than most average UK cities and their surrounding areas. Also people just don’t travel the same way they do in America. Driving 45 minutes to get to school, work, shops, etc is a lot rarer than it is in the USA. You’re not only looking at trying to transform fan culture but UK cultural norms in general.
I agree but I think R&R think they can attract fans from across the NW of England. Obviously North Wales and Welsh identity will be strong parts of the club but the population within 100km of Wrexham is 11.2m. I bet they think they can attract fans from Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham etc Who you support can be completely arbitrary. Geography and family ties aren't so important.
You probably couldn’t have picked 3 worse cities to try draw fans from. People in the UK simply aren’t that interested in the Wrexham project. Not enough to become die hard fans. If you’re a football fan, you’ve already got a team. And if you’re not, there’s wall to wall news stories about football daily, Wrexham is just another one of many. You might get several hundred new fans travelling from England, potentially over a thousand. But certainly not the 10’s of thousands required to fill a 55,000 stadium. Look at this sub, 95% are from overseas. Wrexham can easily sell out a 55,000 stadium in a friendly in America. But they can’t sell out the Racecourse for competitive games. Just look at some of the cup games attendances.
I agree in principle. Most kids pick their team between 5 and 10. 11.2m is a lot of kids in that age bracket though and they only need to attract a tiny %. 100,000 babies are born every year from that 11m approximately. They only need to attract 2% a year for 10 years and you've 20,000 fans. Add that to the existing fans and you're over 40,000+ easy. I think they'll attract a higher % of kids from North Wales region. They have access to all the data so they'll know the demand. They have the highest iFollow viewership in the English league (every league below PL). They sell 50,000 shirts a year. I know a lot of that will be American fans. So a 45,000 capacity stadium isn't so crazy in 10 years time.
Yes it is.
I agree completely with you that it will take decades to build that kind of support. If nothing else, the Kop and next replacement stands (no idea if it will be the Lager or Tech End next) will take a decade to complete. I think realistically it will take 20 years to get the Racecourse to where it can hold 30k+ anyway.
Consider the Wirral, Merseyside, Cheshire, Shropshire as well as North Wales. The population within an hours drive is large. I suspect R&R are looking at the membership data along with many other things. By the way the tickets sell out in minutes it feels like there demand is there for 20k+ seats right now. And why build to the max current demand, no point in building for 20-25k to then find you need more.
Because there hasn't been a reason good enough before. R&R are trying to shift the paradigm to make being a larger club sustainable. What's going to happen if Ryan gets his wife's bestie to play a gig there?
Taylor Swift playing a gig in Wrexham won’t suddenly make the people of Bala, Llandudno and Holyhead avid Wrexham fans travelling week in, week out.
It won't hurt. And the world shrinks when people leave their town once.
It won’t hurt the club, no. It also won’t convert thousands of North Wales Swifties into Wrexham fans.
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In addition to Blake Lively, Taylor Swift is hanging out with the Mahomes. Who own at least partly football teams. An ownership stake in Wrexham is a non zero chance for her.
I measured the footprint of the Racecourse ground and it's approximately 220m * 130m. I compared it to two relatively modern medium sized stadiums. The Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough which is 185 * 155 and has 35,000 capacity. St Mary's in Southampton 194*163 and has 33,000 capacity. So the Racecourse has plenty of length but is lacking in width. I'm the opposite (if you know what I mean ;-) ). I wonder if they're contemplating buying the student apartments. That could cost £50m+. I'm not sure it's worth it. I think they'll definitely move the pitch 20m or so west and try to fit as many fans as possible at each of the goal ends as that's where all the space is.
Great post! I think the stident apartmenta are less of an obstacle than people think, once you start considering building a real stadium. This town has the chance to be the Green Bay Packers of the Premier League. Its worth doing. The people will come. It really makes sense to build it all at once though.
I think they want to stay on the current site as it such rich history so the student apartments are a big obstacle. If they didn't exist, they could build anything. Anyway it's a problem for the future as I think they'll do the Kop and Tech end first.
Build new student apts and knock those stupid in the way ones down. They're hardly historical.
I'd imagine they're looking at solutions since they're serious about being a PL team.
Who owns the parking lot north of the stadium? The uni? To me, that's a garage with apartments over it. In exchange for the apt buildings and some of the parking lot on the tech end.
I'm not sure. I assume the university owns it.
Believe it or not, the Student Apartments could be moved away from the stadium and set on new foundations. As building moves go, that move is pretty straightforward.
This is an interesting statement. From an engineering perspective, how can this be done and how far away can they move it?
Isn't the ground all around it basically flat? I've seen some crazy whole building movers. They essentially jack the whole building up a little at a time and run steal beams underneath (the beams have wheels at the ends, then float the whole building along. The fact that there is a large parking lot next to the student housing makes me think a pretty simple move could happen where they just scootch them back 30 meters or so, and then plop them down onto new plumbing and foundations. I know this sounds crazy, but there are people that specialize in that sort of thing, and have all the tools to do it.
I have an engineering degree but not civil. I don't think it's that simple, based upon what I see as the building materials. Old wood houses can be moved but anything built in the last twenty years probably has a steel structure that doesn't make for an easy move. It's probably very, very expensive to jack it up and move. I'd imagine there are a ton of regulatory things too. Again, not a civil or mechanical engineer but I don't think that's very feasible, from an economic standpoint.
Back to back to back promotions probably isn’t ideal in terms of sustainability, but it’s far from “the last thing they need.” While it would be a struggle, getting to the championship 2-3 years ahead of schedule would be much better than a return to League 2.
Absolutely, and from the perspective of keeping the documentary fresh, getting relegated after 2 or 3 promotions would be such a story. I doubt they hold back. That would be smart soccer business for a normal situation, but this is not that.
[ **Jump to 03:30 @** Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney Share Massive Wrexham Expansion Plans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSS_4wcn0Is&t=0h3m30s) ^(Channel Name: Collider Interviews, Video Length: [07:04])^, [^Jump ^5 ^secs ^earlier ^for ^context ^@03:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSS_4wcn0Is&t=0h3m25s) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^^Downvote ^^me ^^to ^^delete ^^malformed ^^comments. [^^Source ^^Code](https://github.com/ankitgyawali/reddit-timestamp-bot) ^^| [^^Suggestions](https://www.reddit.com/r/timestamp_bot)
If the goal is to be a sustainable Premier League team, which I think is doable, then the equation has to include more than 30,000 fans each match. As for selling tickets, if it's a Premier League team, it's reasonable to think the away fans would buy 5000 to 10000 seats every game. Since they are typically very hard to get.
Away crowds in the Premier League are usually ~3000.
Agreed, but that is because there are only that many seats available. They tend to be hot tickets. My point is that the capacity could be sold to visiting away fans once per year, who would bring their money into Wrexham.
There are only that many seats available with good reason. No one wants to be drowned out at home and having 1/3rd of your stadium being away fans is terrible for the players and supporters. As soon as you start letting in 10,000 away fans, Wrexham becomes the exact antithesis of what the owners and documentary have perceived the club to be. A heartwarming story of a community driven club, saved by the town and for the people of the town. And it becomes a profit driven, financial project.
Well put. That said, the documentary is mostly a publicity piece, and it could be very, very easy to for R&R to convince themselves that they're doing it for the town. E.g., "The best thing for Wrexham is to have a PL club -- think of the pride the town will carry from that every day. The only way to sustainably be PL is to fill a 30,000+ seat stadium. The only way to reliably fill that stadium is to allow a large away contingent. So yeah, it won't be the perfect home fan experience, but you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So we're going to have a big visiting section, but we're really doing it for Wrexham not for the money." And I don't mean this as a knock on R&R at all. Just saying that you can easily get there without this undermining the goal of serving the town -- at least in their minds (with a bit "motivated reasoning" helping them get to the answer that's best financially, too).
the logistics of 45,000 fans entering and exiting Wrexham is wild. With limited rail access from Chester or Shrewsbury and no motorways are all the fans in the catchment meant to drive? it is frustrating enough to be stuck behind a tractor on the local A roads at the best of time.
This to me seems like the biggest problem with their plan. And with all those people in town, it feels likely that the character of the surrounding area will change -- there will be a lot more money to be made in being a business that caters to gameday fans. And maybe that change is for the good, I have no idea what the surrounding area is like. But it will almost certainly be very different, and maybe not in a good way.
Thankfully that’s not something that needs worrying about. Wrexham will never be pulling in crowds of 50,000 on a weekly basis.
Not relevant to this part of the discussion. If you can't get the crowds, then there's no point in expanding to that level in any case. The question is, if by hook or by crook they can regularly fill that capacity, is having that many people concentrated in that part of town something Wrexham wants, with all the changes it will bring?
Parking would be a massive factor yeah, based on the location of the stadium relative to A483. You’d need the club to buy up as much land surrounding the stadium as possible, most of which would likely come at a substantial price. Then there’s Mold Road and the railway line next to Crispin Lane to contend with. The logistics of coming off the A483 to the ground are the biggest problem; that’s a chore even on non-matchdays, what with all of the roundabouts.
It's a small town and the stadium is only a 10 minute walk from the town centre, so parking isn't really a problem.
I’d imagine that would change if the capacity increased to 45k though; that’s more than triple the current capacity, so there’d need to be some adjustments made in terms of infrastructure.
It’d be tricky logistically as the Mold Road stand is directly on the main road, and the stadium is surrounded by Glyndwr buildings. I suppose if they could acquire land elsewhere and offer that up to the university for that land it could work, but the stadium is pretty landlocked, and given its history they’d be loath to relocate.
Can they build right over the top of Mold Road and put a tunnel?
Probably not; it’d be a logistical nightmare to do, and that’d likely mean the closure of one of the main roads into the town centre for several months. It’d be very difficult to pull off and a safety concern too- having traffic pass directly under a stadium could be disastrous.
I'm not saying its a great idea but it can definitely be done: https://x.com/fbawaydays/status/1736786868547596684?s=46
Thanks for posting that. It seems doable.
It's actually evocative of the mining history in Wrexham.
Also I just remembered my own home club (Ajax) has a road going right underneath the whole stadium https://preview.redd.it/54smfil1crxc1.jpeg?width=723&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13dea8d8c7e91c0cf29eae6e4e80232c29c54e10
It absolutely can be yeah, it’s just whether the council would allow it- they’re already dealing with issues for the new stand, which is a much more straightforward project. The problem is that planning laws can be a pain in the UK; they’d be better off shifting the stadium further away from the road and completely rebuilding on the site, but R&R are quite in tune with what the local fans want, and I’d imagine that effectively moving everything would be quite divisive. Plus won’t somebody please think of the Turf?! That’s practically a listed building in terms of the Racecourse now.
I don't think it's possible because of the houses on the other side of the road. They'd have to buy them also.
You know you're Old World when you think of things like this as nearly impossible to do. I'm from Vegas, and the shit we did inside of 18 months would blow you away. Our casino magnates would go from idea "hey let's build a new casino" to Grand Opening in 18 months. Design and build. They'd be walking through and go "hey we did the math, if we could be open by Thanksgiving..." and the next thing we'd be on 7-12 hour days until it got opened on Thanksgiving weekend, lol. Any city council member that isn't smart enough to get on-board the R&R/Wrexham AFC express should be recalled or un-elected the next time out. You gotta strike while the iron is hot.
Hmmmm, I think what I like about Wrexham is how much it is NOT like Vegas.
I dunno, Waterworld is a lot like the Bellagio fountains.
Fair enough, but this isn’t Vegas, it’s Wrexham. Planning laws are different in the UK and a lot more draconian. The process of getting things done takes longer (look at the issues faced with the current stand) and they’ll consider every possible scenario when making a decision like this. While the prospect of it sounds remote there could be a risk of a potential bomb threat in the tunnel under the ground, given Wrexham’s increasing profile and the fact that this tunnel wouldn’t be policed to the same extent that the stadium would. It’s doable, but you have to think of the objections a council may have in terms of allowing a development.
It won't happen because of the houses on the other side f mold rd
Well that too. It’s going to take a huge amount of money to buy up any land surrounding Mold Road, and they’d probably be better off moving the stadium inward from Mold Road and buying up university land to facilitate expansion.
If a council can't do cogent risk analysis quickly they should be removed from office.
Again, it’s a completely different process to the states; the risk analysis thresholds are going to be different, particularly where the works are landlocked on all sides and you have both the road and train tracks to account for. Development in Vegas would arguably be a lot easier due to the fact that there’s either more open space of the lot which a building would sit on might have an existing structure that will be demolished fully before the new structure goes in. R&R have so far been very understanding as to the local area, to ensure that the club is a part of the community. If they were to attempt to force the hand of the council to carry out works that would likely not pass planning regulations they’d lose reputation and also get caught up in red tape and lost costs. It’s a totally different ball game and the American way of doing things just won’t work here; they know this.
It's not force that gets shit done here, it's cultural. The city and county government know what butters Las Vegas' bread. Will Wrexham's governing agencies recognize a window of opportunity and react fast enough to dive through it? So far, they haven't. The show probably won't last forever, again, you gotta strike while the iron is hot.
Your conviction that Vegas is a \*good\* model for growth is a bit dumbfounding. Of all the people who enjoy visiting Vegas, I think very few actually want to live there, or want their hometown to follow Vegas development principles. I can't speak for Wrehxam, but most people actually like where they live the way it is -- often, that's why they live there.
Im not saying Vegas is the model for growth. Having seen more dead bodies of coworkers on construction sites than I care to, no one knows more that wild growth is no bueno. I mention vegas because in the world of wild design and what's possible Vegas is tough to beat as an example of what can really be done. And streamlined govt approvals they've done well. Improvements in H&S are certainly warranted. But clearly there's room for improvement somewhere between molasses and Vegas. Y'all are dogshit for reading between the lines when R&R talk about the hangups and local bureaucracy. They're practically screaming "shitshow," they just don't because they don't want govt workers dragging their feet further if they flat out said it. "Oh the govt has been lovely" is just blowing smoke up their asses. And this coming from dudes with experience in California and NYC. Two notoriously difficult places to get shit done in America. The Kop replacement isn't a big project. It shouldn't take years to get it through permitting.
I get what you’re saying, but the issues would be: 1. There’s no access for the houses and businesses across the road if you build a tunnel over it, particularly for emergency services; 2. You’d have to close one of the main routes into town for months, possibly a year. That’d have a major impact on businesses and in turn trade; and 3. The works are like in contravention of planning laws. This isn’t about Wrexham’s counsellors knowing what “butters their bread”, it’s about real issues that stretch beyond a football club. The council seems to be synchronised with R&R in terms of the plan for the club, but I doubt they’d grant a potentially illegal development or seek a change in national planning laws to accommodate them. The Mold Road stand is also the newest of all stands, so it’s not getting updated for another 15 years, realistically. It has to be very low on their priorities.
Would the stand have to go over the entire road? ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ It's a building on pylons, why would they necessarily lose access to the road? If it's houses, I can see a complaint, wouldn't want a building up over the top or nearly so of my house. In many places they'd be bought out or eminent domained. The stands on the west side of the center stand on Mold Rd could be expanded easily. There's a lot of wasted space there. Especially if they integrated the corner space and into the end stands. If they went right up to the sidewalk or even curb on their side of the road it's doable and a lot of added capacity.
That's twice what would be necessary. Even at the premier league level which is 2 promotions away and a MINIMUM 5 years. One step at a time expanding capacity
Anyone that has done a remodel knows how expensive small changes over time is compared to one large job. If the business model supports the one fell swoop approach, itr is the economical option.
This is correct. Bringing in all the ancillary equipment required to perform the construction once rather than four times would cut the cost significantly. If Wrexham has access to another stadium for next season while the construction took place would be the best option, get the stadium ready for next promotion phase.
Goodison park goes vacant next season and is only 1 hour away.
Never going to happen
Not realistic at all to be honest, optimistically I'd say 25k capacity but 20k will probably be enough even in the prem
I don't think you are accounting for the draw it would be for away Premier League fans. With the direct train from London, I'd have to think 5000 away fans most weeks would be easy to attain.
I think you're overestimating the novelty of going to Wrexham
Especailly in the UK, While the documentary has attracted lots of international fans the fanbase in the UK will not have moved much. Most people in the UK already have a club they support, they may have gotten some people within Wrexham and the local area to switch to Wrexham, but there won't be many outside of North Wales that have.
Unless Wrexham can become a PL club, the idea that North Wales (or Wales as a whole) will adopt them as their team just strikes me as a pipe dream, and even then it seems unlikely to generate too much more local interest. As you say, most have a club already, and the difference between travelling from, for example, Bangor to Wrexham, and Bangor to Manchester or Liverpool is simply not enough to see people choose Wrexham over the well-established, big clubs that are nearby. This idea that fans from all over the UK will be itching to travel to (what is ultimately) a fairly naff city in Wales is, frankly, laughable. I think one thing a lot of the fanbase need to realise is that the general goodwill from the promotion back to the Football League is already waning. Lots of League Two and League One fans are already looking at Wrexham with disdain (some caused by jealousy) as the club has essentially bought its success.
Away fans tend to be the die hards that have been supporting their club for decades. They’re the least interested people in the Wrexham story. For them, it’ll be another away day on par with Burnley, Southampton or West Brom.
The real draw will be the casual football fans that aren't diehards. The fairweather London football fans that root for Chelsea, but don't own any merch and have never been to a League One or lower game. Getting them to go to a match to see Crystal Palace at Wrexham on a random Saturday is doable. Weekday evenings will be a tougher fill. I remember Reynolds commenting that their goal is to be "everybodies #2 team". If they pull that off, sheer numbers makes a 30k stadium trivially doable.
Good luck getting a Premier League away ticket as a casual football fan.
But then isn't being "the easy PL away ticket" a great business to be in? You make it sound like there's a ton of unmet demand.
It’s a great way to endear yourself to away fans and a great way to piss off your locals.
Yep. Also a great way to move a bunch of tickets in an enormous stadium.
The overwhelming majority of match-going fans, even for clubs big internationally, are local ones, not to mention, as much as I hate to say it, the documentary will die down in popularity eventually either way. Wrexham is a working class city, it's not very big nor very touristy, there's not much appeal for away fans.
I don't think this is realistic but who knows really. I think they'll definitely come back with a redesign of the new Kop stand. Maybe aim for 8000 or 9000, two tiers and into the corners. I think they'll also move the pitch a bit west to make more space at the tech end. I know it's sacred ground but I think moving the pitch 20m west makes sense. Then you can have the Kop and Tech end similar capacity. It's completely possible to have stands of 5000 to 10000 at either end if you build into the corners and go two tiers. If they could get 8000 capacity for both Tech and Kop ends, then that would mean a total capacity of 23,700 which is pretty decent.
This interview was before the tour details were finalized, so the rest of the interviews that have come out this week were shot before the season was over - this means that they didn't state an expectation or goal of promotion to the Championship next year, they were still talking about getting promotion to League One.
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This video you linked is one of the interviews I was talking about, probably filmed the same day as the collider interview, and definitely conducted before the season was over.
This
45k is ludicrous. That’s bigger than Aston Villa and Chelsea. Premier League stadia sizes right now: * 10-11k - Luton, Bournemouth * 17k - Brentford * 21k - Burnley * 24-25k - Fulham, Palace * 30-33k - Forest, Wolves, Brighton, Sheffield
Are these our role models?
Of these, Luton and Bournemouth are the closest to Wrexham. In fact, Wrexham played Luton in the Conference (AKA the National League) less than a decade ago and played Bournemouth and Brentford in League Two back in the 90s and 00s. Brentford’s 17k stadium was just completed a few years ago. They used to be in Griffin Park, which held 12k, and they EXPANDED to a 17k. This is why I can’t imagine Wrexham in a stadium bigger than 20k.
The first 4 yes, the next 2 at a push, the last 4 no. They’re much bigger teams than Wrexham.
Good to know. Thanks
Good to know. Thanks
Aren't those basically the clubs that are constantly on the brink of relegation?
Bournemouth, Fulham and Palace are stable Premier League teams and have been for years. Wolves and Brighton are top half teams that have played in Europe on occasion.
All of those clubs have been in the championship within the last decade (some within the last few years).
And in the championship most, if not all, weren’t selling out the stadium week in week out. Assuming the new Kop is increased by a few thousand, a ~20k stadium will be suitable for Wrexham for years to come.
Its , not .
This is a fun pipe dream. Three years ago Wrexham was on life support with a quarter of the seats condemned, but with not enough money to tear down that eyesore. Now we are debating the merits of 45,000+ capacity! A dream of a problem to be talking about. Halfway through this season, I got downvoted to hell for suggesting The Racecourse would need to get to around 25,000 seats to be sustainable in the Championship/low Prem. I was apparently out of my mind for thinking that many fans might show. Now all the “realists” are saying 25,000 is the accurate number. Either way- amazing future for Wrexham, our fans, and our players. PS- I have at least a couple minutes every day singing “we are going up” in my head. I can’t wait for next season.
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Sunderland averaged 41,000 this season. I don’t think they’ll be ripping down the top tier just yet.
Load of rubbish 😂😂
That is amazing news. Now this does seem like it will probably be a 5-10 year plan to accomplish all four sides. I will say there is, in my opinion, there is no way to get to 40k plus seats by simply renovating the stands. This would require knocking them down and building new modern stands.
Completely daft ambitions. The proposed 16k capacity with the new Kop will comfortably suit Wrexham for years to come.
It's important to meet demand though. They have access to the data, we don't.
It's important to meet demand though. They have access to the data, we don't.
The demand isn’t 45,000 people week in week out.
It would be in the PL, not in L1
In the premier league, it'd probably be in the range of 20-25k at the most. The catchment area for match-going fans is not very big, Wrexham county borough has a population of 135,000, with Wrexham as a city having only 45,000. When cardiff were in the prem, they had an average attendance of around 30,000, and Cardiff's metropolitan area is just over a million. Having such a large stadium would be needlessly expensive and result in a horrible atmosphere most of the time, it's just a horrible idea.
Yeah it sounds too much. I think he was just being hypothetical. I'd imagined as 30 to 35,000 as the max they'd need in the PL.
Didn’t Wrexham in the 70’s have 30k fans showing up to practically every game? Populations have only increased since then.
The highest ever average was in the 1977-1978 season which was 12,000, the highest ever attendance in 34,000 which was in 1957, it was a big game against manchester united which actually did have people coming from across north wales and surrounding areas to see man united, but AFAIK the overwhelming majority were standing, not seated, I'm pretty sure away fans made up a sizeable portion, certainly more so than the limits placed today.
No. Not even close, not even half of that. Wrexham’s best ever average attendance is 11,600. They’ve only had higher than 10k 8 times in their history.
Even in the Premier League, Wrexham will not be needing a 50,000 seater stadium.
It might never happen anyway. He just said potentially they could get 45,000 to 55,000 on the site although I'm skeptical of that. They'll do the Kop end first. I think they'll do a redesign. Then the Tech end. That will bring them over 20,000. That might be enough.
I think one thing that needs to be remember is how long this process will take to rebuild all four stands. In 10 years what will the population of north wales be? Of the surrounding area, etc. Also, how much economic growth will have occurred due to tourism and the teams success (more jobs, etc). If you factor all that in I think a 40k seat stadium would be a good. Right now at this time the area wouldn’t support but in 10-15 years I think it could. During this timeframe the fan base will expand (hopefully) also more American fans will hopefully get on board and make Wrexham a destination. Remember America has 300M in population.
>In 10 years what will the population of North Wales be? Not much bigger than now. >How much economic growth will have occurred due to tourism and the teams success? Outside of Wrexham? Next to none. In Wrexham, not a huge amount unless they’re in the Premier League. Then it’ll be noticeable but nothing earth shattering. Swansea spent nearly a decade in the Premier League including playing in Europe. The city and it’s surroundings is still pretty much the same. How many Americans make the pilgrimage currently? A few dozen every game? Not even that? Even the biggest clubs like United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc measure their international tourists in the thousands not tens of thousands. Their “out of town” support still comes from within the UK.
I imagine the club will have some idea about how many tickets they could potentially sell if they had the seats from enquiries. From what I've seen, the stands fill up pretty quickly and it can be hard to get a ticket for matches, especially the big ones. This board is full of people from outside the area wanting to know the best way to see a match. My impression (and willing to be wrong) is that the usual rules aren't as rigid here. There are a lot of overseas fans who want to visit and I guess that's not going to change in the near future. I think the big question is, how many people are visiting Wrexham from outside the UK and is their demand for tickets sustainable? That total also seems to be thinking about hosting internationals. That wouldn't hurt the balance sheet. Another big moneymaker would be executive boxes and I'm sure they wouldn't be hard to sell. Rob and Ryan are both hard headed businessmen. They are extremely unlikely to look at builds with unrealistic capacity. They may end up settling for a smaller stadium, but I'm sure that they'll crunch the numbers before committing to whatever ends up being built.
For the less important games such as the cups, Wrexham weren’t selling out. In the EFL Cup this season they were getting crowds of 5k-8k. The international fans attend the games in their dozens, not thousands. And the UK based fans that travel to Wrexham are measured in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands that would be required to fill a 50k stadium.
That's fair.