Big Club = Big Crowds

We have these discussions many times before - Newcastle has a massive catchment area - possibly three times the Boro's. I have lived and worked in the area, OK for 13 months but its a major city, economically and culturally it has been the major centre of the North East for at least 500 years.

Ref the studio discussion - no mention of why so many N/E players left the area.

1966 England World Cup Squad

Jackie Charlton - Leeds
Bobby Charlton - Man United
Norman Hunter - Leeds
 
Redwurzel said:
We have these discussions many times before - Newcastle has a massive catchment area - possibly three times the Boro's. I have lived and worked in the area, OK for 13 months but its a major city, economically and culturally it has been the major centre of the North East for at least 500 years.
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Newcastle's catchment is roughly 3 times Boro's as you say, Sunderland is roughly twice the size of Boro's, and by some mathematical magic their historical average attendances are roughly three and two times the size of Boro's respectively (actually less, but for the sake of argument). We do alright considering we're a club with no real history of success, unlike the two up the road who back when Noah was an amoeba were actually successful clubs.
 
One thing that is always a take away from any of these old videos is that Cloughs brain is razor sharp. Well ahead of his time in many ways, while most others on these panels seem like dinosaurs.
 
Basing "bigness", which is an immeasurable concept dreamt up by former giants who are no longer relevant at the silverware end of things, can no longer be done by catchment area or attendance, if it ever even could. Football is now a global game and there are fans all around the world with a team that they support in English football. These fans heavily skew towards the super clubs but the longer you are out of the PL the less relevant you are for that global audience. Bigness can be measured relatively easily these days either by revenue, social media engagement or on the pitch success. Most PL teams are close to capacity every week so ticket sales probably isn't the best indicator even. We are undoubtedly a smaller club than most PL teams now but that just makes any achievements we have more impressive. When we won our trophy and were UEFA cup finalists we were punching above our weight but we were relatively much bigger than we are now.
 
GazBoro said:
Newcastle's catchment is roughly 3 times Boro's as you say, Sunderland is roughly twice the size of Boro's, and by some mathematical magic their historical average attendances are roughly three and two times the size of Boro's respectively (actually less, but for the sake of argument). We do alright considering we're a club with no real history of success, unlike the two up the road who back when Noah was an amoeba were actually successful clubs.
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Actually a lot closer.
So we get better crowds proportionately .
All time averages from a few years back..Screenshot_20240430-110014.png
 
Made me laugh when was that aired 1974 the two journalists talk like every fan of Newcastle & Sunderland today, all about crowds isn't it, and they still not won out since that was aired 50 year ago.
 
Friend of mine who works up in Wearside area has occasionally got corporate tickets for Sunderland.

Spoke about it and he pointed out the season ticket prices are roughly middle of the road on average for full paying adults, but where Sunderland do well is concessions, under 21s, 18s and 16 year olds with OAPs.
Really low prices (some have to be with a paying adult)

So he said on observations 40k in the stadium and he said roughly half looked like attended by children. (Club should be commended for attracting young fans)

However, he said the SOL is like a library compared to the Riverside these days.
 
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