I can’t see City expanding the Etihad to 70,000 just to host a CL final.
Let’s see the long term take up of seats when the Etihad is expanded to 62,000 first.
I think 62,000 will remain the Etihad capacity for quite some time to come, if not for good?.
I think concerts will be back at the Etihad once the Etihad is expanded. So that and the hotel being full for concerts and other events will drive additional revenue from the new North stand for the foreseeable future.
Even adding an extra 5000 seats to the Colin Bell stand and to the East stand will cost £100’s millions. Is it really worth it for 5000 additional seats on each stand over a long period of design, construction, and upheaval?
The North stand is different as it offers 8000 extra seats, a hotel, a 3000 capacity fan zone, a restaurant and floating 3rd tier, a viewing platform, a museum, retail, offices, etc. And will generates huge revenues year on year.
I’d rather see City start on the Collar site next after the North stand is completed. The revenues form that could be huge, depending on what’s proposed.
The original application described the expansion as an addition of of 7,900 seats, increasing the stadium capacity to 61,958 and yet the site-hoardings and club communications confusingly describe the expansion in terms of 7,000 new seats.
Maine Road's capacity prior to the move was c.34 k, we are now operating at capacity (53.5 k). There is no potential constraint on the match-day potential of City's fanbase other than the stadium capacity
subject to success on the pitch which for the first time since the Mancini regime is now in doubt.
There are some fantastic modern stadiums in England such as Tottenham's stadium, the Emirates and Wembley but they stand alone. City's ground is integrated into a cluster of sports venues (regional tennis centre, regional athletic arena, velodrome, national squash centre and BMX arena). Added to the sports venues is the Co-op LIVE indoor arena (23,500). The North Stand expansion will further add a 391 bed hotel, museum, restaurant, fan and retail complex. This venue is abridged to the men, women, and academy training grounds with their own stadia and facilities. This means that when football journalists consider the Etihad sponsorship with rival clubs sponsorship agreements their comparisons are not like with like.
I live in Manchester, and walk to the game. If I am at my Dad's in the High Peak, I catch a match-day bus that takes me to almost to the ground. It's incredibly well designed. 25 years ago, this area was derelict ex-industrial land criss-crossed by redundant canals that included the sites of a former colliery and steelworks. Now it has been redeveloped. Manchester is a wonderful modern city with skyscrapers that have no English comparison. Manchester City are very much part of that. Manchester has a unique industrial past and it is the only vibrant English city outside of London. Unfortunately, social commentators experience of football is through TV or the internet. They have no idea of what the area once was, or now is.
MCFC is seen as a political soft-power enterprise by some who think that Britain and the Western powers have the sole right to be the architects of globalisation and the likes of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Arabs etc have no right to operate on the world stage. The world is global now and no one has an inherent right to it.
