Stadium expansion
Found via Soccer Mad in America is this report that Barcelona want to expand the capacity of Camp Nou to 115,000. At the moment it’s a shade under 97,000.
Seems a bit odd to me. Now, I know Barcelona went on this membership drive and have increased the number of members significantly, but at the same time it’s very rare to see the stadium completely sold out.
Only against Real Madrid and possibly Valencia is the arena full for league games and obviously the Champions League encounters are sell-outs depending on the opposition. For any other game there are nearly always tickets on general sale and empty seats scattered around the ground.
As well as that I’ve said the Barcelona derby (versus Espanyol) attract crowds of as ‘little’ as 45,000 in recent years.
That said if they’re going ahead with it they must see the benefit of it and for the few occassions each season when they sell out it must certainly generate enough income to cope with the increased number of empty seats the rest of the time.
It strikes me that they’re making a big play for the tourist fans here.