Sunderland are weighing up their options with huge demand on Wearside to watch Premier League football
Sunderland are actively considering expanding the Stadium of Light but the club’s interim CEO says no decision has been taken at this stage.
The club’s growth in recent years has led to a surge in demand for tickets, with the club currently holding a 15,000 strong waiting list for season cards. As the club bids to drive up its revenues in order to be better placed within the Premier League’s new financial rules, expansion has become a key talking point on Wearside in recent times.
Tom Burwell said that discussions were ongoing and that there was a debate as to what extent the current manufacturing costs negated the positive impact expanding would have. Burwell added that the club were reviewing other ways to increase their revenue, including finding ways to meet the added demand for premium hospitality seats.
“At the moment it sits as a constant conversation,” Burwell told The Echo.
“I think we're incredibly fortunate that in the renewal window for our season tickets we sold 96%, the other four percent will sell out against the waiting list that we had. We had 15,000 people on our waiting list and around 1,400 tickets left so they will go very quickly and that waiting list will remain a large waiting list.
“There's an interesting return on investment question that you have when you look at South Stand or East Stand expansion: whether the costs of putting in an extra 10,000 seats in a world where manufacturing costs, engineering and so on are so high right now [is worth it]. But it's absolutely something that we continue to explore.
“I also think there is a piece here which is that we currently in the South and the East stand are not necessarily servicing our premium partners as much as we could do, so we have have 60 hospitality boxes of which we have a waiting list of 35 - that's the highest yielding ticket that we have in the stadium. We also have the ability that most of our premium outlets are all completely sold out as well so is there an inventory mix question that we can begin to develop.”
The club have been working with Sunderland City Council on its proposals to develop the Sheepfolds land next to the stadium, in order to protect the prospect of expanding the South Stand if they decide to go down that route. Sunderland opposed the council’s initial proposal but have supported an amended application which reinstates a commercial buffer zone between the stadium and the proposed development.
A club spokesperson previously said of the amended application: “We look forward to seeing the proposals progress through the planning process."
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