When Liverpool welcomed Leicester City to Anfield on September 10, 2016, it would be a game that would draw the biggest home crowd for the Reds for some 40 years.
A crowd of 53,075 were in attendance for the clash against the Foxes, the largest to have been inside Anfield since the Reds hosted West Ham United on May 14, 1977, when the congregation stood at 55,675.
It was a game that marked the opening of the redeveloped Main Stand at Anfield, a development that owners Fenway Sports Group saw from early on as vital to raising revenues at the club, both on matchdays and commercially.
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Plans for the expansion were revealed in 2014, the aim to add another 8,500 seats to help satisfy the enormous demand for tickets as well as to offer a vastly improved hospitality offering that would deliver significant revenue uplifts. It wouldn't be cheap, though, with the work, which started in December 2014, costing around £114m. The work was done around the existing structure of the Main Stand to ensure that it remained fully operational during the 2015/16 season.
The Main Stand, at 20,500 one of the biggest single all-seater stands in European football, has played a significant part in rising Liverpool revenues in recent years.
When FSG took over as Reds owners in 2010 from Tom Hicks and George Gillett they looked into the feasibility of moving to a new stadium before swiftly landing on redevelopment of what they already had being the best course of action.
In 2015/16 set of financial accounts published by Liverpool, matchday revenue stood at £62.4m. The following accounting period, 2016/1, saw matchday revenues at £73.5m, an increase of almost 18 per cent year on year. According to forecasts for the 2021/22 accounting period by analysts at respected sports business website Off The Pitch, the matchday revenues could reach as much as £89.7m. That represents a 44 per cent rise since the Main Stand's completion.
The year FSG took over the matchday revenue stood at £40.9m, meaning that it has more than doubled over the last 10 years against a capacity increase of around 18 per cent.
The success of the redevelopment from a financial perspective is easy to see, and its success emboldened FSG to press ahead with their plans for the redevelopment of the Anfield Road end, a move that will increase capacity to 61,000 and likely push Liverpool over the £100m mark for matchday revenues, something that only Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur are likely to be able to do over the next couple of seasons.
The Anfield Road work is slightly different to what was undertaken with the Main Stand. The firm who are carrying out the construction, Buckingham, will follow on from what Carillion did with the Main Stand and construct around it to ensure it remains operational and doesn't impact revenue streams, with the steel framework having been in place for some time and the work taking shape with each passing month.
Where the Main Stand, phase one of FSG's redevelopment plan, was seen as being a development to ensure that the club were mirroring off the pitch what they wanted to achieve on it, with the aesthetics particularly key, the Anfield Road redevelopment is likely to be more functional, its aim to satisfy the demand for tickets to the greatest extent they can, and adding another 7,000 seats will certainly go a long way to doing that.
There will be improved conferencing and hospitality within the development, but the improvements are also being done to try and raise revenues through food and beverage sales from the concourse. Finding ways to monetise the stadium away from matchdays is also part of the plan.
It is an £80m redevelopment that is set to be completed in time for the 2023/24 campaign, although the final touches to the work next summer means that there won't be any music concerts at Anfield until the following year.
When completed it will mean that Liverpool will break their attendance record at the start of next season, and with the need to keep pushing revenues forward to allow for the preference of a sustainable business to thrive, it will be another key piece of ensuring that happens.
"The construction timelines we have set of 18 months are aggressive but we are heading in the right direction and we are on budget and on schedule," Liverpool CEO Billy Hogan told the August edition of FC Business magazine.
"We have always been clear about the importance of investing in Anfield and this expansion will allow us to improve the fan experience for our supporters.
"One of the new aspects of the expansion will be an underground fan zone that supporters can enjoy even if the weather is poor. Of course, we will also be able to have more fans in for concerts and other non-football events too, which will bring in additional income.
“As a self-sustaining club, we need to generate as much revenue as we can to continue reinvesting in the team and infrastructure."
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