I'm not sure you can read much into an attendance for an unattractive F.A. Cup Tie to be honest. I can only speak for myself, but I eitehr want to attend a game or I don't... I couldn't give a crap if the tickets were free. The marketing t our club is so shyte in any case, I doubt most people in Blackpool even knew about the game.
I agree with you on a lot of the stuff you post, but you are completely off the mark with this one. The ground capacity is absolutely key to supporting the growth of a fanbase and it has been a limiting factor for years at Blackpool (hence why attendances have never grown in recent years).
We need to show some proper ambition... There's huge potential to significantly increase attendances at Bloomfield Road
The big Premier League Clubs build out or look to build out their capacity because they have filled their existing capacity - Arenal, Spurs, United, Liverpool etc etc
For me, the club should grow the capacity if it has some visibility on using it for a high percentage of the time. The most recent data point we have on capacity usage is based around the last two seasons in The Championship. If memory serves me correct, we even struggled to fill the ground for the two Preston games and definitely didn't for any others. Maybe there were some games where if we had the extra capacity we could've housed more away fans but then we would start to lose home advantage. There was much discussion around this last season when we gave a few clubs the whole of the East.
So, if we can't fill the current stadium in The Championship, when are we going to fill it? I guess the answer is if we are in The Premier League. We've been in the top division of English football once in the last 50+ years! To build a big sparkly new stand for regular use based on a 1 in 50 year occurrence is madness!
We only have to look around locally to see the white elephant stadia at Wigan and Blackburn that were only filled in the Prem years or Deepdale that was built for The Knobbers hope of Prem football. Those stadiums are half empty but still need maintaining and undoubtedly contribute to the shocking losses that those three clubs run at year in, year out. Losses that cannot be sustainable over the long-term
Furthermore, it is becoming more and more accessible to watched televised games which undoubtedly impacts live attendances. The upside to television though is that clubs in The Prem get shitloads of money. If Blackpool were to get there again, that TV money would dwarf the gate receipts. So, if we do get to The Prem, the clubs finances would be materially improved without need of a larger stadium as has been the case for the likes of Bournemouth, Luton and Brentford.
And then cost. A 5,000 seat stand would cost at a guess 12-15m quid. That's probably in the same ballpark as the value of the club! It makes no financial sense, whatsoever to spend that amount of money on a stand that will barely ever be used and only gets properly used in The Prem where the club should be rolling in it anyway from TV money.
I'd much rather have a smaller, fuller stadium where tickets were highly prized and the club made full use of the resale function as the number of empty seats at times from season ticket holders is ridiculous.