PETITION - Away Ticket Pricing

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Legally they are, in the UK.

But it's a pity that no-one has told the vast majority of their supporters that - because their relationship with their football club is quite unlike the relationship that consumers have with entertainment providers. I've never seen anyone wearing a scarf with their local cinema's name on, or refused to go to one theatre in favour of another.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

If I bought Bayern Munich I would ask my finance people what the best price was to achieve highest profit. I wouldn't give a shit what the fans said as long as I was making the maximum amount of money possible.

But you could never, ever do that - Bayern Munich is 51% owned by its members. And that's the point.

OK smartie pants. Chelsea, i'll but Chelsea.

Feel free. Don't expect to buy it as a business opportunity, though, because you'll have to invest (in football finance terms "invest" means "throw away") the best part of a billion to get it to where you want it, and even then you may not be happy.

So whilst you need to throw that much of your own money at it, the little bit that you get from a tenner on the ticket prices is pretty insignificant in comparison, and doesn't make you anything - it just reduces your losses, while at the same time diminishing the vibrancy and atmosphere in the ground (which is probable one of the things that first attracted you to football!)

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Legally they are, in the UK.

But it's a pity that no-one has told the vast majority of their supporters that - because their relationship with their football club is quite unlike the relationship that consumers have with entertainment providers. I've never seen anyone wearing a scarf with their local cinema's name on, or refused to go to one theatre in favour of another.

Exactly, hence my thread on the Team Board a week or so back. Rationally I know they're nothing more than entertainment providers - my money is better spent in the theatre.

Hence my comment :

..... but football supporters won't transfer their support to another club. All they'll really do is stop going or drop down to non-league, which more and more are doing) .
....

[Sal Paradiso]

Legally they are, in the UK.

But it's a pity that no-one has told the vast majority of their supporters that - because their relationship with their football club is quite unlike the relationship that consumers have with entertainment providers. I've never seen anyone wearing a scarf with their local cinema's name on, or refused to go to one theatre in favour of another.

Exactly, hence my thread on the Team Board a week or so back. Rationally I know they're nothing more than entertainment providers - my money is better spent in the theatre.

It is generally more entertaining, you're right.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

They're entertainment providers and nothing more, and they should live and die by the market.

But .... if you do surveys with supporters, of all clubs at all levels, you'll find that the emotions and the relationship they have with their club is quite different to that.

In fact, the word most used when you ask supporters questions like why they started going and why they still go and why they support their club is "family". For so many it's part of their community, their extended family, their sense of "who they are". They don't see their club as just an "entertainment provider" - it's far more important to them than that.

It's this mis-match between the attitudes of supporters and the attitudes of those running the game and its clubs that is one of the reasons that football in this country is so monumentally fukked up.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

That's 300k per year. I would 100% not be reducing the price and costing myself 300k to save fans a tenner when the seats would be sold without the reduction.

But that £300k per year is what you're paying one of your midfielders in a single fortnight... it's such an insignificant sum that you could lose it and not notice it, especially when you're about to get an extra bonus from a new TV deal that will be many many more times greater than that.

And yes, the seats might be sold without the reduction, but that's such a dangerous and short-term attitude that will decrease the value of the asset you've bought. Because they won't sell for ever, and there isn't an inexhaustible supply of people coining along to but them. So you seriously risk losing income.

And in the long-term, where is your audience going to come from? The average age of a PL season-ticket holder is 44 and it's been going up all the time from 1992. Many kids have never got to go to a game, and if they do it's a once-a-season treat. That's dangerous short-termism that can only damage the industry and the club in the long-term.

Perhaps the real problem is that people who don't give a toss about the game are allowed to come in and buy clubs as "prestige purchases" - and with that we're back to ownership models and "when is a club not a club?"

[Alexander Litvinenko]

But is it? A whole generation have lost the habit of "going to the game." Will they ever find it.

When I started going to football you'd say on a Friday evening or a Saturday morning "fancy going to the game?" And then you';d meet up with your mates, pay the sum over the turnstiles and you'd be in. You'd find a space near them and have a good laugh. The alternative might have been go to the pictures on a Saturday afternoon, which was about the same price.

That's now dead - you need to plan getting tickets weeks in advance, the odds are you'd be unable to be anywhere near your mates - especially if any of you are STHs - and the sum you'd have to pay is substantial - four or five times the cost of going to the pictures. Oh, and if you do get to pay on the day, the bastards charge you an extra-fee for not having the foresight to have bought tickets earlier.

No wonder so many people are just not bothering and either lose the habit of going to football or never get it in the first place - or switch to non-league clubs or the pub.

And yes, they've been replaced, in the short-term, but once the gloss wears off and the fickle new-fans switch to something else, who will there be left to sustain football then?

[melonhead]

But is it? A whole generation have lost the habit of "going to the game." Will they ever find it.

?

does this not happen with every generation to an extent. large swathes of people must always have slowly drifted away, or jut didnt have enough time/money to justify the expense etc

[melonhead]

'swhat i mean, was always like that
#
genr8ions go, gener8ions come
and so the world turns

[Alexander Litvinenko]

But is it? A whole generation have lost the habit of "going to the game." Will they ever find it.

?

does this not happen with every generation to an extent. large swathes of people must always have slowly drifted away, or jut didnt have enough time/money to justify the expense etc

Look at the overall attendance figures, and also the demographic split of supporters, and you'll find that a typical football crowd is much, much older than it ever has been, with a smaller proportion of kids than ever before.

Similarly, kids who do attend football matches attend fewer, each season, than in the past.

It's not so pronounced at Reading - partly because they've been proactive marketing to the family audience for years - but at other clubs - especially the ones who can easily sell out all their tickets, then it is much more marked.

[melonhead]

hardly remember any kids at elm park

[Alexander Litvinenko]

I do. Typically the pattern would be go with parents and be around the Tilehurst End or the angle of South Bank/Tilehurst End.

Then when in early teens 13-14 start going on your own, staring in the same in the same place but as you got older graduate to the South Bank proper - moving further and further to the right of it as you got older.

[melonhead]

even i cant argue with that

[sandman]

hardly remember any kids at elm park

They didn't have Rumblestix or wear Jester hats so you probably didn't notice them.

[melonhead]

HOF

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

I do. Typically the pattern would be go with parents and be around the Tilehurst End or the angle of South Bank/Tilehurst End.
.

You could see them at most games, bored with the on-field action, playing there own games of football with a plastic cup on empty parts of the terracing.

[Wimb]

I do. Typically the pattern would be go with parents and be around the Tilehurst End or the angle of South Bank/Tilehurst End.
.

You could see them at most games, bored with the on-field action, playing there own games of football with a plastic cup on empty parts of the terracing.

Waiting for the bloke with the sweets tray to make his way round.

no pedalo.... I hope

[City of London Royal]

It [sic] Tesco put their prices up most people would go to Asda or Sainsbury's or wherever, but football supporters won't transfer their support to another club. (All they'll really do is stop going or drop down to non-league, which more and more are doing) .

It's that emotional relationship that clubs are exploiting - they know that there's an emotional factor that compels supporters to go. In most walks of life in the same situation they'd walk away, but the draw of supporting their team just makes them say "How much? That's outrageous" - and still hand over the money.

We clashed swords over on the Fulham thread Alexander, and I don't mean to make an enemy of you as ultimately I do see where you're coming from.

But I'd be interested to know if you've got any figures to support your argument above. There's no shortage of people (distinct from supporters, I'll grant you) willing to pay Premier League prices - by all means keep on encouraging those who post on here not to, but I'd suggest they're not your target audience any more, that battle is already "won" (last time I was at the Mad Stad I was in the South Stand and sat next to two Polish couples, they weren't ardent fans, and I very much doubt they post on here but wanted to watch a Premier League match. Good luck to 'em)

Secondly with regard to non league, there's an interesting blog post here http://www.thefootballramble.com/indepth/entry/the-myth-of-non-league-affordability which sums it up rather nicely. Is paying £18 to watch Luton, £12 to watch Welling, Sutton United or Hayes & Yeading really better value than £40 to watch Reading at Fulham? I love the non league but I'm really not convinced.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Secondly with regard to non league, there's an interesting blog post here http://www.thefootballramble.com/indepth/entry/the-myth-of-non-league-affordability which sums it up rather nicely. Is paying £18 to watch Luton, £12 to watch Welling, Sutton United or Hayes & Yeading really better value than £40 to watch Reading at Fulham? I love the non league but I'm really not convinced.

IT depends how you define "value". If you want to factor quality into it, then it becomes trickier, but when people just fancy going to match now and then, £12 admission makes it a far cheaper day out than £45 for a premier league game - far more so if you fancy going almost every week.

[Rex]

Perhaps if there is the needs to attend matches then go to a lower league ground. I like the idea of pushing prices down but doubt it will happen. There are many clubs that have waiting lists of supporters clearly wanting to pay the prices to attend matches.