Football Reality Check - West Ham

JorgeCosta

There's a page spread advert for the Hamsters' match against Villa on the opening day of the season. I know it's a sensible marketing thing to do but what does it say about the product ie West Ham in particular, the Premier League and football in general? A few years ago a newly promoted team would have sold out without the need to advertise.

Lincsaddick

£37 the cheapest seat ... ouch !!!!!

cafctom

I think West Ham are the sort of exception where although they are the 'newly promoted team', its not as if the Premier League is a novelty to them.

colthe3rd

A quick look on their website shows that the cheapest tickets are £39 and go up to £55. I think you can probably understand why it hasn't sold out for a game against Villa

Bedsaddick

There have been full page adverts in the Substandard every week for the last 3 months. I'm surprised also , they they need to do this. Everywhere you go in Essex you see people in West Ham tops or stickers on cars but it seems that they are all mostly armchair supporters.

charltonbob

Sullivan & Golds were going to bid for us if wet spam thing fell through, would we now be heading for the olympic stadium with 50quid tickets ?

JorgeCosta

cafctom said:

I think West Ham are the sort of exception where although they are the 'newly promoted team', its not as if the Premier League is a novelty to them.

Agree, I was thinking along these lines. I think that part of the explanation is that supporters don't see the PL as a big thing once they've been there. I wonder how much difference it would make to us if we were in the Prem. A lot of our advertising was based on "come an see .... Zola, Beckham, Owen etc" at The Valley for cheaper than elsewhere.

SX_Addick

Also in the sub Standard this week was a full page 'advert' for their bid for the stadium, I'm sure it said they have 500,000 supporters in East London. Looks like they'll have to expand the new stadium!

cafcfan

Well, when we went up to Old Trafford for the Youth FA Cup game we bought our tickets early before trotting off to the Lowry to soak up some culture. That meant we got the tickets from the Office and they took a note of Mrs Cafcfan's details.
Lo and behold today she gets a mailshot offering ticket availability for Man Ure's home games against Fulham, Wigan and Stoke - all with £5 off. Okay, not the most attractive of fixtures but hard times indeed if even they are having issues filling the ground.

Karim_myBagheri

on talksport both west ham and fulham have been advertising their up coming matches.

Woodsywood

Another problem is Sky, the more games it shows live on tv the least likely people are going to pay £40 (plus travel and refreshments) to watch it at the ground. Something has to give otherwise certain premiership grounds will be half empty in years to come

Ormiston_Addick

Times are tough out there for a lot of folks, 37 sheets is a lot of dough for a seat - for a bloke taking two kids you are probably talking well over 100 quid for 90 minutes entertainment.

I have family in London with youngsters and for them Charlton games are a treat a couple of times per season, they need their cash for more important things.