Will the trust show consistency, and be complaining and writing to every club that charges Charlton fans £19 or more to attend a match?
M'boro are charging our fans more than Oxford are to watch the game. Further M'boro are, I believe, charging our fans more than we charged their fans for the reverse fixture. Has a complaint been made to M'boro?
No, I don't think the two situations are carbon copies and therefore I think accusations of inconsistency are misplaced.
The Oxford game is a) a cup replay, it follows on from the first leg which took place just days before the next game, not a league game which takes place months apart, b) many clubs set their league game prices at the start of the season, often using a tiering system, mainly as a way of revenue prediction, in this sense they are harder to challenge, c) as a cup replay this is a "bonus" game for Oxford - I'm not saying they shouldn't be making money, but doubling the amount we have to pay to get in is beyond the pale.
Will the trust show consistency, and be complaining and writing to every club that charges Charlton fans £19 or more to attend a match?
M'boro are charging our fans more than Oxford are to watch the game. Further M'boro are, I believe, charging our fans more than we charged their fans for the reverse fixture. Has a complaint been made to M'boro?
I'm not saying they shouldn't be making money, but doubling the amount we have to pay to get in is beyond the pale.
you have to be a bit more reasoned in approach though. The reason it was a tenner last night was not in any way a case of our club being fair to supporters, it was the pricing level they thought would maximise revenue the most.
Oxford may feel that their own support is less price sensitive, and they will maximise their revenues with this pricing structure. If you don't agree with it, you don't pay and they potentially called it wrong.
The question is simply 'is £19 too high a price for an FA Cup 3rd round replay in an all seater stadium between the teams in question'.
If we had drawn at home with Chelsea last night and it was announced replay tickets would be £45 for what would effectively be their reserve team, would that be a bigger / lesser or same issue ? Because that price would be more than double this one.
Lets be clear from the start, this isn't a case of Oxford seeking to take advantage of us, this is pretty much across the board pricing for home and away fans.
I imagine the thinking was 'Charlton are a (relatively by our standards) big club, will bring a big away following regardless of price, so let's put the price up'. This is supported by the fact that they have given us the entire North stand, with a capacity of around 5,000!
They've probably done that to avoid the costs of segrating the stand.
If this game had been on Saturday, then we would probably sell a decent number of those seats, but not Tuesday!
@afka - I'm not sure the question is simply "'is £19 too high a price for an FA Cup 3rd round replay in an all seater stadium between the teams in question'. " for a couple of reasons:
a) I have no real alternative. If I want to see my team I have to pay £19, they know that b) I don't see how pricing cannot be viewed of the prices we set just a few days before for the exact same fixture. Your hypothetical Chelsea example is interesting, but clearly not a comparable fixture to Charlton v Oxford but Oxford v Charlton is.
£19 is a lot but won't it be nice to watch Charlton on a proper pitch?
Haha, when I emailed Oxford's commercial director perhaps I should have complimented them on the quality of their pitch before going on to slag off their ticket pricing policy !
We've had endless problems with lower division clubs trying to tell us what to charge at The Valley under the previous arrangements, so I tend to the view that Oxford should make their own decisions. If people don't want to pay, they won't. On the positive side, Charlton get about £7 per adult ticket, unlike with Ipswich's £32.50.
@afka - I'm not sure the question is simply "'is £19 too high a price for an FA Cup 3rd round replay in an all seater stadium between the teams in question'. " for a couple of reasons:
a) I have no real alternative. If I want to see my team I have to pay £19, they know that b) I don't see how pricing cannot be viewed of the prices we set just a few days before for the exact same fixture. Your hypothetical Chelsea example is interesting, but clearly not a comparable fixture to Charlton v Oxford but Oxford v Charlton is.
Typical stuff from the trust, anything put forward that doesn't go with what they say is just dismissed.
As AFKA stated Oxford will have priced this in a way they believe will earn them the most money, as did Charlton, there are so many factors that will have led to the price difference, no one is making you pay anything you don't want to.
The suggestion this game is some kind of "bonus" and that should be reflected in the price is simply ridiculous.
@afka - I'm not sure the question is simply "'is £19 too high a price for an FA Cup 3rd round replay in an all seater stadium between the teams in question'. " for a couple of reasons:
a) I have no real alternative. If I want to see my team I have to pay £19, they know that b) I don't see how pricing cannot be viewed of the prices we set just a few days before for the exact same fixture. Your hypothetical Chelsea example is interesting, but clearly not a comparable fixture to Charlton v Oxford but Oxford v Charlton is.
Typical stuff from the trust, anything put forward that doesn't go with what they say is just dismissed.
As AFKA stated Oxford will have priced this in a way they believe will earn them the most money, as did Charlton, there are so many factors that will have led to the price difference, no one is making you pay anything you don't want to.
The suggestion this game is some kind of "bonus" and that should be reflected in the price is simply ridiculous.
Where did I "dismiss" AFKA's arguments ? I thought I had responded to them - which is the very nature of debate surely ?
We've had endless problems with lower division clubs trying to tell us what to charge at The Valley under the previous arrangements, so I tend to the view that Oxford should make their own decisions. If people don't want to pay, they won't. On the positive side, Charlton get about £7 per adult ticket, unlike with Ipswich's £32.50.
I'd pay it. Unfortunately, I can't go.
I did think this morning when I was trying to find the rules on ticket pricing in the Cup that it must have been a constant fight when the two teams had to mutually agree prices, I assume that's why it was done away with. Shame that despite Oxford having the right to determine their own ticket prices that they didn't do so with some reciprocity.
Only Charlton fans could moan about paying less than a score for a FA Cup game against a lower league club trying to make a few quid, especially when we have postponed their game twice and we are making 40% of the gate money
Clearly Oxford haven't done their homework as we rarely take more than 900 outside of London but honestly £12, £15, £19 if you want to go, go, if you don't want to go don't use the fact it's probably a fiver overpriced as an excuse
I'm actually surprised at how disappointed the Oxford fans seem to be at the ticket pricing.
This guys sums it up in a far more succinct way than I ever could;
"Or realise this is an extra game for everyone= extra outlay, your opponents dropped their prices and do something for your owns fans to entice them along especially when the dull negative football witnessed to date is already putting people off.
it's called looking after your customers not taking them for granted."
At the risk of getting myself criticised I think it is a little spoiled and way too dramatic to contact Oxford and 'register disappointment'. With all due respect, just who do you think you are?
They ask their fans to pay these prices to watch 4th division cloggers every week and then when then they pull a team from two divisions higher and ask for the same money, the opposition, who charge up to 50% more for tickets for their home league games contact them to register their disappointment.
How do you square paying less for Charlton at home in the FA Cup (still a recognised competition) than they pay to watch Accrington Stanley - and you're asking for nearly half the price!
At £10 we managed about a third of our average home gate - at almost twice the price I suspect that Oxford will get one of their biggest gates of the season.
We should also try to remember that we charged Arsenal fans £45 to watch us in the Premier League and if we'd drawn Man Utd at home in the third round we wouldn't have dreamed of charging them £10.
These football clubs are businesses and they lose millions of pounds every year. As much as I'm sure that fans up and down the country would like someone else to pay for their hobby I think that, frankly, those that are demanding cheap tickets are taking the pi$$.
At the risk of getting myself criticised I think it is a little spoiled and way too dramatic to contact Oxford and 'register disappointment'. With all due respect, just who do you think you are?
They ask their fans to pay these prices to watch 4th division cloggers every week and then when then they pull a team from two divisions higher and ask for the same money, the opposition, who charge up to 50% more for tickets for their home league games contact them to register their disappointment.
How do you square paying less for Charlton at home in the FA Cup (still a recognised competition) than they pay to watch Accrington Stanley - and you're asking for nearly half the price!
At £10 we managed about a third of our average home gate - at almost twice the price I suspect that Oxford will get one of their biggest gates of the season.
We should also try to remember that we charged Arsenal fans £45 to watch us in the Premier League and if we'd drawn Man Utd at home in the third round we wouldn't have dreamed of charging them £10.
These football clubs are businesses and they lose millions of pounds every year. As much as I'm sure that fans up and down the country would like someone else to pay for their hobby I think that, frankly, those that are demanding cheap tickets are taking the pi$$.
No one should be crucified for having an opinion !
Surely the major flaw in your argument is that you are therefore essentially giving carte blanche to football clubs to charge what they like in order to recover some of the losses they’ve made by running their business(s) badly. Where does that end? £40, £50 or £100?
It’s a case of supply and demand, however in this context the supplier has a monopoly of sorts because there is only one place I can buy what I want – to watch Charlton Athletic. I can’t go anywhere else, there is no other supplier who can offer what I want at a cheaper price or (unfortunately!) to a better quality.
Also, it isn’t really the cost - £19 seems like a knock, but we’ve all been knocked worse when it comes to tickets for matches over the last couple of years (some of the prices in League One were ridiculous at times). It’s more that they are essentially doubling the cost to our fans that we charged them in a corresponding fixture a couple of days earlier, that seems wrong to me.
As an aside I highly doubt this will have the desired effect of delivering a pay day that Oxford are looking for – actually I’d imagine it will result in quite the opposite and that seems to be backed up by the Oxford fans forum that was quoted further up the thread.
Not sure I get all the “who are you” stuff though, seems a bit over the top. I’m a stakeholder, therefore surely I’m entitled to an opinion, if not I don’t understand why sites like this exist ?
I know Oxford want higher ticket prices because it'll help them in the long run yet its only Charlton they're facing rather than a Premier League team who will sell out the away end (and a Premier League side big enough to fill the home ends as well) but its not.
I thought as well Oxford had to consult Charlton on the matter of FA Cup ticket prices as I read the other day that the Macclesfield CEO went crazy because they hadn't been advised before Sheffield Wednesday made their replay tickets available?
Oh well either way lets hope Oxford get less than half the expected attendance there then as it'll show it wouldn't have been worth it
Our match with Macclesfield last night was 10 quid/ 5 quid kids, Macclesfield were annoyed because they wanted everyone to pay full whack (29 quid) including their own fans!
FWIW I think Oxford are cheeky cnts wanting to charge you 19 quid when you had the decency to have it at a low price category, especially as their ground isn't even completed yet!
I think the point is that they aren't putting up prices for us, it's their normal league price being used for the cup. Hardly a knock.
That we charged £10 isn't really the point. You can't say they are doubling the price as that wasn't their price, it was ours. Their prices are consistent.
We can argue for ever about what is fair or right but they can't really be accused of taking advantage.
Maybe it is Charlton who are wrong by underpricing the product?
Oxford would approach this as we did, by setting a price designed to maximise gate revenue. If they think it's £19 then so be it. It's a price I don't particularly want to pay, so I will probably stay at home. I'd respectfully (to Oxford) suggest that a home tie against us is more appealing to their fans than a home tie against them is to ours, so there is probably scope for a higher ticket price. A higher price naturally dictates that some fans will be deterred, but the extra cash per ticket should more than offset that - if that's their calculation then fair enough.
We can talk It over until we are blue in the face as to what the 'right' price for Oxford to charge. I think its a subjective thing and I think £19 is too much. HI are you saying that you personally think £19 is acceptable for a 3rd round fa cup reply between a Championship & division 4 team?
We can talk It over until we are blue in the face as to what the 'right' price for Oxford to charge. I think its a subjective thing and I think £19 is too much. HI are you saying that you personally think £19 is acceptable for a 3rd round fa cup reply between a Championship & division 4 team?
Don't those two sentences contradict each other? If we can talk it over until we are blue in the face then why ask me if I think it is acceptable?
My point was that Oxford are being consistent. They aren#t charging more to see Charlton than to see Accrington so much as we might like them to charge us £3.50 they are not "knocking" us.
We can talk It over until we are blue in the face as to what the 'right' price for Oxford to charge. I think its a subjective thing and I think £19 is too much. HI are you saying that you personally think £19 is acceptable for a 3rd round fa cup reply between a Championship & division 4 team?
Don't those two sentences contradict each other? If we can talk it over until we are blue in the face then why ask me if I think it is acceptable?
My point was that Oxford are being consistent. They aren#t charging more to see Charlton than to see Accrington so much as we might like them to charge us £3.50 they are not "knocking" us.
I said you can, but I was insinuating that it's a waste of time. So in your opinion what would be a reasonable price for fans to pay for said match?
At the risk of getting myself criticised I think it is a little spoiled and way too dramatic to contact Oxford and 'register disappointment'. With all due respect, just who do you think you are?
They ask their fans to pay these prices to watch 4th division cloggers every week and then when then they pull a team from two divisions higher and ask for the same money, the opposition, who charge up to 50% more for tickets for their home league games contact them to register their disappointment.
How do you square paying less for Charlton at home in the FA Cup (still a recognised competition) than they pay to watch Accrington Stanley - and you're asking for nearly half the price!
At £10 we managed about a third of our average home gate - at almost twice the price I suspect that Oxford will get one of their biggest gates of the season.
We should also try to remember that we charged Arsenal fans £45 to watch us in the Premier League and if we'd drawn Man Utd at home in the third round we wouldn't have dreamed of charging them £10.
These football clubs are businesses and they lose millions of pounds every year. As much as I'm sure that fans up and down the country would like someone else to pay for their hobby I think that, frankly, those that are demanding cheap tickets are taking the pi$$.
No one should be crucified for having an opinion !
Surely the major flaw in your argument is that you are therefore essentially giving carte blanche to football clubs to charge what they like in order to recover some of the losses they’ve made by running their business(s) badly. Where does that end? £40, £50 or £100?
It’s a case of supply and demand, however in this context the supplier has a monopoly of sorts because there is only one place I can buy what I want – to watch Charlton Athletic. I can’t go anywhere else, there is no other supplier who can offer what I want at a cheaper price or (unfortunately!) to a better quality.
Also, it isn’t really the cost - £19 seems like a knock, but we’ve all been knocked worse when it comes to tickets for matches over the last couple of years (some of the prices in League One were ridiculous at times). It’s more that they are essentially doubling the cost to our fans that we charged them in a corresponding fixture a couple of days earlier, that seems wrong to me.
As an aside I highly doubt this will have the desired effect of delivering a pay day that Oxford are looking for – actually I’d imagine it will result in quite the opposite and that seems to be backed up by the Oxford fans forum that was quoted further up the thread.
Not sure I get all the “who are you” stuff though, seems a bit over the top. I’m a stakeholder, therefore surely I’m entitled to an opinion, if not I don’t understand why sites like this exist ?
I don't want to drag this on as I don't want to make it personal but....
There is a difference between having an opinion and contacting them to register disappointment, the latter comes across as being a little arrogant, in my view. You are not, in my opinion, a stakeholder of Oxford United FC. You have the option to go or not but I'm not sure that what they charge is any of your business, either personally or as a Supporters' Trust. They are charging the same price as their league games and less than (I suspect) we pay at every stadium in our division, it's hardly a rip off. Even if most Charlton fans are so spoiled that they won't go to an FA Cup game at The Valley unless it's cheap doesn't mean that other clubs have to honor the same price.
The supply and demand issue is not perfect, but they are entitled to try their luck, as are clubs that want to charge £100 for a ticket. Yes that's right I believe they can do that if they want to. If the market will stomach it then that's their decision. Football clubs are not registered charities, they have no obligation to make the seats affordable, in the same way that the players have no obligation to work for minimum wage. Just because they have something you want and can't get anywhere else doesn't mean you get to choose what you pay for it. In fact, I would argue that under the circumstances they have an obligation to charge as much as they can get away with for the benefit of the actual stakeholders of their club.
I have no idea if they will maximise revenue with this price, and neither do you, and nor do those that set it - and we will never know because it is not possible to compare alternatives for a one off event. However, they are, probably, best placed to make that decision and, more importantly, they are the ones that stand to benefit if they get it right or lose if they get it wrong.
Incidentally, irrelevant as it might be, I suspect that the gate last night would have been pretty much the same had we charged £19 and I also think it would have been pretty much the same had we charged £5.
Comments
The Oxford game is a) a cup replay, it follows on from the first leg which took place just days before the next game, not a league game which takes place months apart, b) many clubs set their league game prices at the start of the season, often using a tiering system, mainly as a way of revenue prediction, in this sense they are harder to challenge, c) as a cup replay this is a "bonus" game for Oxford - I'm not saying they shouldn't be making money, but doubling the amount we have to pay to get in is beyond the pale.
Oxford may feel that their own support is less price sensitive, and they will maximise their revenues with this pricing structure. If you don't agree with it, you don't pay and they potentially called it wrong.
The question is simply 'is £19 too high a price for an FA Cup 3rd round replay in an all seater stadium between the teams in question'.
If we had drawn at home with Chelsea last night and it was announced replay tickets would be £45 for what would effectively be their reserve team, would that be a bigger / lesser or same issue ? Because that price would be more than double this one.
If this game had been on Saturday, then we would probably sell a decent number of those seats, but not Tuesday!
a) I have no real alternative. If I want to see my team I have to pay £19, they know that
b) I don't see how pricing cannot be viewed of the prices we set just a few days before for the exact same fixture. Your hypothetical Chelsea example is interesting, but clearly not a comparable fixture to Charlton v Oxford but Oxford v Charlton is.
'Go on, you know you want to go to Oxford - let us help you....'
I'd pay it. Unfortunately, I can't go.
As AFKA stated Oxford will have priced this in a way they believe will earn them the most money, as did Charlton, there are so many factors that will have led to the price difference, no one is making you pay anything you don't want to.
The suggestion this game is some kind of "bonus" and that should be reflected in the price is simply ridiculous.
Clearly Oxford haven't done their homework as we rarely take more than 900 outside of London but honestly £12, £15, £19 if you want to go, go, if you don't want to go don't use the fact it's probably a fiver overpriced as an excuse
This guys sums it up in a far more succinct way than I ever could;
"Or realise this is an extra game for everyone= extra outlay, your opponents dropped their prices and do something for your owns fans to entice them along especially when the dull negative football witnessed to date is already putting people off.
it's called looking after your customers not taking them for granted."
http://yellowsforum.proboards.com/thread/16378?page=2#ixzz2qUECHHKe
They ask their fans to pay these prices to watch 4th division cloggers every week and then when then they pull a team from two divisions higher and ask for the same money, the opposition, who charge up to 50% more for tickets for their home league games contact them to register their disappointment.
How do you square paying less for Charlton at home in the FA Cup (still a recognised competition) than they pay to watch Accrington Stanley - and you're asking for nearly half the price!
At £10 we managed about a third of our average home gate - at almost twice the price I suspect that Oxford will get one of their biggest gates of the season.
We should also try to remember that we charged Arsenal fans £45 to watch us in the Premier League and if we'd drawn Man Utd at home in the third round we wouldn't have dreamed of charging them £10.
These football clubs are businesses and they lose millions of pounds every year. As much as I'm sure that fans up and down the country would like someone else to pay for their hobby I think that, frankly, those that are demanding cheap tickets are taking the pi$$.
Surely the major flaw in your argument is that you are therefore essentially giving carte blanche to football clubs to charge what they like in order to recover some of the losses they’ve made by running their business(s) badly. Where does that end? £40, £50 or £100?
It’s a case of supply and demand, however in this context the supplier has a monopoly of sorts because there is only one place I can buy what I want – to watch Charlton Athletic. I can’t go anywhere else, there is no other supplier who can offer what I want at a cheaper price or (unfortunately!) to a better quality.
Also, it isn’t really the cost - £19 seems like a knock, but we’ve all been knocked worse when it comes to tickets for matches over the last couple of years (some of the prices in League One were ridiculous at times). It’s more that they are essentially doubling the cost to our fans that we charged them in a corresponding fixture a couple of days earlier, that seems wrong to me.
As an aside I highly doubt this will have the desired effect of delivering a pay day that Oxford are looking for – actually I’d imagine it will result in quite the opposite and that seems to be backed up by the Oxford fans forum that was quoted further up the thread.
Not sure I get all the “who are you” stuff though, seems a bit over the top. I’m a stakeholder, therefore surely I’m entitled to an opinion, if not I don’t understand why sites like this exist ?
FWIW I think Oxford are cheeky cnts wanting to charge you 19 quid when you had the decency to have it at a low price category, especially as their ground isn't even completed yet!
That we charged £10 isn't really the point. You can't say they are doubling the price as that wasn't their price, it was ours. Their prices are consistent.
We can argue for ever about what is fair or right but they can't really be accused of taking advantage.
Maybe it is Charlton who are wrong by underpricing the product?
I'd respectfully (to Oxford) suggest that a home tie against us is more appealing to their fans than a home tie against them is to ours, so there is probably scope for a higher ticket price.
A higher price naturally dictates that some fans will be deterred, but the extra cash per ticket should more than offset that - if that's their calculation then fair enough.
Don't those two sentences contradict each other? If we can talk it over until we are blue in the face then why ask me if I think it is acceptable?
My point was that Oxford are being consistent. They aren#t charging more to see Charlton than to see Accrington so much as we might like them to charge us £3.50 they are not "knocking" us.
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There is a difference between having an opinion and contacting them to register disappointment, the latter comes across as being a little arrogant, in my view. You are not, in my opinion, a stakeholder of Oxford United FC. You have the option to go or not but I'm not sure that what they charge is any of your business, either personally or as a Supporters' Trust. They are charging the same price as their league games and less than (I suspect) we pay at every stadium in our division, it's hardly a rip off. Even if most Charlton fans are so spoiled that they won't go to an FA Cup game at The Valley unless it's cheap doesn't mean that other clubs have to honor the same price.
The supply and demand issue is not perfect, but they are entitled to try their luck, as are clubs that want to charge £100 for a ticket. Yes that's right I believe they can do that if they want to. If the market will stomach it then that's their decision. Football clubs are not registered charities, they have no obligation to make the seats affordable, in the same way that the players have no obligation to work for minimum wage. Just because they have something you want and can't get anywhere else doesn't mean you get to choose what you pay for it. In fact, I would argue that under the circumstances they have an obligation to charge as much as they can get away with for the benefit of the actual stakeholders of their club.
I have no idea if they will maximise revenue with this price, and neither do you, and nor do those that set it - and we will never know because it is not possible to compare alternatives for a one off event. However, they are, probably, best placed to make that decision and, more importantly, they are the ones that stand to benefit if they get it right or lose if they get it wrong.
Incidentally, irrelevant as it might be, I suspect that the gate last night would have been pretty much the same had we charged £19 and I also think it would have been pretty much the same had we charged £5.