Sky need the correct type of atmosphere in the grounds to sell their football "brand". If PL stadiums start emptying then the next round of money on offer to PL clubs will greatly reduce.
The gate at games is therefore still important to the bottom line of the PL clubs.
Why would a freeze in ticket prices negatively effect crowd numbers????
The problem is that it's pure supply and demand and at the top of the tree demand is very high.
Example - in my office one of the contractors is an Arsenal 'fan' and my boss is a Liverpool 'fan'.
Last season I think it was, the Arsenal 'fan' happily spent £80ish each on tickets to an Arsenal Liverpool game, the only game the two of them will be going to in the space of about 4 seasons.
There's enough well earning people in London who will happily do that once every now and then for games to sell out. People who want to go week in week out have to stomach the cost or simply can't.
Thankfully we're pretty crap so people aren't happy to spend that sort of money on us.
1> Even at these prices they are selling out which suggests that the price is acceptable to some/enough fans.
2> If the prices are going to be reduced to £20, when they can sell the seats many times over at in excess of three times that, who is going to be given first refusal for them and what's to stop them selling them on for the current price?
Unless there is going to be a plan to ensure that all the normal fans can get in then I fear that all will happen is that those that qualify (by not paying more) will go to all of the games, opposed to some of them, and the 'normal fans' won't get a look in.
The only way this works is if the massive teams charge £20 and increase their capacities to two, three or even four times what they are now. Where is the money going to come from to add another 200,000 seats to Old Trafford and how will the maths equate to selling the seats for £20 each. From memory Liverpool are in the process of adding another 13,300 seats at a cost of £260m. That means that each seat costs £19,548 each. Assuming that the money is interest free and Liverpool have 30 home games a season (that's 11 cup games) it would take 32 and a half years to recoup the money at £20 a ticket. The bigger the capacity is the more it tends to cost to expand it, per seat.
The problem is that there is just too much demand for these tickets. If all of the Munich fans that are coming stayed home I suspect they could still sell it out from other Germans or more Arsenal fans or tourists.
Also, if Charlton were in the Champions League and playing Munich I would, happily, pay £63 to watch world class players on both our side and theirs.
By the time we get in the Champions League you'll be paying £630
But that wouldn't be quick enough - RD needs to spend all his hard earned NOW.
I agree these prices are steep. However, the last time I went to Germany for a football match it cost £150 in flights, £70 in hotels, petrol money to stansted, £40 to park there, trains/cabs getting about in Germany plus an astronomical amount on beer, pork and dumplings. Saving a few quid on the price of a football ticket would barely have registered.
It's not like they're walking to London and back that day is it. They're probably getting close to being a thousand Euros out of pocket if you include taking two days off of work too. Maybe they all boarded their flight five minutes late to stick it to the man at Lufthansa too.
Personally if I felt that strongly about their prices I would turn up and protest outside. It loses any status when you pay the price of the ticket and then complain about it afterwards in my opinion.
Sky need the correct type of atmosphere in the grounds to sell their football "brand". If PL stadiums start emptying then the next round of money on offer to PL clubs will greatly reduce.
The gate at games is therefore still important to the bottom line of the PL clubs.
But they are selling out now. There is no indication that demand for games at the big clubs is going to drop anytime soon. If anything, fans will choose to go to fewer games and that, weirdly, will help those that can't get a ticket at any price. There is no need to reduce prices. There are still online 'touts' that are selling tickets for all the top sides games at massively inflated prices.
If the prices were reduced to £20 those tickets would, ultimately, end up getting sold on so that the fans would still be paying £65 but a corporate ticket retailer would be making the £45 profit. It's just not realistic that a club could operate a system whereby it ensured that fans were given equal access to tickets. In the case of Arsenal they have approximately 45,000 season ticket holders, so that will only leave about 11,000 tickets for home fans and 6,000 for away fans when Arsenal have 150,000 members that all want the 11,000 tickets. It would be naive to think that if they were available for £20 each the person that was 'allowed' to buy the ticket for £20 would choose to go rather than sell it for a £45 profit.
Thus the fans don't end up with cheaper tickets at all.
This doesn't even start to consider what happens when a Stoke fan has a ticket for the away end realises that he can sell it to an Arsenal fan for much more than he paid for it or can sell it to a Stoke fan.
I get what you are saying Valley Gary, but as we all know it doesn't matter how much money we have we always want more. The footballers that are earning £150k a week could easily manage on £100k a week, but they still keep demanding more money. Liverpool are struggling to attract the players that they want, why would they want to 'give' money back to the fans that are demanding £50m signings.
Also the numbers are not representative. If Arsenal have a capacity of 62,000 and they reduce all their tickets by £43 over nineteen league games and three Champions League games that equates to £58.6m a year. Hardly a drop in the ocean. Why should the club do this when much of the reduction (if all the fans that buy tickets actually use them) ends up being spent in the pub or on takeaways.
If/when the fans stop going it will be time for the clubs to address the ticket prices, but until then it should be remembered that they are multi-million pound businesses with a limited product that they can sell many times over.
On a slightly separate note I would love it, not for the ticket prices, if one of the big games that was televised had, literally, no one there. A 100% boycott of attendance would be a massive statement and the Sky pundits and the commentators would have to talk about it, even if it would be heard by the players as there would be complete silence in the ground.
It would be even better if it were a massive title decider late on in the season. rows and rows of empty seats.
Isn't this Twentys plenty just intended for away fans KHA?!?
I wasn't aware of that but I guess it might be. Kind of seems strange to charge away fans less than home fans but then a lot of things about modern football seem strange to me.
I was fortunate as it turned out to get a ticket to the Arsenal game, I wrestled with going to the valley instead tonight, but my lads said to me.dad are you nuts, of course you should go to the Arsenal game, the Bayern fans were pretty amazing when they came in , very vocal , until it all went pear shaped at the end.
I spoke to 3 Scottish Arsenal fans , on the tube on the way to the match, they'd spent £35 on a megabus ticket, return from Glasgow, and 95 quid each for the match ticket, they were going to get back to Glasgow at 7:30 in the morning! I know it's apples and pears, and champions league footie, but it makes you realise how cheap football at the valley is, although I'm sure I'd be stewing if I'd have gone to the valley instead tonight but after going to reading on Saturday, I'm glad I missed it, can we come back from this, or is Guy definitely for the chop now with 2 wins in 12?
Message to the board, stop dicking around with our club please, get a decent up and coming British manager in , and back him in the transfer market properly pretty please.
Comments
If people stop going then sky will stop being able to sell the brand.....and their payout to clubs will fall.
Example - in my office one of the contractors is an Arsenal 'fan' and my boss is a Liverpool 'fan'.
Last season I think it was, the Arsenal 'fan' happily spent £80ish each on tickets to an Arsenal Liverpool game, the only game the two of them will be going to in the space of about 4 seasons.
There's enough well earning people in London who will happily do that once every now and then for games to sell out. People who want to go week in week out have to stomach the cost or simply can't.
Thankfully we're pretty crap so people aren't happy to spend that sort of money on us.
It's not like they're walking to London and back that day is it. They're probably getting close to being a thousand Euros out of pocket if you include taking two days off of work too. Maybe they all boarded their flight five minutes late to stick it to the man at Lufthansa too.
Note. DId not take German at school and could not be bothered to spellcheck.
If the prices were reduced to £20 those tickets would, ultimately, end up getting sold on so that the fans would still be paying £65 but a corporate ticket retailer would be making the £45 profit. It's just not realistic that a club could operate a system whereby it ensured that fans were given equal access to tickets. In the case of Arsenal they have approximately 45,000 season ticket holders, so that will only leave about 11,000 tickets for home fans and 6,000 for away fans when Arsenal have 150,000 members that all want the 11,000 tickets. It would be naive to think that if they were available for £20 each the person that was 'allowed' to buy the ticket for £20 would choose to go rather than sell it for a £45 profit.
Thus the fans don't end up with cheaper tickets at all.
This doesn't even start to consider what happens when a Stoke fan has a ticket for the away end realises that he can sell it to an Arsenal fan for much more than he paid for it or can sell it to a Stoke fan.
I get what you are saying Valley Gary, but as we all know it doesn't matter how much money we have we always want more. The footballers that are earning £150k a week could easily manage on £100k a week, but they still keep demanding more money. Liverpool are struggling to attract the players that they want, why would they want to 'give' money back to the fans that are demanding £50m signings.
Also the numbers are not representative. If Arsenal have a capacity of 62,000 and they reduce all their tickets by £43 over nineteen league games and three Champions League games that equates to £58.6m a year. Hardly a drop in the ocean. Why should the club do this when much of the reduction (if all the fans that buy tickets actually use them) ends up being spent in the pub or on takeaways.
If/when the fans stop going it will be time for the clubs to address the ticket prices, but until then it should be remembered that they are multi-million pound businesses with a limited product that they can sell many times over.
It would be even better if it were a massive title decider late on in the season. rows and rows of empty seats.
I would, just, love that!
I await their next move....
And their move was a swift cull at the top
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34578866
I spoke to 3 Scottish Arsenal fans , on the tube on the way to the match, they'd spent £35 on a megabus ticket, return from Glasgow, and 95 quid each for the match ticket, they were going to get back to Glasgow at 7:30 in the morning!
I know it's apples and pears, and champions league footie, but it makes you realise how cheap football at the valley is, although I'm sure I'd be stewing if I'd have gone to the valley instead tonight but after going to reading on Saturday, I'm glad I missed it, can we come back from this, or is Guy definitely for the chop now with 2 wins in 12?
Message to the board, stop dicking around with our club please, get a decent up and coming British manager in , and back him in the transfer market properly pretty please.