Just saying .......

Tell that to the major supermarkets..

 

I will do mate when it's cheaper than 20 of the clubs currently in the same division. And most by some distance. Reciprocal matchday pricing I felt was spot on too this season.

Catering is in the hands of a company though as far as I'm aware. Again, not my area and in fact it's the one area I know the absolute least about, sorry.

And yes, I support my club and employer. I'm not telling anyone that all things are perfect. Nothing ever is. But I feel it's pretty easy to defend the club in the area I have today - ticket pricing.

Whilst your post earlier came over a tad OTT in places, I do enjoy conversing with you generally as you seem capable of reasoned debate etc. And as you made clear, the club is getting a lot right.

I don't want to be on here answering questions 24/7, I'd probably naively expected to just carry on being myself. But I realised I could when necessary be a sort of bridge for fans regards certain topics and I've tried to help when I can. And anyone who knows me will know I don't lie or sugar coat stuff. It is what it is.

But it is difficult admittedly at times to get the balance right on here in terms of me posting my opinion and others reading it as Club rhetoric. My posts today are generally my opinion backed up I suppose by a bit of extra knowledge. Club rhetoric? I dunno. I've always been a happy clapper.

 

This is not exactly right though is it?

To use but one simple example: I like a certain whisky, and if it is discounted I will buy it.

I like a couple of brands of lager. I will look to buy which is perhaps discounted.

Does that destroy the value of the product?

I think not.

With regard to a Barnsley season ticket - if it is cheaper than hitherto, will I think that this destroy the value of the product? I think not.

A bargain always out trumps everything else. If you're the consumer.

 

I think you do the balancing act well. I am a bit grumpy tonight so possibly expressed myself a little more bluntly than normal. I blame the man flu.

And as I said we get more right than wrong. It's slightly irritating that we do the hard things really well and the easier things not so well. But such is life.

I'm a mainly happy clapper myself.

 

Sorry, Whitey but in all honesty, yes it is. We do loads of things well, and I know the shop and box office staff do an amazing job with the situation they have but our marketing and non-football stuff is absolutely terrible (not talking Reds in the Community, they do some fantastic stuff, especially this season). We seem quite old fashioned in thinking it's a football match and people are just here for the football. A lot of people are, mainly the diehards, but there's so many more people we could attract if we only but tried.

 

Cheer up Whitey - it's only really bad when you're in the beer queue for 20 mins at half time.

The rest is froth (which I am left to ogle from afar)

 

If you do not buy the whiskey or the beer unless the price has been discounted, then in your mind the whiskey/beer has a value that is lower than its normal price. You will not buy that product at its normal price. Discounting the product has reduced its value in the eye of the consumer.

If you discount a season ticket, that becomes its new price. If the experiment fails because the discounted price does not attract the number of new supporters to match the amount of the discount, and net revenue reduces, it is impossible to put the price back up to the previous level because the new price is now the standard price and the club is trying to imposed an unreasonable increase based on that new price. The value of the product has reduced in the eye of the consumer.

Surely, we are debating what is the best way for the club to maintain/increase its total revenue rather than whether we want our season tickets to be cheaper. That is certainly my angle on this. The club just cannot compete in this league for very long unless it can increase its revenue, and that is not the clubs fault is it. If the people of Barnsley want their club to be competing at a decent level, then the people of Barnsley will have to pay for it. Too many want to blame someone else, but if winning two trophies and being the story of last season was not enough to convince the people of Barnsley to turn out for their team, then no amount of discounting is going to make any difference. A Barnsley FC season ticket is not as important as other things, no matter what those other things are.

 

A phrase from my past, "99% of advertising (and marketing (my addition)) is wasted. Unfortunately, I have no way of identifying the 1% that is not wasted."

It is all well and good saying that, "there's so many more people we could attract if only we tried", but finding those people is very expensive. The best way to do it is to win football matches, which we can do without going into expensive marketing campaigns in order to find the fans who will disappear as soon as we start losing. The best way of winning football matches is to spend as much as we can afford on the playing side, and as little as we can get away with on everything else. That is a very important lesson and one that I intend to end today on.

 

You'll have to be more specific than 'non football stuff', JD. If it's media related I stand a chance of improving things.

 

I wonder how much revenue has been lost due to not having enough stock of shirts. A smallish number in the scheme of things but still a contribution to increase revenues to help maintain the club's status.

I went in to buy my daughter a shirt when I picked our season tickets up last July. No shirts in stock so money has stayed in my pocket. I went in to buy her some gloves (having forgotten hers) before the Cardiff game. Smallest "kids" gloves in stock could fit both her hands in one. I bought them anyway as her hands would have been cold but normally I'd have chalked em off.

We are debating how the club can maintain and increase income levels and clearly more can be done in terms of the retail offering and ticketing. To suggest otherwise is simply blaming "The people of Barnsley" too easily. Not everyone has your time or disposable income...

Anyway, my proposal is that in order to help the club sustain itself all concessions for OAP's will be scrapped. Nothing should be discounted in this way.

 

It's right it gets done to death. But folk forget that a large proportion of our tickets are already free or reduced and continue to base our "income" on us selling 10,000 £300 tickets and saying we don't have enough seats to sell £175 tickets and get the same income. The best thing to do is put the question to the next club forum: "how much is our income from ST sales?" I think some folk will be in for a shock and then you'll know how many £175 tickets we would need to sell. This whole argument will then be put to bed.

 

I keep hoping my pay slips are mixed up with the other A P White at the club but sadly not. So that's a no.

 

Tele's that small are available on never never from Brighthouse for 13.57 a week for 100 weeks

 

I think you fail to discern between the terms "value" and " price".

They are not the same.

With regard to increasing the club's revenue, then it seems at the moment as though no matter what we do, we are always going to be feeding off the crumbs at many another master's table, so why not go for a model that brings the community at large down to The Well?

Lower the prices, fill the ground up. Be a community club like Bradford.

Let's face it, if we were ever going to be bold, we just missed our chance in January. But no - we know the limit of our ambitions.

Which for me is fair enough.



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It is always nice when we can get personal isn't it. As well as being an OAP, I am also a non-smoker and a non-drinker. It is surprising how much that saves over a year. Now back to a debate of the issues.

I have lived in Barnsley for all my life. I have been a supporter since I was 14. I know what Barnsley is about without any coaching. The town has always been prepared to turn up when the team is winning, and walk away when it is not. That has never been my attitude because the club is in my DNA, it is part of me for good or bad. I have never walked away and frankly there were times during those early years in the 4th tier when it was not easy to stay with them. But I did, and I think that all of the above gives me a right to allocate blame where I think fit. If the town could not get behind the team after last season, then I think that it is the town and not the team that is at fault. I think that I have the right to say that without being questioned about my motives, finances or the price that I have paid for the last 5 years after paying full price for the previous 45 years.

 

My Aunty had a telly that you had to put ten bob coins in to make it work.

 

I would be willing to go along with that model if only I had any confidence that it would work. Two things argue against it. There is not a hope in hell that is would work and no-one has shown me any evidence to the contrary, and Patrick Cryne will be left to pick up the tab when it does not work.

 

I said very similar very early on in the thread. But without attaching fault. Because I'd get hammered if I did.

But I stand by that. If after all that last season encompassed, the ecstasy of it all, two successful Wembley trips, the excitement of being back in the Champ, retaining Hecky and Hammill, big games to look forward to.... if that wasn't the time to flock to Oakwell, then I'm stumped. And for it to be suggested that it was the ideal time to charge 50% less, the mind boggles. I know Barnsley folk are tight and love a bargain, I'm from Barnsley. But come on.

 

99.9% of club's attendances will fluctuate based on their fortunes. Human nature. You seem to think it only happens in Barnsley.

How much was it to get in back in 1967?