The economics of slashing matchday and season tickets (poll)

Just had a conversation with a mate about the cost of watching BFC (or any club with a 40-50% empty stadium) and we couldn't agree on if cutting prices by, for example, 50% across the board would in the long-term be beneficial or harmful to the club.

On the one hand, it's obvious that -50% ticket revenue is a massive financial blow - but on the other hand, how many more tickets would be purchased, how much more money would be gained by sales inside the ground (merch, catering, programmes etc) and would the increased atmosphere be benefical on the pitch which in turn is good financially?

Just wondering what your opinions are, I won't reveal which side I took .

 

Harmful. Sunderland, in a relatively poor area, manage decent gates without slashing prices the way Bradford do.

 

It does help that they are one of only two clubs in one of England's biggest conurbations. Imagine if there were only four professional clubs in Yorkshire. They'd all be getting 40,000 a week.

 

Beneficial if the owners are willing to subsidise the losses. I'd love to see it given a five year trial. If they want to grow the club then it seems the most obvious way of increasing the fan base.

 

I get fed up with hearing about the marvellous support of Newcastle and Sunderland. 2 huge cities with no other significant football club within 40 miles. Contrast with Barnsley....

 

Harmful, people will only come when successful(cup runs etc), not by slashing costs.
If you reduce your potential, you reduce the opportunity to make more money and in turn invest into better players.

All for short term deals though like kid for a quid. I would also do reduced rates for latter cup runs.

 

The club have tried various ideas with ticket pricing and it usually has a negligible effect. If we cut the price for the next home game by half, I’d bet the attendance would only go up by 1,000 or less.

 

Doesn’t seem to have done Huddersfield much harm ( a very similar club to us)

 

People are more than happy to contrast us with Bradford, a city much larger than Sunderland.

 

Middlesbrough is under 40 miles

 

I don't think it's a good idea personally. Many fans complain about selling players, less turnover would mean subsidising wages in other ways (more sales) or generally having a lower player budget.

More fans at lesser rates will increase costs and the net fan base to cover that would have to increase significantly. Our current attendances are way way higher than when I was a kid when 6k was an achievement.

 

I rest my case.....

 

No it isn’. It’s smaller than Sunderland by more than 100,000. It’s the District of Bradford that is large in population terms.

 

The club shouldn't lose money from gambling on lower season pass prices. What they should do is make everyone pay a set price no matter if they renew in April or the morning of the first home game of the season. Then depending on how many buy a season pass, give people money back from what they paid.

So whatever you paid this season you pay that amount before the start of next season, no benefit of paying less if you can afford to pay sooner. We are all fans so I don't agree with a varied price. Then if we sell say 1k more season passes than last season we get X amount refunded and so on for 2k, 3k etc. The more who take up the offer, the less all fans get in for. That way the club don't lose revenue on gates, make more money off other aspects (programme sales, food, drink, advertising) and it's down to the fans to get behind the deal to get in as cheap as they can.

 

Beneficial

I would do something radical though and make it totally free entry.

 

There's no way cutting prices would work financially. If it did it would have been done.
A short to medium term loss would have to be accepted to attract a tranche of new fans over, say, a five to ten year period before gently pushing prices back up to the norm.
The alternative is that we will continue to pull in the sort of home attendances that we do now for the forseeable future.
Going back to the second half of Allan Clarke's first promotion season in 1979 we were pulling in about 11,12000 for some games. Forty years later two divisions higher that has remained more or less the standard.
Unless we get to the Premier League that's not going to change.

 

From where?

 

The early bird offer is taken up by the majority of fans so cutting the price does work in some respects.. Maybe they should have tried it for one season only while we were expected to do well i.e. this one. Charge £200 for a season ticket across the board and kids for £20.00. Take a one season hit in order to entice new fans to the game. I might be wrong and @dreamboy3000 will correct me if so, but I think that's what Huddersfield did for their centenary and then gradually increased prices over following years.. It was a gamble that paid off for them. It's too late now but the problem for us would be the season after when faced with a huge increase, especially if we were struggling along at the bottom of the championship..

 

From Sunderland 29.9mls
from Newcastle 40.6mls