Inflating Attendances

Do we announce the amount of tickets sold for a game or the amount in the ground?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...-attendance-figures-quoting-ticket-sales.html

Surprised it's not a FA rule for all clubs to only be allowed to announce the crowd that's in the ground, as anything else isn't the actual attendance.

 

We've always announced tickets sold.

 

surely the season tickets are classed as tickets sold even if the holder does not attend for whatever reason. More modern grounds have an electronic reader so this does not affect the true number.

 

Think all/most clubs just announce tickets sold. While it might be interesting to know how many are actually in a ground I don't see that it needs a FA rule about it.

 

in that case we had an attendance of around 3000 on Saturday, as by your formula it seems you do not count the ST holders. Its about total attendance and not just tickets sold .

 

He said tickets sold. A season ticket is a ticket for the season, ie a sold ticket.

 

he worded it badly...... and I am an annoying git..... its what I do.

 

Maybe you just didn't understand? If my season ticket isn't a ticket sold then I want my money back!

 

I’ve done a piece of work on this. It’s tickets sold (inc Season tickets). There is a ‘true’ figure that is required by the Police/Safety Authorities. I couldn’t get the figures for BFC, but based on what I could obtain, premier League clubs ‘exaggerate ‘ their attendances by around 20-30%. Championship clubs by around 15-20%.
For those old enough to have watched BFC over a number of years it will be quite ironic that we now routinely exaggerate our attendances when in the ‘old days’ you’d hear a collective chuckle and a shaking of heads from the crowd when the attendance was announced as 8,500 as we played ‘sardines’. Far be it from me to suggest there was some kind of tax fiddle going on.
The serious point is that football in England is systematically exaggerating the number of people who attend games and a new(ish) phenomenon of fan now exists. Someone who can afford to buy a season ticket but attends infrequently.

 

When Wolves played away at sheff we'd in the league cup last month I read somewhere that lots of Wolves fans were buying tickets even though they didn't not intend on going to the game. The reason was for future Premier league away games so it would count as another game they went to went doing category ticket sales.

 

That will happen at plenty of clubs. We probably have fans who do similar. Willing to buy someone a ticket in a category for a game they have no interest in, but in return they get the booking history.

 

I've done that myself me and my friend who I sit with if one of us is going to a away game and we take a non season ticket holder with us we assign the ticket to one of us.

These Wolves fans were buy in tickets and just not going. Not getting them for someone else. Not that I blame them if they are willing to spend the extra cash to get priority for away games.

 

Sometimes I reckon you're the third triplet in the Tyrone, Young Nudger brotherhood.

 

We have electronic readers too - so we do know the actual physical attendance without doubt. But they’ll always announce ‘tickets sold’ as it better from a marketing view.

All clubs are same - Arsenal were announcing 60k at some of their games at the end of last season - when it was clear there were only maybe 40k or so.

 

Can’t see how a tax fiddle would work by over-stating numbers attending. They’d simply have to pay more tax!

Like you say, tickets are scanned, so they do know the actual numbers - it’s more of a marketing ploy to broadcast the tickets sold number, as it’s more attractive to would-be sponsors and potential players.

BFC are well run in terms of accountability.

 

No I think the reference is to a long time back when attendances at Oakwell seemed to be understated. i.e announce 8k but it seemed more like 10k

 

Maybe. Back then, Cash on the turnstile would be easier to ‘lose’ I guess.

 

Yes a few eyebrows were raised, mainly i'd say between 78-82 ish.

 

I can remember one game early eighties when they repeatedly announced for a certain programme seller to report back .
Think it was in the next edition of chronicle that police had arrested him in Blackpool .
Think I’ve got the story right anyway

 

I think that was our first game back in the 3rd Division under Clarkey when 20 odd thousand turned up for the visit of Wednesday.