It's time to drop home ticket prices. Significantly.

Proper wall of text but bear with me.

First of all, the proposal below outlines what I think would have to be a long-term commitment, and I don't think the ocassional game we've had in the last few years at a tenner or whatever getting a disappointing crowd is a good enough rebuttal, as they've often been poorly promoted and one game isn't enough to get new and returning fans interested long-term.

It's my opinion that the cash coming in from ticket/season ticket sales is become a less and less important factor financially to the club, but it's still a huge hurdle for many fans wanting to attend games. I'm a massive reds fan for example, but as a young lad just starting out with a new business I couldn't justify £300+ for a season ticket when I had much more important bills at the time, and on a match day I can seldom afford to be stumping up £30 for an adult seat.

Let's try to estimate a figure for what we make from ST and ticket sales.

Let's say we sold 9,000 season tickets this season. I'm not sure of the true figure, but let's also consider the fact many of these will have been juvenile, OAP tickets etc which are discounted. For that reason let's estimate an average season ticket price of £180. That's considering kids tickets are either free or peanuts depending on age/time of purchase.

£180 x 9,000 = £1.62m.

Now let's estimate additional ticket sales for the average home match.

Average attendance = 13,800.

Let's say 1.5k season ticket holders are absent on average each game, due to holidays/work/sickness/child ticket holders not being interested etc. That gives us an average of 6,300 additional tickets sold per game.

Estimated average ticket price when considering concession tickets: £20.

£20 x 6,300 = £126k

£126k x 23 league games = £3.3m

So our estimated total ticket income each year (not including cups and before tax) is about £4.9m.

As it stands, we're a Championship club, and I'm optimistic that we'll retain that this season even given our current form.

Financially, the Championship is on a massive borderline. Those at the bottom might only pay £200k-£500k for a player. Those at the top can often pay £5m+ these days. So a player's form over a season might be the difference between his value being perceived as a few hundred thousand or several milion pounds.

My suggestion is we cut all season and match day ticket prices in HALF next season. That loses us around £2.5m in ticket income over a season.

£2.5m is still buckets of money, so how do we make it up?

Well first let's estimate how many more fans might be likely to attend. Let's be conservative, and say we get another 2k season ticket sales and 3k each game pay on the gate (including away fans, who would definitely be more enticed).

At new prices that would be £180k from new season tickets and about £700k from pay on the gates. £700k + £180k = £880k.

£2.5m - £880k = 1.62m. So we have £1.62m left to recover.

Now let's add some estimates for additional match day sales.

Let's say 1.5k of those 2k new season ticket holders show up each game, that gives us about 4,500 additional fans each game, including pay on the gate home and away fans.

Any of these fans might buy programmes, food, drinks, betting slips, etc.

Let's say each fan is worth an extra £2 profit or so per game for us on average because of the above. That's about another £240k over a season.

£1.62m - 240k = £1.38m left to recover per season.

But now these are my two main points:

1. I'm firmly of the opinion that over a season or two of sustained cheap tickets and good marketing, our gates would continue to creep up as long as we were retaining or improving our Championship position. I've lost count of how many of my family members have said how they would like to go to the odd match but just can't justify the entrance price, and many of these people have kids.

If tickets are this affordable, not only is the odd match finally possible, but this could get them back into the habit of attending regularly. And then there's the potential for their kids to start joining them. And then those kids might start wanting their mates to join them, etc. It would be a mid-long term domino effect. Then there's extra merchandise sales etc.

2. A bustling Oakwell with a good atmosphere makes for a better place to play. At the moment it's between 40% and 50% empty every game. That extra lift could be invaluable on the pitch. And crucially, that might be the difference between some of our players being valued at £400k or £2m.

Between those two points, I think we'd make our money back.

 

I'm certainly hoping that the new dudes have some rabbits in their hats for the close season, whichever league we end up in.

They talked about increasing revenue streams, so I would imagine that gates is the source closest to home.

I honestly don't think our fans will jump on cheap tickets alone though.

They only seem to be inspired by success. We have up to 20,000 or so "rent a crowd" in reserve for Wembley games but I don't think they can be arsed with the bread and butter stuff at any price.

 

Or get a TEAM playing attractive football and winning matches ?

 

I'm not against that either

 

Brilliant post though, and must have taken some thought.
Season ticket prices are fair, pay on the day governed by reciprocal pricing, but I think the point you are making is to make it affordable for all and steer our next generation of fans towards their home town club and away from your Man.Utds/City's.
Anyone can be a 'fan' of any club, but supporters attend games and offer vocal support.

 

We don’t make anything from Food and Drinks over and above sub contracting it out. At the moment anyway.

 

Being from a lower working class family I think this is misunderstood a bit. A lot of my family would love to attend regularly, but just honestly can't afford it. Then when Wembley rolls around it's unmissable and it's a case of all the coin tins being broken out, rainy day money being compromised, favours being cashed in, and weeks of living on baked beans afterwards. To people like my family, it's unfortunately just absurd to try to justify 25-30 quid a ticket so they sadly don't go to regular games. Barnsley's not an affluent town, and I'm sure there are many other families in the same boat.

 

I get that but the whole point of the post is about making it cheap so people can afford it on a regular basis.

Do you think a large number of the casual fans would commit to say, a £150 season ticket?

 

I don't think it would be unreasonable to at least expect a 15-20% increase in sales for a 50% reduction in cost, which would be a good start

 

But that would lose money so would be pointless.

 

Out of interest, I saw this on Owlstalk. Not sure how genuine it is but anyway....

 

Yes, it would lose a chunk at first. But the aim would be to make that back indirectly, through expanding the fan base and using that larger fan base to increase revenue streams in other areas

 

Any idea if that's supposed to be from the club or if it's a fan poll?

 

My mates a Huddersfield fan. Said it worked there because they were doing well on the pitch as well.

I'm not sure how much their owner had speculated on the squad though to get the team going.

Edit.

Just looked and up to last season they owed their owner £42 million.

 

I found this thread about it. No idea about the background though.

https://www.owlstalk.co.uk/forums/topic/267545-so-question-11-on-the-survey/

 

I just checked out ticket prices here in Vancouver. £42 for two tickets in the opening games of the season, including a voucher for a free scarf. Would be great for us to do a promotion along those lines. Given that you can buy knock-off scarves for a £5 they must cost hardly anything to produce.

 

I think you've got that spot on. I know loads of diehards who for a variety of reasons cant justify paying the ticket prices. Its a shame, because it also excludes their kids, who will never get the oakwell habit and in future years will probably end in a pub in town on a Saturday afternoon cheering on United or city.

 

I can't go to every home game any more due to work. I've managed to get to 4 matches so far this season. That's why I haven't had a season ticket since 2012. I would go to twice as many games if the prices were right though.

 

Probably worth remembering that all ticket prices inc VAT at 20%. So you can take that amount off straight away.

 

You might have over estimated pay on the day customers. Do we only include season ticket holders who actually attend in the attendance figures? Seemingly some clubs count all season ticket holders irrespective of whether they attend or not and the Football League have no hard and fast rule on the practice. I'm not sure where BFC stand on this.