[SOLVED] How to fill Oakwell next season

Hi all,

I heard about this season ticket (ST) scheme at another football league club (Darlington i think) a few years ago and I think its a cracking idea which would help fill some of our empty seats and raise additional money for the club in the long term.

The idea is that the more STs we sell the cheaper the ST price becomes, with those that have paid the full price receiving a refund if we sell over X amount of STs.

In order to eliminate any risk the scheme has to raise the same amount of money as last years ST total, otherwise if the scheme fails the club will have lost out. So for the sake of simplicity lets say we sold 6,000 ST last season all of which were at the adult Ponty End fee of £335. So we raised a total of £2,010,000

- To begin with season tickets are priced at £335.
- Should we sell over 7,000 STs then the ST price drops to £287, everyone who has purchased a ST so far receives a total refund of £47.
- 8,000 STs price drops to £251, £47 refund.
- 9,000 STs price drops to £223, £112 refund.
- 10,000 STs price drops to £201, £134 refund.
- 12,000 STs price drops to £167.50, £167.50 refund.

The beauty of the scheme is that no matter how many STs are sold, whether its just 6,000, 8,000 or 12,000 the club will always raise £2,010,000+ So there is no risk for the club at all.

In order to save on administration work all refunds would be sent on a deadline date, so you would not receive a refund each time the price drops, just 1 total refund on a given date. Season ticket prices would have to remain at a fixed price after that deadline, otherwise the club would have to keep sending out refunds which would be difficult to budget for.

The benefits of this is that Oakwell would have a better atmosphere, due to bigger attendance's the club would make more money on food, drinks and club shop sales. More people would be tempted to go to away games due to them being more involved with the club and the same people would be more likely to renew the following season due to them being more involved

The free season tickets for 5 to 11 yr olds would still be in place, but those tickets would not contribute to the season ticket thresholds above, otherwise there is a danger of the club losing money. This is why I used an example of 6,000 STs to begin with rather than the actual figure which i believe is around 7,000

* Note that the prices above are based on all STs being sold to adults in the Ponty End. The prices would be different when taking into account the real amount of money that was raised from season ticket sales, different ST stand prices, OAP/Student ST prices etc. I have also based this on us staying up, which obviously will happen

** The stated refunds will differ depending on which stage you purchased your ST, the example above is based on you buying your ST in the first stage, at the original price of £335.

As said this scheme has been tried before by another football league club, I forget which, but if my memory serves me right they tripled their home attendance.

All those empty seats are collecting dust every season, we might as well fill them, even if we only raise as much money as we would do selling the typical 6,000. There is no risk so why not give it a try.

Let me know what you think? If you don't have a ST already would this tempt you?

Thanks.

 

Good Afternoon Mr Rowing

Isn't there a danger that people would hang back until the price fell? (And thereby making the initiative self-defeating?)

 

Tried this at Keighley Cougars, my local RL team. Never got beyond the first tier.

 

I understand the sentiment and good effort to outline the approach.

As a fan, I want the ground as full as possible, to have the best atmosphere and to get behind the team as much as possible. With so many things outsourced now, would we make much, if any additional revenue contribution from food, drink, merchandise?

I suspect we'd have bigger policing costs as a result too and would we need more casual/ contract staffing to cater for bigger crowds in terms of stewarding too?

I'd also say what's the incentive for the club to generate more ticket sales? If it generates 12,000 instead of 6,000 surely the club should have some reward financially for that extra volume? And surely £160 for a season ticket is way too low to allow the club to compete on an even footing, even possibly in a lower division.

The other thing this would do is reduce the level of pay on the day supporters. At full price, they have the potential to add a good level of income duing the season so if we sold 6,000 more season tickets for £0 revenue. If those 6,000 attended on average 5 games a season at £25, that in itself is costing £750,000.

My personal view is pricing only has a modest knock on effect on attendances through the course of a season.

Doing well on the pitch will always increase demand and will consistently have a greater impact on sales levels than price alone.

 

Cracking idea i reckon

 

An imagination is not always a good thing.

 

The club that tried this started of with normal sales and then a few weeks before the deadline sales picked up and and when word got out they achieved the lowest ST fee.

I wish I could find the BBC news item, I think the club was either Darlington or Colchester.

Either way there is no harm in trying, as said it's risk free and it would be nice to see them do something new.

PS. I'm not Mr Rowling, I ant cool enough to pull off the Don

 

looked at this a few times before and the issue is you cant get people to sign up when they don't know what they will pay. And i can see nightmares with refunds.

However we do have a scheme where we all pay a deposit by x date so why not advertise a ticket will be a max of xxx - if we get x,000 deposits by x date then we will reduce the final payment on a similar sliding scale.

get everyone to get involved with getting people on board and have the carrot of paying say 200 quid if we sell out. The club could help push the campaign of getting people on board by the cut off date.

And we could also go to the media about it and advertise championship football for under £9 a game ???? and take a swipe at clubs charging 40-50 quid a game.

Bring football back to the community.

You can can also bet that if we are close to selling out people will come and snap em up just in case. >> obviously cant see that but scarcity increases demand.

And if people dont sign up instead of paying 25 quid on the gate they should be locked out anyway.

 

I don't think you have taken into account existing pay on gate customers who convert into ST holders. As a result of this TOTAL gate income would fall.

 

I have no idea what the revenue is from such sales but it's common sense that increased gates means increased sales. We wouldn't have a club shop or sell food/drinks if it didn't make us a profit. Only the club would know the answer to that

Yes, I would agree, police/steward fees would go up. The comment regarding losing match day ticket sales would also have to be considered. The fees above are examples only, the refunds could be reduced so that the club generate additional income per season ticket sale over the required 6,000. Match day ticket sales would still happen, they wouldn't stop all together, but they would reduce no doubt. You have to take into account that existing ST holders invite family/friends to one off games and world of mouth would also increase with us having more in attendance. Again sales from food, drink, half time draw, betting and shop would give us additional income, however little or large that may be.

I'd have to disagree with that. Whether we did this idea or not we would still raise the same amount of ST revenue. The idea isn't for the club to make profit but to increase our support base. The bigger picture would be that those new people are more likely to want to watch us again some day, more likely to renew the following season and more likely to buy a match day ticket if they don't renew.

We would capture a lot of people that have never watched BFC before, we would also capture a lot of people who have never had a season ticket before. Having a ST becomes a routine, you get into the habit of meeting friends, having a drink, chatting at work about the weekends game, its a different experience to watching 5 games a season, it becomes a way of life. I've had one for 18 years now and as sad as it may sound I would not have a clue what to do with myself on a Saturday without it.

Not to mention that parents would bring their kids for the first time (which would be more likely with the current free 5 to 11 yr offer). These kids are the next generation of supporters. If their parents didn't have a ST and didn't qualify for the free one would these kids have every watched us.

It's all swings and roundabouts really, the figures above are made up, only the club knows the true profits and expense, not us, but I believe we have to think outside of the box, what we have been doing so far is not working. There is no harm in trying new ideas as long as their is no risk and if this idea is risking then let's come up with something else

 

How did the Bradford model work? They did some daft offer on STs years ago and are still getting five-figure gates even now in L2. It's possible, but it needs a groundswell of enthusiasm and goodwill from the punters and I'm just not sure that's there in sufficient amounts at the moment.

 

I'n not knocking the idea,but I doubt it would raise revenue from the food/drink aspect..I assume Lindleys would be the ones to feel the benefit of that,certainly in the short term,although bigger sales could lead to a better deal when the current deal expires.

 

ST's are already cracking value.

Leaving aside on pitch success which will increase crowds, what the club needs to do is stop pissing around with memberships/categories and all that balls and make matchday prices one price, with a fiver off if you buy a ticket in advance up to 3 hours before KO.

Try and make new/occasional/lapsed supporters welcome rather than punishing them for their non attendance.

As you were Mark.

 

I suggested three months ago that the club could have announced two prices - one if we stay up, one if we go down with only the latter payable initially for a period of 8 weeks. Bearing in mind we were riding on the crest of a wave and everyone was on a massive 'up' then it might have had some success.

If we did stop up, those fans who paid up early had their loyalty rewarded by only paying the latter price. If we don't, nothing lost.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Anyone see the scoreboard f.ck up Tuesday? That FA Cup cash went far.

 

Ideas like that will never be accepted under the present regieme.

 

The question I'd ask is how many people attend a BFC match during a season. You have the same 5-7k season ticket holders and then the rest of the attendance figure will be more transient.

Looking at season ticket value as it is, £14 per game is insane value. The issue we have (I believe) is people don't want to go, or commit to going for 23 games if they perceive the game is going to be a similar calibre as it has over the last few years (generally).

Price isn't the main motivating factor here. I believe it's product.

If we're expected to be pushing for the playoffs or say we were finishing top 10 and playing brazilianesque football, ST numbers would increase.

And the point is, because much of our set up is outsourced, the club don't see the full reward of enhanced sales, the outsourcer does. We may get an element of increased percentage, but would it cover additional costs? I suspect not.

If it were me running things... I'd look at communication and marketing and segmentation of fans. That way they can channel certain communications to some people, and different ones to others. At present you get the round robin weekly newsletter which is no different to whats been put on the website ad just has hyperlinks to existing content.

I'd rather channel efforts into engaging with fans, building connections with business, and having a compelling message to encourage people through the gates rather than hope a pyrmaid style pricing system may hope to get people in through the doors.

 

Nail, head, hit, the, on.

 

Where are Darlington these days?