*Official* English Football Season 2015-16

[sledger]

High ticket pricing is, relatively speaking, an issue across all levels of football imo.

I think for me, being a regular attendee at live games would hinge on a level of interest/price I'm willing to pay ratio.

I'm now living close enough to Arsenal to make getting to games regularly no issue, but these days I really don't think I'm interested enough to justify shelling out £60 a week or whatever. Were the price somewhat lower, however, I probably would be interested in the idea.

Going further down the leagues, the same principle applies. Let's say paying £30 or whatever it is to go and watch Brentford every week.

Similarly, when I was last living at home in Hants, I thought about regularly going to watch my local team Whitchurch FC (Whitchurch being a town with less than 5,000 people living in it), thinking it'd be cool to lend support a salt of the earth type side. However, upon enquiry, I discovered that a ticket to a normal match was neary £15, and there is no way I am paying that to go and watch a bunch of blokes who are probably of similar, or less, ability to guys I used to play with at Uni.

Not sure where I'm going with this post, so I will stop.

 

[sledger]

Cribb/ikki will love this.

I don't think we can expect the FA to be effective at anything. They have no real reason to be. A club that put Greg Dyke in charge would be relegated out of existence.

Haha Brentford did alright with him at the helm tbf.

 

[Cabinet96]

Cribb/ikki will love this.

I don't think we can expect the FA to be effective at anything. They have no real reason to be. A club that put Greg Dyke in charge would be relegated out of existence.

I don't think it's a particularly ideal solution and haven't really thought about the implications, but from a club perspective surely it's better than feeling socially obliged to reduce ticket prices from the same fan base who will also complain that the team isn't as good as Man City.

 

[GIMH]

High ticket pricing is, relatively speaking, an issue across all levels of football imo.

I think for me, being a regular attendee at live games would hinge on a level of interest/price I'm willing to pay ratio.

I'm now living close enough to Arsenal to make getting to games regularly no issue, but these days I really don't think I'm interested enough to justify shelling out £60 a week or whatever. Were the price somewhat lower, however, I probably would be interested in the idea.

Going further down the leagues, the same principle applies. Let's say paying £30 or whatever it is to go and watch Brentford every week.

Similarly, when I was last living at home in Hants, I thought about regularly going to watch my local team Whitchurch FC (Whitchurch being a town with less than 5,000 people living in it), thinking it'd be cool to lend support a salt of the earth type side. However, upon enquiry, I discovered that a ticket to a normal match was neary £15, and there is no way I am paying that to go and watch a bunch of blokes who are probably of similar, or less, ability to guys I used to play with at Uni.

Not sure where I'm going with this post, so I will stop.

What level are they?

 

[sledger]

Wessex League. So about 3 divisions beneath the Conference.

 

[GIMH]

Wessex League. So about 3 divisions beneath the Conference.

£15 is steep then, it's probably around the average conference price.

 

[sledger]

£15 is steep then, it's probably around the average conference price.

Yeah, I mean I'd cop £5 a week or whatever. But it just seems nonsense to me to charge £15 to get in to see a bunch of blokes who spend the majority of their days doing 9-5 jobs but put on the football boots for a few hours at the weekends. Especially when, as you say, the average price for a conference game (or even a subscription to Sky or whatever) is not a great deal more expensive.

 

[sledger]

Using similar logic, you might also say that if you skip out on a few games, within a few weeks you'd have saved up enough money to go and see Arsenal or whoever, which doesn't seem quite right.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah, I mean I'd cop £5 a week or whatever. But it just seems nonsense to me to charge £15 to get in to see a bunch of blokes who spend the majority of their days doing 9-5 jobs but put on the football boots for a few hours at the weekends. Especially when, as you say, the average price for a conference game (or even a subscription to Sky or whatever) is not a great deal more expensive.

Think you're selling the semi-pro game a bit short but otherwise agree fully.

As I said before. Really £17 seems a lot for non-league football but it is what it is and at least it's towards a challenge for promotion etc. If we did a Stockport and prices stayed at this level I think a lot of people would draw a line and say I'm not paying this for that.

Then again a lot said that when we were on the brink of relegation and home crowds appear to be up this season so who knows

Football fans are strange. Myself included

 

[Cabinet96]

DCYE has the same birthday as Özil. WAG.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

I'm a good bloke.

 

[Ikki]

But you're a lazy **** and go missing too often

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Eerily accurate.

 

[Uppercut]

Brendan Rodgers apparently doing punditry work on Richard Keys' Qatar show. So begins the transition from Brent to Partridge.

 

[sledger]

He'd have to become uncomfortably charming in order to complete that transition. Can't see it.

 

[Uppercut]

I was reminded of my favourite Accidental Partridge ever on Sunday- Adrian Chiles on Jakub Blaszczykowski: "As a child he watched his father murder his mother... but he's bounced back!"

 

[sledger]

haha I had forgotten that.

 

[Pothas]

Haha Brentford did alright with him at the helm tbf.

To be fair he never actually had all that much to do with the running of the club.

On the ticket price thing I was more than happy with my £375 season ticket last year, was pretty fantastic value given the quality of football. Now we have moved and I can't really commit to one it all seems so much more expensive. I am trying to do a mixture of home and away games, I don't really mind paying £25 which is what Bees is to stand but some clubs charge considerably more, then there is the issue of travel costs.

 

[cpr]

Is football really that expensive compared to other forms of entertainment?

You pay £50 to see Utd, which is the pinnacle (alleg.) of entertainment in that field, and encompasses 2 hours of the main show, with various other bits and pieces going on before. Compare that to going to see one of the biggest bands at your local 20,000 capacity arena, and you are getting the same sort of entertainment time at around the same price (been a while since I've seen someone major, but i think Pearl Jam were £40+ about 4 or 5 years ago, and they are known for standing up for fans rights....). Dropping down the footie divisions/music venues, and you can see the comparison is still the same - I've happily paid £15 to see a band at the Ritz (Half Man Half Biscuit), who despite never having a top 40 hit in their 30 years, and most people think are crap, its still been packed with devoted (idiotic?) fans - Must be something about the Wirral lot who inspire devotion through it all......

People will argue seeing a film is a lot cheaper and about the same timeframe to view - however that's negating the fact that that one performance can be seen by millions in some cases spread about the world thus can make much bigger profits despite the lower price - Yet I daresay if someone could build a 10,000 seater cinema, have the audience participating in the event much more and still have the same viewing experience, someone would, and charge a lot more for the ticket.

People go on about the price killing the game for 'the average fan'. Its a bit of a con that IMO - The average fan still makes up the huge majority of people there on matchday, its just they aren't (as pointed out) standing in front of the stadium, shopping bags in hand, getting a picture taken. At OT your average fan usually parks up at PC World (or has somehow got a residents permit for a sidestreet off 'a mate') and enters the stadium via the bridge at the other end (which is never seen on TV), about 15 mins before kick off He then buggers off 5 mins before the end to beat the traffic (especially on a week night when the pub is beckoning), and does it all again next week. I know loads of Utd season ticket holders who'll happily do that and pay the going rate - ok they'll grumble, as we do about anything pricey, but none of them will give up the ticket on cost grounds, and these are people on 'average incomes' etc.



End of the day, the grounds are full at the top level every week (well, are if your team aren't ****) of mainly local fans who'll pay the going rate, why should the club be compelled to lower the price because there's some people who won't pay what others will?

 

[Furball]

Ticket prices are on the steep side, but if you don't agree with them, then don't go. It's kind of hard to argue that Arsenal charge too much when there's a massive waiting list for season tickets and they sell out home league games.

Comparisons with Germany are also almost always flawed because they have terracing and fewer games, so when people point out that the cheapest season ticket at Dortmund is only €170 or whatever, that's for the terrace and it's for 17 league games; it's worth pointing out that prime area tickets for Bundesliga games are pretty expensive. Ticket inflation is also higher in Germany than in England.

I'll happily pay along to Ibrox this season because we're getting great football and we've got our club back. I didn't buy a single ticket for the previous season and a half because the standard of football under McCoist was disgraceful and I wasn't prepared to fund the regime we had in place.