Gulliball wrote:
For some people we'll earn less than they might otherwise have been prepared to spend, but we only had circa 400 season ticket holders last season and have jumped from that figure to over 1000.
To use my dad as an example, he's been going to Plainmoor for 20 odd years, without ever having a season ticket. He usually goes to somewhere around 18 odd home games a season so it's not worthwhile to him. In the last few years I've noticed that he's been missing more and more games, even when he was able to attend, as the motivation to go just wasn't there. He's bought a season ticket for this year, and will probably attend a lot more games next year as a result. If next season continues as recent years have, and we end up with several Tuesday night fixtures again, then £200 might very easily be more than he would otherwise have spent. At the very least it's filling Plainmoor a lot more each week and this has knock on effects in terms of programmes, food and drink sales etc. It also in turn encourages more people to attend (for example my mum and brother are going to the game tonight and are much more likely to go to a game next season if my dad's there).
With 1000 season tickets, we're not going to have crowds of 1100 and 1200 as we've had in recent years. The die hard fans who have a £200 season ticket will likely contribute to the TUST and/or players fund and from the others you have a £200 commitment from them, which will likely average out at not that far off what would have spent, with the benefit of having them inside the ground more often. After 4 years of decline, getting fans into Plainmoor and experiencing the Nicholson feel good factor can only be a good thing. For the concession rate season tickets, these are the fans of the next 50 years, and along with the magnificent community initiatives we've seen this pre-season, is what gives us a future as a community based small local club.
Overall, I don't think they're going to be a disaster and may well help us to turn the corner from a club in decline to a positive, community engaging club.
I have to say that this is a very well put argument. It would be interesting to know the stats, although I don't suppose it's possible to get them, but that 1800 average last season would not have been the same 1800 at each game. For example, my old man goes once a month, I went 6 times last season. I'd say my dad is reasonably regular, but on the 2 to 3 times he doesn't go a month, somebody else goes who wasn't there when he did. I'd wager that although we can say we have a hard-core of 1800, that hard-core is not made up of 1800 individuals. I'd class myself as reasonably hard-core, considering I live over 100 miles away and have never lived closer than an hour away. If our average next season is 1800 then probably 1000 of those will be paying on the gate, 200plus will have a season ticket but not be there, then our paying on the gate crowd will still be bigger than many of our competitors total crowd. Surely that is enough to run the club and be competitive at this level when you factor in Sponsorship and franchises etc?
