Ticket Prices and Rewarding Fans

[AustrianAndyGull]

Just heard a West Ham United promotional advert on the radio claiming they were doing and 'affordable' day out with tickets from £39 an adult!!

I know ticket prices are a contentious issue at the moment but i thought to myself that if Torquay ( or any of our away opponents ) were to charge anywhere near this mark i would have to go and support a pub team instead because i wouldn't be going anymore.

With some tickets even now in our league creeping into the low £20's , what would be the max ticket price you guys would be prepared to pay before you considered not going anymore?

I think we can kid ourselves that because we are in league 2 then such dramatic hikes in prices will not happen but just like the price of everything else, it creeps up 50p here and 50p there and before you know it you're paying £30 to get in Plainmoor. It probably will happen in the not too distant future as nobody is willing to address the issue head on and work out a sustainable solution amicable to both club and fans.

For me personally, i go to mainly away games so by default it wouldn't cost me as much long term to go and watch Torquay than someone who goes to a lot of home games but i think at £25 i would have to consider not attending out of principle. I believe each league should set a tarriff that is clear and rigid so for example in League 2, no club in my opinion should be charging more than £15 to watch this level of football. Whether you agree with me or not is by the by but just hear me out.

So Rotherham couldn't charge upwards of £20 just because they have built a new stadium. They should adhere to the new rules about ticketing pricing structure and charge £15. Should they need the cash to pay for the new ground they they should either re-think their plans, re-do the maths and build something within their financial remit OR go ahead and build as planned but recoup the funding from elsewhere and not by fleecing fans again and bumping up ticket prices. EVERY game in the division should be a flat rate of £15 ( my acceptable limit for the price of a ticket in our legaue ).

As you go higher up the leagues the need for 'Category' games should become obsolete should the Championship for example charge £25 a ticket for every game regardless of opposition. So if Peterborough charged £25 for a home game against Charlton they shouldn't increase it for a home game against say, Leeds just because demand will be higher. If they charge a flat rate of £25 ( an example price ) then the finances would even themselves out anyway as less people would attend the more unattractive fixtures but this shortfall will be made up of more people attending the more desirable fixtures.

Category games are simply a way of clubs charging more for the same product simply because they are unable to run themselves properly financially. Fans are the lifeblood of every club and without them the clubs wouldn't even exist so i welcome the day when push comes to shove and the clubs eventually realise this and act accordingly. It is commendable that clubs do certain offers and deals and welcome kids on the cheap but these deals aren't accessible to everybody. Some people get marginalised because they don't fit into the criteria for a reduction.

Again, my posting may appear on the face of it to be another of Andy's BLACK or WHITE problems which i think can be solved by doing one thing or the other and bob's your uncle and i do truly believe a simple sensible solution is out there if clubs are willing to diversify a little more than their efforts are doing now.

One thing is for sure, falling gates due to continually rising ticket prices will eventually impact on clubs to such an extent that they will one day HAVE to take stock and look at what they are asking of fans and if it is reasonable for the product they are offering. Clubs like Man Utd will always be ok because they have top class, well known players, a worldwide fan base and a waiting list for season tickets but for the small clubs who rely on a hardcore set of fans coming through the turnstiles each week, the product will become increasingly unappealing should the team enjoy season after season of mediocrity and prices keep going up.

Clubs like Torquay need it's fans, the Football League need clubs like Torquay and English football need the divisions to remain intact and not clubs folding left right and centre so a clinical re-evalution of how clubs treat their supporters is long overdue. I am a firm believer of loyalty and just think how you feel when your favourite supermarket sends you coupons to spend in store to 'give you something back' for your custom and loyalty. Often it is most welcome and you continue to shop there half because you feel they are rewarding your loyalty but mainly because they are giving you something back for choosing to shop with them and it makes you want to go there again. Other businesses have loyalty cards that enable a free entry or rental or whatever after collecting enough points or stamps. Football clubs get away with this time and time again by assuming that because a fan has pledged their allegiance theough thick and thin to them that they will return game after game regardless of with how much contempt the club hold them in. The fans won't stop going or change their colours because true fans don't do that right?

Wrong. There should and WILL be a shift in culture and the sooner the better. As i mentioned before, Torquay have initiated some good offers such as the family ticket or kids for a quid or bring a mate free. These are all a big step forward and shows the club are making an effort but they are all generally token gestures and the offers don't apply to ALL supporters which they should. It's only fair. I have been a big advocate of loyalty schemes and if the club could reward fans by offering them free entry to a game as a reward for attending X amount in a season then i see that as a huge incentive and one which will restore a link between the fans and the family, community club. Likewise something could be done if you purchase a programme. Inside could be a loose voucher ( so you don't need to rip your programme ) with a serial number on it and for every X amount of programmes you buy you get one free. This could be done with food, buy a pie and a coffee and get a card stamped and then after X amount of coffee and pies you get one free. It is simple and it would certainly make me as a fan feel that the club is really trying the best they can to thank me for my support and make going to matchdays more enjoyable.

I reckon the club could set up a sort of tombola in boots and laces or on tables inside the ground and have prizes from the club shop. Charge folk a quid a strip of tickets and the profit is easy money. It is something different. Try something new. The half time draw is old hat. Firstly most people don't have a go because it is boring, they never win and it has become a habit NOT to buy one. The people who ALWAYS buy one would probably do so anyway even if there was a tombola or raffle going off too. They would probably even buy a ticket for those too meaning extra income. I don't want Plainmoor to end up like Phoenix Nights or a village fete on matchdays but let's have some ideas from the club, let's have some action, let's have some consideration for the fans and doing all they can to make matchdays more interactive, more fun and more of an attraction should the football be regularly crap.

Incentives make people do things, they make people who wouldn't normally otherwise have considered something consider something. They make people feel they are valued and being rewarded for their custom. At the end of the day, Torquay United and other league clubs need to wake up and accept that fans ARE customers and they are at a constant risk of losing them.

[happytorq]

Tickets are too much, generally, and the reason they are is because the cost of running a football club is so much. When you have players making more in a week than the majority of us do in a year (as is the case for Prem players), that money has to come from somewhere, and ticket prices are easiest to change because it's accepted that fans will swallow it pretty much every time. (Economists will tell you that price elasticity of demand for tickets is relatively inelastic). That need is even more acute at our level, because we don't have a large amount of income from sources outside the ground. We don't have a huge TV contract, and we're probably not making a lot from shirt sales, etc.

I mean, it's not rocket science. Ok, ko with me on this - I'm making a lot of assumptions that I know to be inaccurate simply to make this easier but I think it makes a valid point.

Assume that each player is on, I dunno, £40,000 a year - which works out a bit higher than the £700+ average weekly wage i've seen thrown about, but regardless. Say we have 18 pro players. so playing salary is £720,000 a year. With maybe 20 home games a year (and I'm assuming no overheads, which is clearly wrong), we'd need to make £36k a game. At £20 a throw (I just saw this, crikey) that's 1,800 people a game needed just to pay for the players. Our average is hovering around 2,800 right now, so with expenditures (power, stewarding, non-playing staff) we can pretty sure we're sailing close to the wind already.

you see people suggesting that we do kids-for-a-quid or drop the price to a tenner for a game or two, and the response is always the same. We simply can't afford to do it. We don't have a moneybags propping up the club. If you let everybody in for £10 that you're halving the revenues for the game, which the finances couldn't take. Granted, you'd probably get a few extra bodies through the gate, but on a gate of 2800 you'd be losing £28,000, and the gate would have to double to cover that.

Doubtful.

One think I wish we could do is charge more to away fans. We're in a good position (rare for us) in that Torquay is one of the trips that away fans want to make. I don't think charging them £25 to watch their team play in the beautiful Bay would put most of them off. Maybe we could use that revenue to reduce prices a tad. (but it wouldn't be much, may a quid or 2)

[AustrianAndyGull]

Some really good points there Happy. As for the away fans and sticking them in the bench and charging them more, we do that already for clubs with small to average followings and it's a good idea. We can't really charge them more than £17 or £18 to stand though and in the case of a team with a large following we will lose income from sticking them in the bench as most i presume will want to stand if they had the option.

If the club are sailing as close to the wind as you say and there is literally zero room for manouevre, I have a radical idea and it is to reduce ticket prices and make up the shortfall by reducing players wages. Obviously this means we will have even bigger problems recruiting established professionals than we do already but i believe we can still remain competetive in league 2 if this scenario was to happen. The manager would basically need to weed out some latent talent from local football on a regular basis but i honestly believe this can be done. Ok so we might not challenge for promotion much but many Torquay fans are seemingly happy to accept we are a small mediocre club who belong in league 2 anyway so what the hell if we play up to that idiom but with the fans paying less. It is a sound financial base and who knows what the future holds, we may well be able to begin paying players more if we somehow achieve some success. At the end of the day if we finish mid -table this season with the wage bill we have then most Gulls will be fairly happy. Why can't we finish mid-table with players who will accept less either because they are young and untried or because they have totally lost their way and are looking for a route back into the game. If either sets of players does well for us then we get the benefit of them whilst they are here and we also get some cash when we sell them on. I am with Dave (forevertufc) on this that given the right manager and people around him in touch with local area football, there are loads of players out there who could do a job for us at Torquay for peanuts. It's the future and so long as you have one or two seasoned, experienced pro's in the side who can help and nurture the youngsters i reckon Torquay would be in a healthier place than it is now and we wouldn't be relying on ticket price rises in order to survive just because we are paying our players more than we need to. Again it is my black and white syndrome kicking in again but if it takes a reduction in players wages in order to safeguard future support and ticket revenues then that is what must be done.

[happytorq]

Essentially I pulled most of those numbers out of my ass but I think it's a fairly good representation of the sort of challenges the club faces.

regarding the idea of reducing player wages; I can see your point but I have very strong doubts that it'd work. Especially when ticket revenues go down even further following relegation....

Honestly, I think we need to accept that ticket prices aren't coming down.

But, the club can do things to ensure that future increases aren't necessary as often. Namely, "open new revenue streams", which sounds like a horrible americanisation but is good business practice. To be fair they seem to be trying that already - the big screen will almost certainly pay itself back in pretty short order, and with the bench I believe they have more of an ability to attract corporate business. It would be interesting to know if they have plans to use the facilities of the bench out of season as well - with only 20ish home games a year, that still leaves well over 300 days when the place is empty. I actually don't know how feasible this is but definitely something worth looking at.

How about this: electronic matchday programmes: I would happily give them £3-£5 a month if they could make PDF version of the matchday programmes available. I obviously can't get to games but it would be nice to have some version of the programmes to look at. If they were clever they could even include links for the advertisers. Not hard, I could do it myself.

[cambgull]

How about this: electronic matchday programmes: I would happily give them £3-£5 a month if they could make PDF version of the matchday programmes available. I obviously can't get to games but it would be nice to have some version of the programmes to look at. If they were clever they could even include links for the advertisers. Not hard, I could do it myself.

It's probably already in a similar form when it's sent off to the printers so this is a great idea. It is basically free money too as for the sake of 20 minutes of someone's time, they can make a fair bit of money for no real extra time or expense.

[ferrarilover]

I'm in the process of getting this very thing sorted (if it's possible, there are, as you'd expect, hurdles).

Matt.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I think an e-programme is a great idea and many fans would subscribe i'm sure but for me, an old fashioned 30 something, i like to have something tangible in my hands ( ). No, not that! A real, glossy, paper based programme that you can flick through, get high on the fresh printing smell and add another one to an already impressive collection. If you guys want an e-programme then i haven't got a problem with that but if it were to be at the expense of the traditional format then given the age range of many of Torquay's supporters, the club will lose out. I certainly wouldn't buy an e-programme but will ALWAYS buy a normal programme. Have both, that's best all round!

[ferrarilover]

That's the idea Andy, we certainly won't be scrapping the printed program altogether.

Matt.

[Glostergull]

Eventualy those who run football will realise that thier customers have all gone. It could easily happen.
I am in the model trade.(no not long leggy blonde ones. More's the pity). The shift in habits of modelling have over the years been nothing short of seismic. Once all little boys. (expect probably Matt) would have a model railway. This habit lasted for some 50 years, then other models muscled in and the model trade changed. Little boys wanted Radio controlled cars. Then it all changed again. Boys wanted computers.
Ok so Model railways are still with us. After all i still sell a lot of them. But the market is way lower than it used to be and most model railway shops closed down. The model railway manufacturers have not really acknowledged the demise of the hobby and my opinion is that we are in an Indian summer for this area of modelling.Even radio control has changed and cars are no way as popular as it was because Aircraft have taken over.
Football will come to this one day. other interests will take over as football prices itself out of our pocket. Yes I doubt I will be able to come much if i am forced to pay £25 per ticket. I am one of the Old codgers now, but My day when £25 a ticket some ain't that far away and pensions won't keep up with that.
Players wages have to a large extent made this problem. The powers that be have allowed this to happen. The Lunatics were let out of the asylum, But no one is listening to us.
I have harped on in the past about players even at our level on huge earning. even at Torqauy our guys earn way above the average wage. I have been shot down by many Dave G. Matty. and loads of others, but after it became apparent that some were actually on near enough £1,800 a week if that's including bonus's then it's pretty high. But if it's excluding bonus's then it's Way way above what you or I earn or could even hope to earn. (Well except for Matt who will surely become a millionaire soon on orange socks and shirts lol.). Think about what £1800 a week is. yes folks £93,600 a year. I have a friend who is one of the main bosses of a major British company who is on only £70,000 a year. I am below £15,000 at the moment. My wife is below £25,000. So to us £93,600 is an absolute fortune. and all they have to do is kick a football. keep fit etc. I am gratefull that we do seem to have a pretty level headed bunch at TQ1 who are gratefull they do earn that sort of money. and gratefull that they do something that we would give our left or right arm for. Many ware not and appear greedy to have even more.
I would love to have gone on to a pro contract one day but it wasn't to be. Illness and disability shave seen to it that I am lower down the pecking order of things. But at least I am happy in what I do.
Yes I admit I may well one day be forced out from watching the game as finance will not permit me to attend any more.
But then Miricoils may yet happen.

[cambgull]

Surely there must be copies of the printed versions left over from each game, would it not be possible for the unused copies to be sold after the game? I'd hate to think they are just binned.

[ferrarilover]

Well done Camb,

Attention all:

If you want a program from a game but didn't get one at the match, then there are usually some left over. At present, we are looking to utilise these in other ways, but if you want one, contact the club.

Matt.

[happytorq]

Surely there must be copies of the printed versions left over from each game, would it not be possible for the unused copies to be sold after the game? I'd hate to think they are just binned.

I'm sure there are, but I live 3284 miles away (yeah, I checked. I'm that guy) so it'd probably cost more to send it here than it would to actually buy in the first place. So for me, an electronic thing would work much better.

I wasn't suggesting that the had copies get done away with entirely.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Man City have returned unsold nearly a 3rd of their 3000 allocation for their upcoming match at the Emirates v Arsenal. The Gunners wanted £62 a ticket. I take my hat off to these fans. Total respect and those that did buy one are mental.

[AustrianAndyGull]

In light of our £111k loss is it likely that ticket prices will increase next season regardless of what league we are in? Again it is one of those situations where the club has a ready made excuse as they could say that we need more money if we are down in the BSP or they could say that as we have survived (if we do) then the loss plus the outlay on extra loanees and further payments for infrastructure may mean that ticket prices would have to increase also.

I can't see it being that long before we are paying £20 standard to go and stand on the pop. I hope the club aren't looking at raising prices next season and if they do will you be prepared to stomach it no complaints?

[cambgull]

If we are to be relegated, I'd be surprised if ticket prices are raised. The club would have to make cuts elsewhere to sustain us. If we stay up, I wouldn't blame them for putting the prices up a pound. As much as we don't want to see the prices rise, we are still one of the cheapest League sides to go and watch. Whether the football is worth it though, is another argument.