Personally, i dont have an issue with the increases, as i am not surprised given the current state of the economic climate and prices generally . I know we all think we have got it bad what with general food price increases and energy bills, etc , but just step back and think how businesses, any business for that matter, arw trying to cope with all their cost increases at the moment.
Lets not forget this increase will no doubt try to reflect and also offset to a degree any increase in the energy price cap that is due to go up in April this year. Remember the season ticket price has to get the Club through to essentially March/April 2024 before they can either fix, reduce, or raise season ticket prices again. It is nit something they can change mid-season.
Very quickly looking at other clubs prices in League 2 i dont think we have done too bad. We are not the cheapest, but no where near being the most expensive. If this means continued investment in the Team and the match day experience then i am all for it.
I have a season ticket this season but I havenāt always had one. My wife often comes to games if she isnāt at work. It may be a good view up there and whatever else but that would be Ā£55 to rock up on the day and watch a really poor standard of football, before you have even thought of having a pint or something to eat.
This is why having a season ticket is so beneficial for me even with the price increase but if for whatever reason I couldnāt, Iām not sure Iād bother with many games at that price.
Thatās my point. If I decide next season on the day of the match I want to sit in the upper teir ull be talking well over 30 quid. Price yet to be confirmed
While that might be true the flip side to that is how many you sell.
Say they kept the price at Ā£357 and sold 5000 season tickets, it generates Ā£1.785m in revenue.
What if 20% of those are now priced out of a season ticket and we sell 4000 at Ā£380 which generates Ā£1.52m in revenue.
Plus you lose 1000 customers who may on occasion make addition purchases (drink, food, programmes etc).
Hypothetical I admit, but it isnāt always just about increasing prices to make more money, sometime you can just sell more of what you have and letās face it, barring a game against Leicester, we have a fair bit of spare capacity.
I would just make a couple of the constantly disused blocks unreserved match day walk ups at 20 and 10 with the age limit on the 10 set at under 21 to catch students, apprentices, and those on the lower end minimum wage. All of the inevitable objections can be worked around.
A season/half season ticket works out cheaper - an Early Bird even more so.
Not waiting until the day itself means you can get a cheaper advance single game ticket, not an on-the-day full price one. Buying in person at the office or over the phone saves on the extra Ā£1.25 booking fee charged online.
Itās cheaper in the lower so why not go there instead of upstairs?
Edit:
They havenāt actually published a price for matchday tickets yet so how do you.know it will be over Ā£30?
Whatās this alternative then? And itās got to be an alternative that can drive the same amount of revenue for the club to enable us to remain competitive on the pitch. If there is a better way to market and sell the product youād have though some of the other 91 league clubs would have cottoned onto it by now. Donāt get me wrong there are tweaks and different incentives other clubs offer but Iām not aware of anything radically different to what we do, that has proven to be massively successful.
Simple maths. We know a matchday in the upper teir Is 27.50 at the moment. Even if they were generous and increased it at say 10 pct that would make it basically 30. But 10pct it wonāt be. It could be significantly more!!!
I wonāt pay it. No way.
And to answer your question. Canāt committ to season tickets or buying pre match tickets
Weāve just announced what for us is a massive financial loss.
Our cost base will be going through the roof. The amount of electricity a professional football club uses must be huge. Energy prices have gone up by around 50%. On top of that, you have ownership models at our level and below which mean that professional football wage inflation is still spiralling.
In a low inflation environment our operating costs (ex wages) have been around Ā£2.2m for a few years. It wouldnāt surprise me if that is now more like Ā£2.6 m. If our cĀ£3.8m wage bill has gone up by 10% then in total that will be a hike in costs of around Ā£800k.
If swapping rent for a more serviceable mortgage sees Ā£250k coming the other way then we have a half million quid hole on top of last years Ā£750k loss.
If we radically changed the season ticket model as suggested and say 5,000 weāre tempted by an average Ā£200 ST then that covers off around Ā£1m of a Ā£6m+ cost base which leaves pay on the day, cup runs and off field activity with far too much heavy lifting, especially as pay on the day would be hugely compromised by the amount of folk buying STās.
So I absolutely get this rise. But where I think we agree is that the club need to now go - āso what does that mean for our community?ā. And what it will mean is that we have now priced ourselves out of the reach of a lot of the community. We shouldnāt lose anybody in this. Which is why we need to give people another option. It shouldnāt be binary - to renew or not to renew. 23 games or no games. And to bring it back to real life, much like weāre all buying a bit less of some stuff, it should be possible to buy, but buy a bit less - hence my suggestion of a Ā£160 ten game ST.
Again, where we agree is that we should now be better than being constrained by some seriously restricted imaginations.
No alarm bells for me, it all makes sense. Just need the club to now do a āso what and what nextā bit of thinking.
