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worsleyweb
Guest
You don't know why. Exactly. And neither did the podcast you listened to.
When you go into Tesco or Asda, there will be staple grocery products at close to or even less than cost price. Typically things like milk, eggs, bread etc. Because when you buy those things (and you rarely just buy one and walk out the store) you'll buy other things that have a higher margin. So if you buy bread, you might well buy butter, jam, ham, peanut butter, pickles, cheese, crisps, etc. So Tesco may lose 5p on a loaf of bread but they'll make 50p on something else. They won't put that 50p margin on the bread because people would either say "I'm not buying that here when it's 50p cheaper at Asda" and walk out or they might buy it but cut down somewhere else by buying the cheaper, lower-margin own-brand jam or sandwich spread. Or they might say that they're going to be 10% cheaper than their competitors on some key items in order to drive footfall into the stores. That's a strategic decision they've taken. They might lose a bit on those items but they reckon they'll gain it by getting people into the store who'll buy other stuff. They look at it holistically, swings & roundabouts and all that.
Now I know football clubs aren't like supermarkets, in terms of loyalty. If City put my season ticket up £20, I'm not going to suddenly decide to watch Wigan or Bolton. But the point is that the supermarkets want to get people in and they're prepared to sacrifice something to do that. Same applies to all sorts of other businesses. Just swapped my TV from BT to Sky as I got a cracking deal that lowered my overall cost and gave me a couple of advantages. My phone contract is up so I'm looking at the combination of upfront and monthly cost that gives me the lowest overall contract cost. When my car insurance renews, I'll be looking to get the features I want at the lowest price. And there will be loads of companies looking to attract new customers like me and who have invested in a marketing budget to do that.
When I was a kid, my dad wasn't into football but eventually I persuaded him to take me to games and he became a fanatical Blue. But it was cheap in those days. If a dad wants to take his two boys to tomorrow's game, it'll cost him £100 minimum for tickets alone. And as a consequence we'll have empty seats as we have most games, even yesterday. Partly that'll be because some can't travel for a midweek game but partly it's because the demand simply isn't there yet and we're giving loads of tickets away that we can't sell and some of them aren't getting used. So if I was running that business I'd be saying "Sell those tickets. Get the price down to a level where we create demand and then, when there's more demand than supply for game like tomorrow, then start to think about edging prices up to manage the demand.
In the same way that you or I probably aren't going to jump ship to watch another club, neither are fans of other clubs going to jump ship to watch us. But there is are opportunities there. Maybe for dads who take their kids to watch the local club but who maybe aren't passionate fans of that club. The kid wants to watch us but the dad won't pay those prices I talked about above. So offer that dad a deal that, for 5 years, he can have a child season ticket priced at £5 a game if he pays for an adult ticket and maybe an additional one at £10 a game. So for £285 a season he can bring his two kids for 5 years. The kids will want food and kits, which are high margin. I know people who started supporting us as students, when they came to Manchester Uni or MMU. Give them a deal on season cards and tie them in so that if they stay in Manchester after they graduate, they'll become loyal fans. There's no fucking imagination at the club re ticketing.
And to go back the retail analogy, if I run a shop I buy stock from a supplier and sell it for for than I buy it for, which generates cash that allows me to re-stock, pay my overheads and earn something for myself. Sometimes I'll have to take a pinch to make room for more stock so I'll have a sale or sell particular lines cheaper but better to bring in some cash than have the stock sitting there getting old and out-dated. So. like deliberate loss-leaders, sometimes I'll take a hit but overall, as long as I sell other items at the right price, I'll be alright. The club have never come out and explained where our ticket money goes. It's the least significant of our 3 major income streams but we need to bring something in as we can't afford to give all our tickets away for nothing. I realise that we have match-day costs. There's power, police, stewards, catering staff, etc. If the club were to say that they'd price tickets to cover match-day costs and nothing more, then we'd understand. If they said that tickets really don't cover all direct match-day costs, then we'd understand why they had to go up. But the feeling is that they're doing it just because they can or because they want to be comparable with Liverpool or the rags.
I understand that a lot of little price increases seems better than a few big ones. But until I'm told why they need to go up, apart from vague mumblings about inflation of match-day costs then I'll carry on questioning the need for a rise at all. Particularly when those rises are against the backdrop of an increase in revenue of nearly £100m in PL media income (up £55m) and Commercial revenue (up £40m).
I'll tell you why I think they've gone up. Because, overall, ticket revenue went down slightly last financial year by £650k and they want to claw that back. But hospitality really isn't selling that well. On Sunday, from where I sit, I could see 4 executive boxes on the Colin Bell side that were empty so I reckon we're bearing some of the brunt of that.
I asked someone in corporate why the exec boxes were always empty this weekend. She said they were completely sold out before the season starts - owned by players and or big companies. People just don't use them. The cprporate seems pretty popular to me. Often need to buy extra tickets and cant - Huddersfield was sold out weeks in advance as was United.