City V PSG ticket Prices: Club Statement

[BlueAnorak]

What that statement says is that MCFC now value money over a full stadium and the fans backing their team. I hope it's fucking deserted.

RIP Manchester City (1894-2016)

Looks that way.

 

[M18CTID]

As we don't owe them anything either.



The one glaring issue with this is that our ground is very regularly unpopulated for these games so we don't have the demand from tourists.

We are that poor at the moment, I can't believe anyone would willingly fork out £55 to sit on the back row of the ES to watch this currently, let alone over a ton to take your couple of kids/16-21.

I see the apologists are focusing on the £40 tickets (which is only £40 if you are a SC holder or citizen member (which you had to pay for).

The upper tier CB and ES which the club are happy to have tiered pricing in for ST, but only one price for this. That's 12,000 tickets at £55 or £50 if you are "fortunate" to get the discount.

There are probably only around 10,000-14000 tickets for our fans at £40-45.

This is the problem the club have IMO. There aren't enough JCLs and tourists to take up the slack vacated by those fans who will give it a miss which means they're making a big mistake with the pricing strategy for this game. Not that it would be any more excusable if there were enough to take their place but the point is that those responsible for this decision aren't as clever as they think.

 

[mayo31]

Excellent post prestwich

 

[Hung]

As we don't owe them anything either.



The one glaring issue with this is that our ground is very regularly unpopulated for these games so we don't have the demand from tourists.

We are that poor at the moment, I can't believe anyone would willingly fork out £55 to sit on the back row of the ES to watch this currently, let alone over a ton to take your couple of kids/16-21.

I see the apologists are focusing on the £40 tickets (which is only £40 if you are a SC holder or citizen member (which you had to pay for).

The upper tier CB and ES which the club are happy to have tiered pricing in for ST, but only one price for this. That's 12,000 tickets at £55 or £50 if you are "fortunate" to get the discount.

There are probably only around 10,000-14000 tickets for our fans at £40-45.

I suspect that the club are anticipating high demand because of the stage we are now at in the competition and the nature of the opposition. What hasn't been factored in is the current form and the fact that we've just lost a derby. If we were pissing the league and we'd just battered United, we may just be a little more understanding - I doubt that the club expected the current meltdown.

 

[kippaxblue76]

This is bullshit (although the rest of your post is fine) so nothing personal. The income from the tickets that the likes of you and I buy is probably about 7-8% of our total revenue. Maybe £30m out of £360m. The club could drop prices by 10% across the board and it would cost them £3m, which is the equivalent of one minor sponsorship.

In addition, we get €6m flat payment for just getting to the last 8 and probably the same again from the CL market pool, in addition to waht we would have got if we'd gone out in the last 16. So even if we get tonked 12-0, we'll have made an extra €12m or nearly £10m. In marking up the price of tickets so high, we'll probably make around £125k extra than we would have made by reducing those prices by £20 but in a stadium that is three-quarters full at most with a lot of our core support missing.

The club could even let us in for nothing and still make around £8m from these two games just from UEFA. But we're not asking to be let in for nothing, we're happy to pay a reasonable price which takes into account the historic nature of the game as well as the need to ensure the stadium is packed and buzzing. But what the club have said is "It's a big game so even though we were about 12,000 down for the Kiev game, we'll put prices up by 50% and miraculously expect all these people to pay that and come out of the woodwork."

They must know we won't come close to selling it but are prepared to accept that for the sake of an extra £125k when even before they sell one ticket, they've made nearly £10m before we even kick a ball. It's a kick in the balls to the fans and it's certainly not something that needs to come with the territory.

WE DO NOT NEED TO ACCEPT THIS!

Just what I was thinking but could never put it across as well as that. Absolutely fucking spot on.

 

[Como Cat]

This all goes with the territory I'm afraid. We can either have £60 top price tickets in the QF of the Champions League watching some of the Worlds best players on show, or we can watch bottom 8 football with journeymen players and flip between leagues every few years, but pay less. I am not defending high ticket prices, which are without doubt a piss take. However, the World has changed since I first started watching football and the corporate machine has hijacked the game. The 'ordinary' fan is a dying breed and grounds will be increasingly populated by occasional visitors. Most will increasingly rely on TV coverage for their weekly 'fix'. It's sad and for those of us who have our club running through our veins, it borders on tragedy, but, 100 years ago, people went to the Music Hall on a Saturday night and now they watch X Factor on TV instead because theatre prices are extortionate.

Why? Does having £60 tickets mean we get to watch the best players in the Champions League? Does watching the best players in the Champions League mean that there needs to be £60 tickets? No, neither statement is true, the difference between reduced ticket prices is negligible in terms of the club's overall revenue. The only reason that the prices can be explained is that the club wishes to embed high ticket prices as the norm. £60 now becomes £80 for the semi-final and even more next season. Someone needs to take the lead (as Liverpool did, as on the face of it their increases looked reasonable but their supporters groups saw through the fudge and made a proper protest) but I don't know if we have the organised groups to lead this. And, we need to get over the 'look where we were twenty years ago' attitude. Our owners have been great so far, but that doesn't mean we should bend over unconditionally.

 

[cookster]

Appropriate image on mcfc.co.uk

 

[BlueAnorak]

Thing is I'd probably willingly pay £60 if I ķnew we'd actually compete or that the manger would pick a team that is capable of winning the tie but the way the team is playing at the moment, the message is all wrong.

 

[Shaelumstash]

I'm fortunate enough that I'm able to afford to pay the £60 to go to the game. I appreciate thousands of Blues aren't in as fortunate a position.

When the ticket prices were released for the PSG game, I was very disappointed, and I expressed my views at length on the other thread. I was still considering whether to attend the game because it's the first time seeing City in the CL quarter final so I wanted to see a little piece of City history.

But what price do you put on that? Tens of thousands of die hard Blues and their families being shut out, so the club can make a few extra hundred grand? I wasn't fully decided.

I think the club's statement today has made my decision for me. The arrogant and dismissive nature of it is something I'd expect from the faceless "Biggest club in the world" over the road who long ago forgot about the fans that helped get them there. I always thought City were different.

I want to totally distance myself from that statement from 1894 with it's sly dig at Garry Cook. There was no need for it, and it was completely misguided. Garry wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but you could never accuse him of not listening to the fans. He regularly attended Supporters Club events, Points of Blue meetings, and when he sent out questionnaires it was because he genuinely wanted to hear fan's views.

Since Sorriano became CEO all of that has stopped. He has deliberately put a distance betweeen the club and the fans. No more opportunity for fans to give negative feedback, no engagement with the fans whatsoever. The questionaires they send out are so loaded that they are an insult to intelligent people. He's been CEO of Manchester City for over 4 years and the only time I've ever heard him speak was at the launch of his pet project at New York City.

I never felt more engaged with and connected to the club than when Garry Cook was in charge. I've never felt further away from it since Sorriano was at the helm. He would do well to remember the last Chairman who created such a divide between the club and fans was Peter Swales, and the fans sheer will and dissatisfaction eventually forced him out of the club.

City fans are often divided on a lot of issues, but when their backs are against the wall and they unify, they have extraordinary powers of determination. The Swales Out campaign and the record breaking attendances in the 3rd tier of English Football are testamount to that.

So what to do in protest at these prices? I have seen other threads suggesting a walk out on 60 minutes of the West Brom game. I don't think it will make any difference. There has been widespread outrage on Bluemoon and social media, the 1894 came out with their good intentioned but misguided statement, Kevin Parker who is usually so fawning in his praise of the club has come out and had his say. Good for him for having the balls to come out and speak up for the fans he respresents in the supporters clubs.

I'd love to be there at the PSG game to experience a little bit of history and enjoy the game. But some things are more important than that.

As I said in the other post, the best attendance we can hope for is 40k at £60 a ticket. The club could have charged £35 a ticket and had a 55k full house. But they would rather do the former because it means they'll get an extra £200k-£300k revenue for the game, even though there will be 15,000 empty seats and thousands of Blues unable to attend because of the financial cost.

The club know the fan's feelings on the cost, and they have chosen to not give a toss. That is their prerogative.

They have made it clear they are only interested in the amount of revenue they bring in from ticket sales for the game. So there's only one way to make them realise they've got it wrong, and that is to not buy a ticket. That's the only way they are going to realise that sticking their fingers in their ears and not listening to the fans will only get you so far at this club.

 

[prof-taf]

Thing is I'd probably willingly pay £60 if I ķnew we'd actually compete or that the manger would pick a team that is capable of winning the tie but the way the team is playing at the moment, the message is all wrong.

Agree, I'm disallusioned at present.