Football clubs have a lot to answer for in regards how fans now support their clubs. They sold their souls for the tv money. As a result kick off times are changed at short notice and often to ridiculous times. They then started calling fans customers and marketing it like going to a one off treat like a concert or a show. Your hard core fans then kind of got shoved to one side. Moved out of seats for corporates, treated with a little bit of contempt. Who wants fans who stay in the pub until five minutes before kick off, turn up and go home without spending £50-100 on food, drink and souvenirs? The huge revenues now in the game aren't trickling down to the people coming through the turnstiles. Prices go up and up while for the majority of people their income stays the same or depreciates due to no wage rises and inflation. A disconnect then occurs, people drift away and don't come back. We also due to over three decades of mediocrity have an ageing fan base. People are dying off, not going as often due to health, problems with transport and financial issues. Not all older people have a great income. Sure I think at 65 you get reduced tickets but a lot of people are made redundant or have to take early retirement so are in a financial limbo until they can boost it with the state pension and get these discounts.
I know the tv deal is a necessary evil and allows clubs to buy better players but they have to introduce cheaper tickets, I am sure it can be done. We have also lost the spontaneity of going to a game. If we have ten thousand tickets left for Saturday and some people suddenly wake up on the day and want to go they can't, which is nuts.
I think someone else mentioned it earlier that we are attracting worldwide and younger fans but it is going to take another ten years of success to really build it up. I watch Cheesey's blog and he is interviewing fans from the States and elsewhere attending their first City games which is great. Until that happens and prices and transport drop and kick off times are sensible we are going to struggle to sell 35,000 tickets for a semi final 200 miles away that kicks off at 17:30.
I know the tv deal is a necessary evil and allows clubs to buy better players but they have to introduce cheaper tickets, I am sure it can be done. We have also lost the spontaneity of going to a game. If we have ten thousand tickets left for Saturday and some people suddenly wake up on the day and want to go they can't, which is nuts.
I think someone else mentioned it earlier that we are attracting worldwide and younger fans but it is going to take another ten years of success to really build it up. I watch Cheesey's blog and he is interviewing fans from the States and elsewhere attending their first City games which is great. Until that happens and prices and transport drop and kick off times are sensible we are going to struggle to sell 35,000 tickets for a semi final 200 miles away that kicks off at 17:30.