Last night, when I was awake again with my very annoying chronic insomnia, I was reading an interesting article written by an Arsenal fan who was arguing the case against the tide of Arsenal fans bemoaning the prices they charge for matchday tickets. The fans against the prices were comparing with Wigan who had the cheapest seats for matchday.
He argued that as Arsenal sell out every home game, then the prices were actually too low. If Demand exceeds supply then the price should rise. In his argument it was actually Wigan who were charging too much because they had empty seats every home game. They had effectively set prices too high and could not sell them at that price to get a full stadium. The rags exploited this to the max with their high matchday prices, compulsory cup schemes etc as under Ferguson the fans didn't want to miss out. They sold out virtually every game despite the costs being high. As their success has waned, they have seen demand wane and have slightly relaxed some of their policies but not by much. That's because they and to an extent Liverpool have the fan base to help meet demand. Arsenal and chelsea have the benefit of being in the capital where there will always be thousands of tourists at any one time.
His argument in basic economic terms is correct. The price of a good is usually directly linked to the demand for it.
However in football, it doesn't seem to work that way because there are other factors that come into play. Clubs have realised that where there is limited demand (us in the CL, Wigan in the league, most lower league clubs) then it doesn't matter what the club do, they won't increase demand. Even at buy one get one free, there were still empty seats for us in this competition.
They therefore look at the maximising revenue point. They play on fan loyalty to achieve this. That's why ticket prices are still very high at the likes of Leeds.
I think it is completely wrong to do this but the head of matchday revenue will be earning very large bonuses for year on year increases and unfortunately their bonus and job retention is more important than what people they don't know think about it. It will only be when the revenue increases start to slip or actually revenue declines that they will do something about it. They are probably aware that some people won't buy tickets but that apathy and the love of the club will override this for the majority. They will also more than likely think that as it is Easter holidays more kids will attend, more tourists will come and that the QF status will add a few bums on seats. They will be prepared for some people not joining the cup scheme next season in protest but will be relying on the Pep factor to address this. These are the other factors.
They don't care about people being priced out as long as there is somebody to take their place. They have annoyed people before with price increases, not least many of those in padded seats level 2'who had been sat there since the stadium was opened and have been forced to move as they could no longer afford those prices. I was one of them and I'm sure they don't lose any sleep over me now being in SS3 as long as they are making more from the person in the padded seat. They have probably had the discussion that people moaned about it and they had a few complaints etc but 95% renewed in that part of the ground or elsewhere. They will use this experience for current pricing policy.
The only way to affect this is to not buy tickets if you don't agree with the pricing and to not renew the CL scheme next season and then hope that there is not the demand there to replace you. We will only see price reductions when this decision making starts to affect revenue growth.
