moomba said:
I don't want us to go back to being mediocre, but my support of the club was never reliant on success, or performances. We were led to believe that our support through the bad times was important to the club, that is clearly not the case any more.
I too will be asked to pay at least £1150, or get a cheap seat which is also the worst seat in the house, or pay the £450 I paid just a few years ago or more for a significantly worse seat.
I will have to join three cup schemes as we will have a good percentage of 12k new supporters that will jump ahead of me in the queue for finals tickets if I don't. I will have to pay extra for platinum to avoid being overtaken on loyalty points by people that became loyal when we became good.
I'm pleased that you are happy with the new plans, but you'll forgive me if I don't jump for joy at being monetised yet again. Still whats over 10 years as a season ticket holder when there are new corporates and rich folk eager for a good seat with a bar that they can spend their time in.
Exactly.
Ive sent my thoughts to the club, asked them to cancel my card with immediate effect, somewhat a knee jerk reaction no doubt some will say, childish, cutting my nose off, we should be paying these prices etc etc etc.
Sorry but effectively the club have told me via a 150% price hike in two seasons time they would prefer a different fan, they can have the seat now.
The additional revenue this will generate wont pay two top tier players wages for a season. Id be surprised if it wiped the nose of Yaya's monthly envelope.
Lets say the impact of the hike affects 20k fans at £400 a seat, thats £8 million. Nothing in the context of wages or the new TV deal. £400 is a huge amount to your average fan. And thats the starting price, the closer to the centre you are the closer it will be to £1500. However i doubt it impacts 20k fans but you see the point.
Look at German Football. Fans vote with their feet and as such price hikes dont happen and when they do they make a stand because as Bayern have admitted and quoted elsewhere on the forum their chairman said -
"We could charge more than £104. Let's say we charged £300. We'd get £2m more in income but what's £2m to us?"
"In a transfer discussion you argue about that sum for five minutes. But the difference between £104 and £300 is huge for the fan."
"We do not think the fans are like cows, who you milk. Football has got to be for everybody."
"That's the biggest difference between us and England"
This is a bad move by the club, £100 - £200 more i think most fans could stomach, those that cant afford, dont recognise the much lauded value of a new sports bar atmosphere - lets be honest there isnt much of an atmosphere in level two in your seat let alone in the bars, and padded seats or are similarly to myself fairly aghast at the way its been done will either drop out altogether, move to the equally lauded cheaper seats or just pick and choose.
Im genuinely pleased that the club are expanding and do hope that we fill the new ends but i suspect a lot of the takers will be a few thousand refugees from level 2 displaced by the ridiculous cost increase leaving us with swathes of empty seats in level 2.
Seriously how many people have expendable cash to the tune of £1150 plus Cups in this day and age?
This isnt London, were not the mob down the road, we are not a huge corporate draw, everyone was up in arms when Arsenal were charging us upwards of £60 to go there, now as a club were telling fans thanks for your loyalty whilst we were shit, youve had your fun, heres a 150% price increase in return - £1150 per season equates to £60 a game, £1500 equates to £72.
Hmmmm.
Am i pissing and moaning? Yes i am. i am entitled to? I think so. As moomba said, platinum, padded seats, cup schemes, where do you draw a line in the word loyalty so you dont get left behind for things like finals? Soon youll have spent £1500 - £2000 in a season just to get in, before you sit your arse down on the padded seats.
I see everything the club is doing, the extra revenue streams, the facilities, the team, the training ground the success and im grateful, i truly am.
I just dont see the loyalty reflected, move at the end of this season to a worse seat away from the people you have sat with for years and bonded with, in an altogether worse position in the stadium, stay for next season then have zero chance of a fair to middling seat or eat the price hike in two seasons time, f k you very much.
From now on ill pick and choose my games, i dont expect many will jump ship immediately but in the race to milk every last penny they possibly can there will be a natural shedding of fans and thats a shame given the rumblings from the club at the start of this journey.
Good luck in harvesting the corporate client types and ABC1s needed to fill those seats at those prices because we will need it.
