Season Tickets - 2024/25

[fivercider]

The club are already firing out texts and emails on a weekly basis reminding fans to list their tickets on the ticket exchange if they can’t make a match. This £150 charge is just nonsense.

It’s optional though isn’t it.

The club are basically saying that supporters no longer have the option of buying a standard Gold/Platinum season ticket, apart from the few hundred or so that are currently on a Silver season ticket.

The club are now saying that you have two options;
• Try and obtain a ‘limited’ Flexi-Gold season ticket at the same cost of a standard Gold season ticket + fee of £150/75 (adult/child)
• Purchase games individually as a Matchday Member at a significantly greater cost than the Flexi-Gold season ticket.

Basically the club want to trim down the number of season ticket holders as they make a lot less money from them than selling the seat individually. They’re deliberately trying to price out some season ticket holders to enable this.

At the same time, the club realise they still have to offer a token amount of new season tickets to appease everyone else. Realistically the figure available will be lower than the amount that decide not to renew or that are priced out.

The club see Flexi-Gold as a compromise between not offering any new season tickets and getting as much income per seat as possible.

If you take a random seat in the ground and say that it costs £600 for a Gold season ticket then the club will be hoping that the same seat sold as a Flexi-Gold season ticket will bring in £750. On top of that the club will be hoping that the average Flexi-Gold season ticket holder won’t be able to attend every game and they’ll be then able to squeeze even more money out of that seat. In the end that seat that would’ve sold for £600 to a Gold season ticket might bring the club close to double that if sold as a Flexi-Gold.

 

[Eds]

So 40% of season card holders don’t go to low profile midweek games (Burnley at home). City Matters revelation from Ian Cheeseman’s podcast.No wonder City are trying to look at alternatives including flexi gold. It’s not a panacea but let’s see how it goes.

In addition, the stats revealed that only about 5K of the 100k match day members went to more than a few CL games in the last couple of years. The stats indicate that it wasn’t just tourists at last season’s Real Madrid semi final!

Other interesting info included there being 36,500 season card holders.

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Interesting figures if true although not convinced the club would share that sort of data. And who did attend the semi? We know the away allocation split is fabricate, think it was less than 40% for points holders for the dippers.

 

[jrb]

For arguments sake, let’s say City did away with season tickets altogether and only sold match day tickets. At the current match day ticket prices, what do you think our average home attendances would be for a home match over a season? We get the crowds we get because most of our match day fans have season tickets, not because they’d buy expensive match day tickets.

 

[Centurions]

Think of the £150 as a down payment, rather than an additional fee. Obviously if you then only go to 5 or 6 games, it'll work out expensive but if you go to 15 or 16 you'll get better value.

I agree that prices for the less attractive games are too expensive and you're right that things can change in 3 weeks. But that's life and one of the early problems we had at City Matters was that the club wouldn't do something that benefited 99% of fans if there was a risk that 1% might be negatively impacted.

I've said previously that the club has tied itself in knots trying to cover too many bases regarding maximising income, selling seats and managing ticket availability. But the point is that the club can only sell the tickets that are not being used and, in an extreme example, 5k tickets might not be used for a less popular midweek game. Personally, I'd use dynamic pricing or making tickets more readily available, maybe via self-service kiosks at universities or large companies.

Don't know if I'm misunderstanding but are the tickets you order initially subtracted from the £150 and any tickets over that you pay directly? If so, are the ticket prices fixed or variable depending on the fixture itself?

 

[jrb]

It’s optional though isn’t it.

The club are basically saying that supporters no longer have the option of buying a standard Gold/Platinum season ticket, apart from the few hundred or so that are currently on a Silver season ticket.

The club are now saying that you have two options;
• Try and obtain a ‘limited’ Flexi-Gold season ticket at the same cost of a standard Gold season ticket + fee of £150/75 (adult/child)
• Purchase games individually as a Matchday Member at a significantly greater cost than the Flexi-Gold season ticket.

Basically the club want to trim down the number of season ticket holders as they make a lot less money from them than selling the seat individually. They’re deliberately trying to price out some season ticket holders to enable this.

At the same time, the club realise they still have to offer a token amount of new season tickets to appease everyone else. Realistically the figure available will be lower than the amount that decide not to renew or that are priced out.

The club see Flexi-Gold as a compromise between not offering any new season tickets and getting as much income per seat as possible.

If you take a random seat in the ground and say that it costs £600 for a Gold season ticket then the club will be hoping that the same seat sold as a Flexi-Gold season ticket will bring in £750. On top of that the club will be hoping that the average Flexi-Gold season ticket holder won’t be able to attend every game and they’ll be then able to squeeze even more money out of that seat. In the end that seat that would’ve sold for £600 to a Gold season ticket might bring the club close to double that if sold as a Flexi-Gold.

Exactly! Charging more for a season ticket via this Flexi-gold nonsense. Yet still putting the onus on the fans to opt in or to opt out of a match 3 weeks in advance. Lol!

Fuck me, they’ve got some clever bods at City who come up with these half baked ideas just to screw even more money out of the fans.

When is this going to end?

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Don't know if I'm misunderstanding but are the tickets you order initially subtracted from the £150 and any tickets over that you pay directly? If so, are the ticket prices fixed or variable depending on the fixture itself?

It seems that the prices will be fixture dependent but there will be a discount built in. So, as I said, the more tickets you buy, the better value you get.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

£150 extra for that option?

The pay-as-you-go style Season Ticket is for fans who want the same guaranteed seat for all home Premier League fixtures, with added flexibility. Simple and convenient, fans can simply ‘opt in’ and purchase their ticket three weeks before the respective fixture they do want to attend, removing the need to manage their Season Ticket for the fixtures they can’t.


Why would you need to manage your season ticket or for the club to manage your season ticket for you? If you can’t attend the match you either give your ticket to a family member, a friend, you list the ticket on the seat exchange, or you don’t do anything with your ticket. It’s hardly a difficult task. What exactly are you getting from the club for an extra £150? I appreciate I’m coming across as thick, but I’m really not getting this at all. :-/

I think — I suspect — the simple answer to your question is that the club does not actually want to issue more season cards. At all, if it can possibly avoid it. As it is, according to what was said on the Blue Moon podcast, if it can be trusted, we have a far higher proportion of season card holders in the stadium than, say, Liverpool. Furthermore, it's been said on here that they've been frozen for a while. I'll be honest, I don't know if that's true.
So this would be a kind of halfway house. A sop, if you like, to those who cannot get season cards, and who are unlikely to in the near future. What jumps out about it is that the club profits from your empty seat (if you choose not to go) by selling it to lord-knows-who, at lord-knows-what price. Not the case, obviously, with your season card.
I see this as being aimed at ordinary matchday members (especially those who want to go with kids on an occasional basis). I know someone who's contemplating getting one, not this season, but next. I'd be very curious to know what the proportion of that category is who take up the option, as compared to the proportion of people binning off their Gold season card and taking it up is.
Although I would expect the opening of the expanded North Stand to free things up. Although conceivably, if this turns out to be profitable, the club could turn over all the new seats to the Flexi option, keeping a small proportion for one-off matchday purchasers.

 

[jrb]

I think — I suspect — the simple answer to your question is that the club does not actually want to issue more season cards. At all, if it can possibly avoid it. As it is, according to what was said on the Blue Moon podcast, if it can be trusted, we have a far higher proportion of season card holders in the stadium than, say, Liverpool. Furthermore, it's been said on here that they've been frozen for a while. I'll be honest, I don't know if that's true.
So this would be a kind of halfway house. A sop, if you like, to those who cannot get season cards, and who are unlikely to in the near future. What jumps out about it is that the club profits from your empty seat (if you choose not to go) by selling it to lord-knows-who, at lord-knows-what price. Not the case, obviously, with your season card.
I see this as being aimed at ordinary matchday members (especially those who want to go with kids on an occasional basis). I know someone who's contemplating getting one, not this season, but next. I'd be very curious to know what the proportion of that category is who take up the option, as compared to the proportion of people binning off their Gold season card and taking it up is.
Although I would expect the opening of the expanded North Stand to free things up. Although conceivably, if this turns out to be profitable, the club could turn over all the new seats to the Flexi option, keeping a small proportion for one-off matchday purchasers.

Fair Point.

The problem is, the club would only be relisting single seats as a rule. I doubt very much there’d be a lot of 2 or 3 seats relisted together for a family to buy, never mind to buy at the prices City are selling tickets at. If the club relisted my seat it would be as a single seat sale.

 

[Centurions]

Exactly! Charging more for a season ticket via this Flexi-gold nonsense. Yet still putting the onus on the fans to opt in or to opt out of a match 3 weeks in advance. Lol!

Fuck me, they’ve got some clever bods at City who come up with these half baked ideas just to screw even more money out of the fans.

When is this going to end?

I'm leaning towards thinking this is a brilliant idea all around. I honestly can't see the downside. Nobody is forcing existing ST holders to take one up.

 

[jrb]

I'm leaning towards thinking this is a brilliant idea all around. I honestly can't see the downside. Nobody is forcing existing ST holders to take one up.

No they club aren’t yet.

I just don’t see what advantages Flexi Gold gives a season ticket holder for the £150.

You can do most of that for free now.

If City gave a fair refund on a ticket not being used and it went straight back into a bank account a lot more people would make the effort to list their tickets on the seat exchange.