The price of football and falling attendances

[S04]

We have sold out near enough every game for the last 2/3 seasons.

Our average attendence is 46/47 depending on how many away fans turn up.

Go back over our history and there wont be many higher average attendances than what we have now.

That being said away games are ridiculous. West brom cost over a £100 for me, for the ticket, train and a few beers.

Stoke was nearly as much. The sooner they re-introduce standing and drop the prices the better.

Thats the point crowds are at there highest, ticket prices are excessive. Why would the stadium be changed to accomodate safe standing and lose the £40 seat money. Hence there is no desire by the clubs to introduce this. If crowds collapse there maybe interest from clubs chairmen. But currently there is little desire for this.

Because you earn more selling two standing tickets instead of a single seat?

 

[franksinatra]

We have sold out near enough every game for the last 2/3 seasons.

Our average attendence is 46/47 depending on how many away fans turn up.

Go back over our history and there wont be many higher average attendances than what we have now.

That being said away games are ridiculous. West brom cost over a £100 for me, for the ticket, train and a few beers.

Stoke was nearly as much. The sooner they re-introduce standing and drop the prices the better.

Thats the point crowds are at there highest, ticket prices are excessive. Why would the stadium be changed to accomodate safe standing and lose the £40 seat money. Hence there is no desire by the clubs to introduce this. If crowds collapse there maybe interest from clubs chairmen. But currently there is little desire for this.

Because you earn more selling two standing tickets instead of a single seat?

Firstly I doubt you would get 2 people in the place of one seated spectator. Secondly as has been pointed out the demographic of the football fan has changed. More families, people with higher disposable income. Rightly or wrongly this has led to incresed attendances, higher spending within the ground, higher tv revenues due to its marketability etc etc.

Clubs are not going to spend fortunes on reconfiguring the ground on the gamble of safe standing attracting fans, potential return of hooliganism due to lack of crowd control within stadia.

 

[Deleted member 52846]

Atmospheres have got worse because the historical working class lad has been priced out of many grounds and been replaced with older blokes, women and kids of the upper working class/middle class demographic. The stupid Taylor report ruined the way in which football is watched by enforcing people to sit down in seats many people don't want to sit in. The growth of season tickets means that you can't just turn up and stand with twenty of your mates. Stewarding is far too strict and people are thrown out for literally fuck all. Clubs, police forces and the councils are completely against fan participation and just want fans to be spectators.

Going to the football in England is only a few steps down the ladder from a trip to the opera or ballet.

The expense of it is an absolute joke. Season on season away followings get lower and lower across the board. Last season only Everton and Spurs brought over 2800 to the Etihad. Most brought about 1500. Many people can't simply justify spending £100+ on anything anymore. But all clubs are arsed about is the money. They just want to milk as much money out he middle class spectators as possible.

Whereas in Germany clubs understand that all fans are as much part of the club as the players and manager. They are looked after provided with proper standing and singing areas that aren't just 5000 seas stuck in a corner of the ground like in England. But the centre piece of the stadium. Proper flags and banners are encouraged too. Tickets are realistic in price and transport is included.

The Bundesliga is the fastest growing league in the world and I reckon within a decade it will be the best and biggest. The way they look after fans is only one reason why but its one thing that English clubs do not do.

When Arsenal put their ticket prices up to stupid levels, everyone in the country should have protested because long term it effects every single club. But if anyone had suggested doing that there would be 91 sets of fans telling them to fuck off. In Germany clubs dared to raise tickets to about £30 and fans protested in their hundreds of thousands. This is one of the big things of what Ultras are all about and we don't have them in England neither (apart from the odd club).

Clubs and fans in this country have got a lot to learn of what modern football is all about.

-- Sat Nov 17, 2012 1:29 pm --

Thats the point crowds are at there highest, ticket prices are excessive. Why would the stadium be changed to accomodate safe standing and lose the £40 seat money. Hence there is no desire by the clubs to introduce this. If crowds collapse there maybe interest from clubs chairmen. But currently there is little desire for this.

Because you earn more selling two standing tickets instead of a single seat?

Firstly I doubt you would get 2 people in the place of one seated spectator. Secondly as has been pointed out the demographic of the football fan has changed. More families, people with higher disposable income. Rightly or wrongly this has led to incresed attendances, higher spending within the ground, higher tv revenues due to its marketability etc etc.

Clubs are not going to spend fortunes on reconfiguring the ground on the gamble of safe standing attracting fans, potential return of hooliganism due to lack of crowd control within stadia.

Exactly how would there be a lack of crowd control within a stadium with Safe Standing?

 

[franksinatra]

Atmospheres have got worse because the historical working class lad has been priced out of many grounds and been replaced with older blokes, women and kids of the upper working class/middle class demographic. The stupid Taylor report ruined the way in which football is watched by enforcing people to sit down in seats many people don't want to sit in. The growth of season tickets means that you can't just turn up and stand with twenty of your mates. Stewarding is far too strict and people are thrown out for literally fuck all. Clubs, police forces and the councils are completely against fan participation and just want fans to be spectators.

Going to the football in England is only a few steps down the ladder from a trip to the opera or ballet.

The expense of it is an absolute joke. Season on season away followings get lower and lower across the board. Last season only Everton and Spurs brought over 2800 to the Etihad. Most brought about 1500. Many people can't simply justify spending £100+ on anything anymore. But all clubs are arsed about is the money. They just want to milk as much money out he middle class spectators as possible.

Whereas in Germany clubs understand that all fans are as much part of the club as the players and manager. They are looked after provided with proper standing and singing areas that aren't just 5000 seas stuck in a corner of the ground like in England. But the centre piece of the stadium. Proper flags and banners are encouraged too. Tickets are realistic in price and transport is included.

The Bundesliga is the fastest growing league in the world and I reckon within a decade it will be the best and biggest. The way they look after fans is only one reason why but its one thing that English clubs do not do.

When Arsenal put their ticket prices up to stupid levels, everyone in the country should have protested because long term it effects every single club. But if anyone had suggested doing that there would be 91 sets of fans telling them to fuck off. In Germany clubs dared to raise tickets to about £30 and fans protested in their hundreds of thousands. This is one of the big things of what Ultras are all about and we don't have them in England neither (apart from the odd club).

Clubs and fans in this country have got a lot to learn of what modern football is all about.

-- Sat Nov 17, 2012 1:29 pm --

Because you earn more selling two standing tickets instead of a single seat?

Firstly I doubt you would get 2 people in the place of one seated spectator. Secondly as has been pointed out the demographic of the football fan has changed. More families, people with higher disposable income. Rightly or wrongly this has led to incresed attendances, higher spending within the ground, higher tv revenues due to its marketability etc etc.

Clubs are not going to spend fortunes on reconfiguring the ground on the gamble of safe standing attracting fans, potential return of hooliganism due to lack of crowd control within stadia.

Exactly how would there be a lack of crowd control within a stadium with Safe Standing?

Tickets are booked via season tickets, credit cards and so if an inciodent occurs in the ground it is much easier to identify the perpetrator as most people sit in the seat linked to their ticket. Within a standing area there is a large volume of transient fans, with no information who is located where making the identification of the individual more difficult.

Anyway Im playing devils advocate here on the opinion of the clubs. I would love to return to standing but club chairmen are going to look at ticket prices now, level of attendances and think why alter a winning formula to return to standing when attendances were much smaller when standing was available.

 

[paulchapo]

Atmospheres have got worse because the historical working class lad has been priced out of many grounds and been replaced with older blokes, women and kids of the upper working class/middle class demographic. The stupid Taylor report ruined the way in which football is watched by enforcing people to sit down in seats many people don't want to sit in. The growth of season tickets means that you can't just turn up and stand with twenty of your mates. Stewarding is far too strict and people are thrown out for literally fuck all. Clubs, police forces and the councils are completely against fan participation and just want fans to be spectators.

Going to the football in England is only a few steps down the ladder from a trip to the opera or ballet.

The expense of it is an absolute joke. Season on season away followings get lower and lower across the board. Last season only Everton and Spurs brought over 2800 to the Etihad. Most brought about 1500. Many people can't simply justify spending £100+ on anything anymore. But all clubs are arsed about is the money. They just want to milk as much money out he middle class spectators as possible.

Whereas in Germany clubs understand that all fans are as much part of the club as the players and manager. They are looked after provided with proper standing and singing areas that aren't just 5000 seas stuck in a corner of the ground like in England. But the centre piece of the stadium. Proper flags and banners are encouraged too. Tickets are realistic in price and transport is included.

The Bundesliga is the fastest growing league in the world and I reckon within a decade it will be the best and biggest. The way they look after fans is only one reason why but its one thing that English clubs do not do.

When Arsenal put their ticket prices up to stupid levels, everyone in the country should have protested because long term it effects every single club. But if anyone had suggested doing that there would be 91 sets of fans telling them to fuck off. In Germany clubs dared to raise tickets to about £30 and fans protested in their hundreds of thousands. This is one of the big things of what Ultras are all about and we don't have them in England neither (apart from the odd club).

Clubs and fans in this country have got a lot to learn of what modern football is all about.

Top post!One time you could just turn up if you fancied a match and pay in and stand together.Now you have to book in advance or turn up early and buy a ticket,where you may all be in different areas of the ground.I read some celebrity,i think Fiona Phillips? whining about bad language when she took her sons to watch the Chelsea v Man United match and being told to,''Shut it love and get back in the kitchen!'' when she complained.She was also rightly told,''It is a football match not an opera!''

That is why we need standing or designated seating areas,so the women and kids can sit and munch their McDonalds fucking happy meals and sit in silence and the rest of us can let off a bit of steam and have a sing song.

 

[SWP's back]

,really dont understand why 80% of them bother

sing u miserable bastards !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe they go to watch the game?

 

[SWP's back]

Thats the point crowds are at there highest, ticket prices are excessive. Why would the stadium be changed to accomodate safe standing and lose the £40 seat money. Hence there is no desire by the clubs to introduce this. If crowds collapse there maybe interest from clubs chairmen. But currently there is little desire for this.

Because you earn more selling two standing tickets instead of a single seat?

Firstly I doubt you would get 2 people in the place of one seated spectator.

Dortmund have a capacity of 80,000 standing and seated and only 66,000 all seated. So I would say that 2 in place of one is correct.

 

[S04]

Because you earn more selling two standing tickets instead of a single seat?

Firstly I doubt you would get 2 people in the place of one seated spectator.

Dortmund have a capacity of 80,000 standing and seated and only 66,000 all seated. So I would say that 2 in place of one is correct.

It is, I have looked at other German clubs as well. Schalke got a 16k standing section but at european games they lack about 7-8k capacity.
Add that German clubs rely heavily on sales of beer and food at their stadiums and you can smell the money.

 

[decmancity]

Comparing the Bundesliga to the Premier League is just ridiculous.

They can afford to charge less for tickets and so on because a lot of clubs don't have the overheads teams in the prem do in terms of wages, probably every prem team will have players on anywhere from 30k-250k a week. I think Ribery is the highest paid at 6.5m a year, in the prem there are probably 10 or more that are paid more than that.
Even players at Reading, QPR, Southampton will be on bigger wages then most of the players in the Bundesliga apart from the ones at the top clubs.

 

[Groke]

Atmospheres have got worse because the historical working class lad has been priced out of many grounds and been replaced with older blokes, women and kids of the upper working class/middle class demographic. The stupid Taylor report ruined the way in which football is watched by enforcing people to sit down in seats many people don't want to sit in. The growth of season tickets means that you can't just turn up and stand with twenty of your mates. Stewarding is far too strict and people are thrown out for literally fuck all. Clubs, police forces and the councils are completely against fan participation and just want fans to be spectators.

Going to the football in England is only a few steps down the ladder from a trip to the opera or ballet.

The expense of it is an absolute joke. Season on season away followings get lower and lower across the board. Last season only Everton and Spurs brought over 2800 to the Etihad. Most brought about 1500. Many people can't simply justify spending £100+ on anything anymore. But all clubs are arsed about is the money. They just want to milk as much money out he middle class spectators as possible.

Whereas in Germany clubs understand that all fans are as much part of the club as the players and manager. They are looked after provided with proper standing and singing areas that aren't just 5000 seas stuck in a corner of the ground like in England. But the centre piece of the stadium. Proper flags and banners are encouraged too. Tickets are realistic in price and transport is included.

The Bundesliga is the fastest growing league in the world and I reckon within a decade it will be the best and biggest. The way they look after fans is only one reason why but its one thing that English clubs do not do.

When Arsenal put their ticket prices up to stupid levels, everyone in the country should have protested because long term it effects every single club. But if anyone had suggested doing that there would be 91 sets of fans telling them to fuck off. In Germany clubs dared to raise tickets to about £30 and fans protested in their hundreds of thousands. This is one of the big things of what Ultras are all about and we don't have them in England neither (apart from the odd club).

Clubs and fans in this country have got a lot to learn of what modern football is all about.

-- Sat Nov 17, 2012 1:29 pm --

Because you earn more selling two standing tickets instead of a single seat?

Firstly I doubt you would get 2 people in the place of one seated spectator. Secondly as has been pointed out the demographic of the football fan has changed. More families, people with higher disposable income. Rightly or wrongly this has led to incresed attendances, higher spending within the ground, higher tv revenues due to its marketability etc etc.

Clubs are not going to spend fortunes on reconfiguring the ground on the gamble of safe standing attracting fans, potential return of hooliganism due to lack of crowd control within stadia.

Exactly how would there be a lack of crowd control within a stadium with Safe Standing?

great post - right on the mark. the Taylor report was so off the mark - paddocks were the problem, not standing in general. That cun t Fletcher needs nailing to a tiger's scratch post as well.