THE cost of Football is becoming outrageous, writes PHIL BLUNDELL. I say ‘becoming’ but — if we’re being honest — we’re already past that point.
I remember us refusing to take the full allocation at Chelsea in 2004 when it was announced they were charging us £49. I also remember Arsenal’s last game at Highbury costing me £36 (I think, and not a cost I had too much issue with at the time).
People were paying £15 for the 2005 Champions League final. Champions League finals now cost about 10 times that and Arsenal charge in excess of £60 for a bog standard top four league game. Anyone’s wage risen by these levels? No, mine neither.
This morning our allocation of 2,506 tickets for Hull went on sale, and led by Spirit of Shankly, people have been spending £10 on an Under 11s ticket with the intention of not using the ticket, leaving the seat empty, and leaving the Tigers out of profit. Coaches that go everywhere aren’t going, people who’ve been to every league game since 1999 aren’t going, people who it will kill to not be in the ground aren’t going.
It looks like everyone is well and truly on board.
https://twitter.com/spiritofshankly/status/590811967801204736
There will obviously be a few who aren’t, and that’s up to them, but if you’re reading this and going, please never complain about ticket prices again because you simply don’t have the right.
Imagine having to be the Hull employee who explains to the big boss why exactly there’s a huge hole in money that’s already been budgeted for: “Well, we’ve got 2,000 primary school children turning up apparently.”
Except we won’t be taking 2,000 primary school children. We’ll be making a point that enough is enough. Clubs and the Premier League market the Premier League on its atmosphere and its passion — “the best league in the world”.
Empty seats don’t make an atmosphere do they? If every ticket in that away end is sold for £10 it would cost Hull around £100,000 in lost revenue. A number that while not huge in comparison to the money pouring into the game from mind-boggling TV deals would undoubtedly make the club, and the powers that be in football, sit up and ask questions.
If every ticket were to be sold, Hull would make £125,000 from them, take the TV money into account and this money is a drop in the ocean — so why are fans being exploited every week?
Hull charged visiting Liverpool fans £35 last season. So what’s with the extra £15 this time? Have a look how much Sky have committed to paying for an individual game in this new TV deal. £11million a match. And that isn’t even taking into account the additional overseas TV deals. It’s just Sky. It’s eye-watering.
Not, however, as eye-watering as a Stoke fan paying £15 for the same seat last August that is now being offered to the Liverpool fan for £50. Stoke £15. Everton £35. Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United £50. I don’t know what Stoke fans do in job interviews, but I don’t think they would walk out taking a wage of less than 1/3 of what I would for the same job. Why should what is a leisure pastime be different in reverse? I didn’t choose to support Liverpool, I just support the team I was brought up to — the same as Stoke fans. That we are of a higher profile, and have won more in our history, shouldn’t mean that I have to pay a tax.
I’d also like to point out that not a single person who has paid £10 for this ticket has anything to do with how Liverpool’s tickets are priced. Nor do we agree with them. Nor do we want to see people being charged in excess of £50 to watch a match through the famous Anfield Road Back Row Letterbox.
So please, don’t try to use that as an angle of attack if you support another club, are reading this and have an overwhelming need to try to make out that there’s any hypocrisy going on. Yes, there’s a ‘don’t buy the ticket argument’ but it’s not a very good one. What happens then is that someone else buys the ticket and not a jot of difference is made.
You don’t like Liverpool? Fine. I probably don’t like your team either in all honesty because I hate everyone. We’re trying to make a difference. Why have you got a problem with that?
With the new TV deal, every ticket for every game at Anfield could be sold for £12 and the club would have the same money as before the deal. Get your head round how utterly bananas that is. The same applies to every ground around the country.
If you’re eligible for a ticket for Hull, join the hundreds who’ve already followed the SOS lead. Buy a kids’ ticket. And stay away. Make a stand. It can’t continue. £nough is £nough.
– Read: Why ALL football fans should support the Hull boycott
– Read: An open letter to John W Henry about Anfield season ticket prices
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda-Photo/PA Images
Is right Phil.
All that money to watch the lethargic football this amateur manager and motley crew of assistantsomething and coaches are making us play. If we were actually winning trophies it wouldn’t be that big of a pill to swallow. The way we’ve been playing of late since the Swansea game they should be begging us to show up.
I’m not one who normally sympathizes with the ticket price debate but All away fans in the premier league should pay the same amount it’s ridiculous that there are these huge gaps in prices. If a club wants to screw their own fans over by having tiered pricing that’s up to each club but away fans should not be punished because the team they support is of higher stature than the team someone else supports. Away supporters are a huge part of what makes the Premier League special and hopefully they recognize that and step in and do something about it.
I agree in principle but in reality I don’t think it’s fair. I’d pay £50 to go away. I fact is pay £150 to go away because I’ll never get a chance otherwise. It’s a closed shop.
The ticket situation at LFC is shameful. Season ticket holders should be the only people who can attend a game. The few times I’ve scraped a ticket to the games this season, the atmosphere has been terrible. Seems to me that so called TRUE fans with season tickets are selling them on to the highest bidders. Closed shop. Atomsphere at Wembley was embarrassing. Outdone by Villa on the pitch and in the stands. We only song when we’re winning. It’s true. Give season tickets to proper fans and don’t talk to me about giving up the chance of an away game. I dream of going away.
How do you even get tickets for those prices? Granted I don’t live in Liverpool, but in my experience its nearly impossible to get tickets for list price and you end up having to scalp them online for obscene prices.
It makes sense that clubs are trying to recoup some of the middle ground, but the reality is that the systems that PL clubs are using to sell tickets arent working anymore. I don’t know what a good alternative would be, but the way it works right now is pretty stupid.
Why don’t you left wing militants leave politics out of sport. Supply and demand determines prices not unions.
If you can’t afford it don’t go its that simple.
Let’s let prices be determined by the market.
And you, with your supply and demand answer is exactly what is wrong with the game today.
Simple question – why do fans who watch the match from the stands deserve to be subsidised by those who watch on TV?
Sky are paying an average £11m per match purely for the rights. Add in costs of production, distribution, Sky’s profit margin (about 25%) and it probably adds up to £18-20m per match. Divide that among the average 1m viewers and that means Sky need £18-20 from every man, woman and child watching at home.
There will be roughly a ratio of 20:1 between fans at home and fans at the game. If you want a tenner off ticket prices, you’re saying to every home viewer that even though they’re already paying £20 to sit at home and watch the match, 50p from you and 19 others like you should be used not to sign new players, not to improve the stadium but to cut the price of something which is already being sold at less than what people would actually pay for it and often will just be providing a better profit margin for their ticket when they resell it.
I’m sorry but “…if you’re reading this and going, please never complain about ticket prices again because you simply don’t have the right.” is a load of old fucking arse. If someone wants to go the game they can go the game, if they also think they are getting fleeced thier own hard earned money, then they can complain about that all they like.
Of course they have the right! Lets say there’s a family in Hull, or a kid whose birthday falls closest to the Hull game (because when I was a kid the only games my Dad would take me to was the ones around my birthday, as a treat) and there dad is taking them, maybe for the first time. And a load of fellas say “actually nah, you can’t go in. We said, we’ve decided that you have to boycott this game with us and if you don’t you have no right to complain”
Absolute bollocks.
If it’s a family in Hull then I can only encourage them to go to Hull, or North Ferriby United, or Scunthorpe, or Goole, or they could regularly go racing at Beverley – lovely spot that. They can go there every week and going to football is far more fun than watching Liverpool on television and going to Hull away once every few years. Cos they wouldn’t be able to go anyway if this wasn’t happening.
But no, I’m sorry, if you go to this you can’t complain about prices. Because people are making a stand and you’re going ‘Nah, I’m going anyway.’
This is a great idea by the SOS and everyone should support it. Ticket prices are too high, it’s about time the clubs gave something back and it’s not a huge amount, the market has to be more responsible, the premiership is run as a collective so that small teams like Hull get a disproportionate amount of revenue compared to the top 5 clubs because if Hull had to negotiate an individual TV contract and sell it how much interest would be generated? The premiership understand it is better to stand together and negotiate together than on an individual basis. If fans stuck together the same would happen, they would be in a stronger position to negotiate.
Sky sports and lazy journos and pundits love to say football is a business and all about money, they neglect to say that there are many different business models out there and the most successful ones are those that respect their customers tend to have a long sustainable model and the greedy bastard get what I can from you type companies go bust quickly.
Football clubs are usually in the greedy bastard sector because they are able to exploit fan loyalty until the fan can pay no more or just gets fed up being exploited. That resentment then gets carried over to the match, which is pretty much where we are today.
Then Hull make those that pay most pay again
Enough is enough
Ps I am not a season ticket holder or go to away games
Interesting piece, think there are a few realities that need considering. The actions of Hull, West Ham with the Everton ticket price, Arsenal on a daily basis show there is no intention by other clubs to form an alliance with any other club to structure ticket prices across the board.
Hull (and I’m not defending them here) were fined circa 200,000 Euro this year under FFP coming under UEFA’s microscope for playing a EL qualifying round that they didn’t want to be in anyway. So Hull have to make that 200,000 up and if they can make some of it up on us then they will.
The premiership is light years away from a German viewpoint on football ticket pricing, but even that model isn’t perfect with Bayern being the commercial monster that it is. But at least they do share a view on ticket pricing.
Historically increase in TV revenue has only ever lead to an increase in wages and transfer fees so I’m not sure that we’ll see anything else other than that this time round. The only noise I’m hearing in the premiership is from us and Arsenal, not really anyone else and whilst it may have momentum with us I’m not sure it has the ground swell across the board.
For us to really look into holding or reducing ticket prices whilst FFP is in place then for me there’s a few options.
Get the ground up to 60-65K
Main Stand Naming rights
Training Ground Naming Rights
Become a commercial tart
The increase in commerciality of the club is inevitable and that job between commercial and community is an art form and a job for a PR guru.
Say for example the players at the club offered to pay for the tickets for the last away game this season or there was a fund where 0.5% of annual salary turnover went into local community schemes that would go some way to fans accepting an increase in the commerciality of the club (ok stopping at a Mcdonalds sign on the Kop)
But lets take a cynical view on how the club deal with Charitable Events. The fund raiser in March for Alder Hay by Gerrard, who paid for that fundraiser, the fans paid into it, I’d be interested to see how much the players paid into the fund. When at the same time several key players are potentially involved with tax avoidance schemes.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/david-beckham-and-steven-gerrard-face-hefty-bills-over-suspected-tax-avoidance-scheme-9594336.html
I’m not tarring the players with the same brush and I know they do some great work in the community but why write off your tax with a charitable donation when you can potentially avoid and keep it in a scheme.
I just can’t see the new TV money being used to reduce ticket prices. What I can see is just a massive ££££ merry go round with the TV money slowly being sucked out of the clubs by teams in Europe and an increase in wages across the board, not forgetting that 70% of the premiership is made up of foreign players.
The fans are seen as cash cows and until there are no bums on those seats I fear nothing will change. Fans vote with their feet for change in managers, like we did with Hodgson, they can do the same for a change in ticket prices.
Atmosphere is trivial to dub in for TV. I’m surprised it’s not already in place. Those of us with a music bent were doing crowd noise in our techno tracks back in the late 80s early 90s.
I fully support the boycott and have bought 2 under 11s tickets but I was wondering whether it would be feasible to pass these purchased tickets onto some kids who could go rather than ripping them up or not bother collecting. Appropriate id could be forwarded surely and it might be a better way to make a stand.