Ticket Prices

[MadMan-JaMeS]

So after hearing Man City fans had to pay £62 to watch their team at the emirates yesterday its opened up another debate about tickets prices in the English game !

What are peoples thoughts on this ?

Should ticket prices be capped ? should the include travel ? a drink ? a pie ?

iirc Arsenal are the most expensive team to watch in the EPL with a season ticket almost £2000 :O

Go.........

 

[foz2000]

I am of the belief that an Arsenal season ticket isn't that out of touch with say Stoke City's Season ticket.

My Arsenal Season Ticket was around £981 for 26 games = £37.73

My last Stoke Season Ticket (Boothen End) was £399 for 19 games = £21

£16 more a home match to watch Arsenal rather than Stoke isn't that bad when you factor in location.

The key is that the tabloids don't show the breakdown of cost per home game and often use highest season ticket prices of one and a lower value ticket from another.

A Season ticket in the John Smiths Stand at Stoke were around £499 which I could've used to distort figures more to my point of view.

The one other thing that Stoke do is off early bird prices which Arsenal and the like don't do.

I think Arsenal could bridge the gap a little bit more for the higher prices though as they seem to be astranomical.

 

[Yas786]

For what we are charging, Arsenal theres no justifiable reason for it as far as im concerned.

What makes me laugh about Arsenal is that for the past 7 yrs we have not won a single trophy but yet the board sees fit to charge our supporters stupid amounts of money to watch a team thats on the decline. I could understand if we are winning trophies and have players that are on £100k+ a week but at the moment, we havent.

Clubs like Chelsea, City and Utd dont charge their fans through the nose to watch them play iirc and yet they have players who are on £100k a week or more and consistently challenge for trophies.

So i just dont get why Arsenal charge so much to watch a game..fact is i havent gone to see an Arsenal game for about 3 yrs now...last game i watched was when Fabregas was still playing for us and even then the tickets were stupid expensive.

 

[foz2000]

For what we are charging, Arsenal theres no justifiable reason for it as far as im concerned.

What makes me laugh about Arsenal is that for the past 7 yrs we have not won a single trophy but yet the board sees fit to charge our supporters stupid amounts of money to watch a team thats on the decline. I could understand if we are winning trophies and have players that are on £100k+ a week but at the moment, we havent.

Clubs like Chelsea, City and Utd dont charge their fans through the nose to watch them play iirc and yet they have players who are on £100k a week or more and consistently challenge for trophies.

So i just dont get why Arsenal charge so much to watch a game..fact is i havent gone to see an Arsenal game for about 3 yrs now...last game i watched was when Fabregas was still playing for us and even then the tickets were stupid expensive.

I agree as the standard of footy has dropped from the times when I started to go. I remember reading an article just before the Bergkamp testimonial stating that Arsenal wouldn't be in a strong financial position (like man utd etc) for around 15 years.

The other factor that gets me is that it costs £121 (for two) plus underground per game to get the train from Stoke - Arsenal. I think the train prices should be reduced also tbh.

 

[drunkenmaster]

I agree as the standard of footy has dropped from the times when I started to go. I remember reading an article just before the Bergkamp testimonial stating that Arsenal wouldn't be in a strong financial position (like man utd etc) for around 15 years.

The other factor that gets me is that it costs £121 (for two) plus underground per game to get the train from Stoke - Arsenal. I think the train prices should be reduced also tbh.

The "financial" position thing is completely bogus, and like most journalists failed to notice anything useful.

Arsenal have had INCREASED spending power by a massive factor since we moved, it will only increase further still once the loans are paid off.. potentially, we'll be more profitable it won't mean we'll spend more.

We had say 50mil match day income, from the second we moved we had basically 100million match day income, and the loan repayments are basically 20-30mil. What people are comparing is that in 15 years we'll have 50mil extra compared to matchday income from before the move, but today its still 20-30mil higher than it was before. We've never had less money since the move, at any stage.

Most of the debt has been serviced by selling flats anyway.

When we left Highbury we had circa 60-70mil wages, today we're spending 143mil, without making a loss... within a couple years we'd increased wage spending massively its been above 100mil for quite some time. Of course tv money has gone up in that time but City got 40mil total tv money last year, the roughly 80mil wage increases since we moved clearly aren't covered in total by just tv money, not even close, not even half.

Arsenal are today spending over 80million more than we were before we left Highbury, anyone who says we've got weakened spending power since we left is just entirely wrong. Will we have even more potential money to spend when the debt is fully serviced, sure, but one of the reasons for the move and the structured debt was because it would immediately improve our financial competitiveness and would increase further over time.

If we were at Highbury, 143mil wages would be bringing with it a 50mil a season loss, plain and simple.

 

[pingwing]

Would be nice if the category system in the prem for ticket prices was regulated properly. Too many teams charge mad amounts of money for random games.

Arsenal away for us in September was £26 which was a great price (despite the performance). In comparison it was £50 for City away on tv on the opening day of the season, £50 for Chelsea away on Wednesday (midweek rearranged with 12 days notice) and £35 for Villa, Stoke and Fulham over the last month!

Some of those away prices felt like blind robbery, the facilities at Villa park for example were on a par with Swindon (hopelessly out classed by Dagenham and Redbridge) and Chelsea couldn't have tried harder to keep people away from the game (especially seeing at the money has zero impact on their revenue this season).

Best prices this season so far have been WBA away on a monday night for TV at £15 and Wigan away in 3 weeks for £20 (Wigan know giving 5k of seats to away fans is the only option to get people into that ground).

Our season ticket prices jumped by £90 odd this year too (thankfully I still pay student rates) so mine was £495 by my mates next to me was £595 and we're only Southampton . It's all a horrible mix of what money can the squeeze from paying supporters (through the guise of loyalty) and what the club needs to bring in to not look so dependent on the TV money.

Some sort of regulation has to be imposed because the greater penetration of TV is going to leave stands more and more empty with no real incentive to do much about it other than squeeze people who still go.

 

[foz2000]

The "financial" position thing is completely bogus, and like most journalists failed to notice anything useful.

Arsenal have had INCREASED spending power by a massive factor since we moved, it will only increase further still once the loans are paid off.. potentially, we'll be more profitable it won't mean we'll spend more.

We had say 50mil match day income, from the second we moved we had basically 100million match day income, and the loan repayments are basically 20-30mil. What people are comparing is that in 15 years we'll have 50mil extra compared to matchday income from before the move, but today its still 20-30mil higher than it was before. We've never had less money since the move, at any stage.

Most of the debt has been serviced by selling flats anyway.

When we left Highbury we had circa 60-70mil wages, today we're spending 143mil, without making a loss... within a couple years we'd increased wage spending massively its been above 100mil for quite some time. Of course tv money has gone up in that time but City got 40mil total tv money last year, the roughly 80mil wage increases since we moved clearly aren't covered in total by just tv money, not even close, not even half.

Arsenal are today spending over 80million more than we were before we left Highbury, anyone who says we've got weakened spending power since we left is just entirely wrong. Will we have even more potential money to spend when the debt is fully serviced, sure, but one of the reasons for the move and the structured debt was because it would immediately improve our financial competitiveness and would increase further over time.

If we were at Highbury, 143mil wages would be bringing with it a 50mil a season loss, plain and simple.

Sorry about the financial position remark, I'm at work so haven't got the time for an in depth reply nor have I to this post from yourself.

I don't see how you give yourself a long term debt and would be able to spend more money just because you have more revenue income as that higher amount of revenue would have to service said debt and also would have to service higher expenses due to the stadium move.

I can't haven't been able to go through the balance sheet and notes from the last year from highbury at the moment but I have noticed that the Group revenue from the past six years it has dropped from £379,900,000 in 2010 to £257,842,000 this past year, this is due to the property development revenue dropping. Please note the group revenue does include players transfers. Also I've noted that the creditors balance is over £275,000,000 so to me there is still a great deal of debt that hasn't been decreasing.


I feel like there is something the public haven't been told, maybe the shareholders are draining the funds from the club through the profit rather than allowing Wenger to buy or it might be a case of he is spending excess amounts on wages than in previous years like you stated. I can't really form an opinion until I have looked through the accounts properly.

Can I ask have you got a copy of the last set of accounts for the Highbury year as I've had a little google search but haven't seen them. I've got the last 4 years in front of me but not from the highbury years.

I notice from your other posts you usually have these stats as above you had mentioned for the wages etc.

 

[jonneymendoza]

I payed £250 for two tickets to see arsenal lose to city yesterday

 

[Yas786]

I payed £250 for two tickets to see arsenal lose to city yesterday

ouch that must have hurt paying that much money to see Arsenal lose :/

Maybe its time that supporters of Arsenal voted with their feet rather than their wallets and start to boycott matches until the Arsenal board get it through their thick skulls that supporters wont be held to ransom to watch games.

 

[foz2000]

I payed £250 for two tickets to see arsenal lose to city yesterday

Not good mate, I notice you frequent Avforums as well as I read that on there as well.

Would've been cheaper get some as a Red member as they were on sale to them for a lot less.

 

[foz2000]

ouch that must have hurt paying that much money to see Arsenal lose :/

Maybe its time that supporters of Arsenal voted with their feet rather than their wallets and start to boycott matches until the Arsenal board get it through their thick skulls that supporters wont be held to ransom to watch games.

I've stopped going but it's just as painful watching them on TV, at least it's only £30 for the year eh and you get to watch the other games too.

 

[HangTime]

Arsenal sell out nearly every game so the tickets are arguably too cheap, with the exception perhaps of these Man City tickets.

For what it's worth I've found it slightly cheaper this year as they have lowered the price of the category C games compared to previous years. I typically only go to Saturday 3pm games and they tend to be against lower category opposition (since the big matches get moved for TV).

As for the Man City game when I looked there were some available for £81.50 + booking fee. The Liverpool game wasn't much better (£72 ish).

 

[nemtizz]

Arsenal sell out nearly every game

Home games? Surely this isn't true.

There always seem to be quite a few visible empty seats at The Emirates.

 

[HangTime]

Yes but that doesn't mean it isn't a sell out, it just means that not all seats are taken e.g. Season ticket holders not showing up, and you never get everyone in their seats at once, always some going to the concourse for food/drink/loo etc.

OK, there may be a small percentage unsold on occasion, but the attendance is almost without fail over 60,000, there was a game I went to where it was only 59xxx but very rare. Essentially by 'sell out' I'm saying the utilisation rate is extremely high and likely that more tickets could have been sold if available.

Have a look here: http://itv.stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/PR/attend.html
Basically Arsenal have a 99.4% attendance rate this season, and the official capacity is higher than will actually go on sale (highest attendance of all time was 60161, there are probably seats that are allocated to segregation areas etc).

From a commercial standpoint there is probably a good case for MU and Arsenal both increasing their ticket prices for league matches.

 

[Tunney]

Home games? Surely this isn't true.

There always seem to be quite a few visible empty seats at The Emirates.

Lazy season ticket holders who can't get arsed to turn up.

The "problem" is that football has become gentrified. They has increased attendances and lead to people with money wanting to get hold of tickets. It's not surprising that ticket prices have increased.

The only way I see this ever changing is if more clubs are owned by the fans. You see in Germany and Spain that a lot of the fan-owned clubs offer very cheap tickets to the fans. Billionaires and corporations couldn't care less about who buys the tickets as long as someone does.

A bit off-topic, but ticket prices are briefly mentioned in this report into player wages.

 

[Derek W]

the financial fair play malarky should even things up a bit although if the clubs are to reduce their overheads will it cost them results on the park? Or will they just hike the prices up again screwing the fans even more?

The willingness of the top clubs to pay top whack for players wages (even if they dont deserve it) is their own downfall and until this is stopped then the fans will be paying for the shortfall.

On a totally different scale my own team, Brechin, doesn't go overboard with wages etc for the push to gaining promotion. Our committee (the season ticket holders own the club) have done their best over the last 3 decades to ensure that the club doesn't operate on a debt system like the big clubs do but rather bases the annual budget on the numbers going through the gates combined with the sponsorship opportunities. The wage structure at the club is also performance based. The basic wage is relatively low but if the players do well they get their various bonuses to top up their basic wage. It works for both player and fan in that if the team is doing well the players get their higher wage for the week and the fans get to see the team winning which has a knock on effect in attracting more fans.
At the start of the season we were doing really badly (a few points off relegation place) but when the new manager came in we've only had one loss in 11 (2 in 12 if you count the cup game) and we're in the promotion play off positions. As a result of this a few of the top players at the club have already put pen to paper to sign another years contract which can only be good for the club as well.

 

[JohnnyG]

The well followed clubs sell out the home seats every game irrespective of what they charge although the less fashionable C1C, CL group games and EL ties need a bit more advertising to do so.
I think I'm right in saying that for PL games away fans have to be charged pretty much the same as home fans are in their stand.
I think I'm also right in saying that the away Club take a % of the ticket sales so whether they sell 3 or 4k is probably negligible, unless it's a % total ticket sales?
To put it another way, Arsenal & Man.C. probably lost pretty much **** all on Sunday by Man.C. not selling their allocation (maybe 200 less pies) so why should they care.
I do sympathise with the fans who have to pay the prices though of course, especially when you factor in travel costs.
My travel alone to Chelsea games is in the region of £10 so if you add that to about 25 homes games @£55 it's an expensive business.

 

[BaZ87]

the financial fair play malarky should even things up a bit ...

How have you come up with that conclusion? FFP is only going to lead to clubs wanting to maximise their revenue even more than before, meaning that ticket prices are going to be pushed as far as they can go.

....it's an expensive business.

It's on old man's business

Seriously though, I read an article a while back about how the average age of match going supporters has rose and is rising further, and ticket prices are the reason why. How many 15-20 year olds can afford £40, £50, £60 for a ticket plus the cost of travel and food etc? Clubs are pricing out their future supporters.

When I was a kid my dad used to take me and one of my brothers to the game. For him to do that now would cost him nearly £200 per match.

 

[Derek W]

How have you come up with that conclusion? FFP is only going to lead to clubs wanting to maximise their revenue even more than before, meaning that ticket prices are going to be pushed as far as they can go.



It's on old man's business

Seriously though, I read an article a while back about how the average age of match going supporters has rose and is rising further, and ticket prices are the reason why. How many 15-20 year olds can afford £40, £50, £60 for a ticket plus the cost of travel and food etc? Clubs are pricing out their future supporters.

When I was a kid my dad used to take me and one of my brothers to the game. For him to do that now would cost him nearly £200 per match.

Think you managed to answer your own question there. If a club's going to out price their future supporters then they'll end up with no support so they'll have to cut their budgets accordingly and thus drop ticket prices to attract fans back.

 

[BaZ87]

The point about pricing out future fans is a generation or two away, which obviously doesn't concern clubs as they've already priced out youngsters with no sign of that changing.