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The Price of Football

Whilst watching the City V Leicester game, quite a big game I would have thought, I spied lots and lots of sky blue seats. Perhaps we should be wary of this new stadium thing. Imagine if we built it and nobody came?
 
Football finances and the fans are tricky; It can be seen on both sides: how do you compete with your rivals who have traditionally had more success and through that success have gained a financial upper hand to keep ahead?
Either through a 'sugar-daddy' investing to bring you up to compete or by 'organic growth' through sponsorship, more fans willing to spend at the ground and also TV rights (which are mostly league based atm).

Let's be clear that if fans feel fleeced they wouldn't attend and yes (depending on the club and how they are doing) there may/will be several thousands willing to take that season ticket that is given up.
However, we are fans of a particuolar due to an emotional bond that in the past was just mainly related to shared geographical/family links.
The PL is the product it is because of the fans (compare to Italy or even Spain where the skill/tactical level on the whole is higher but where sadium atmospheres, esp in Italy, is nowhere near as good as the PL).
If fans (esp the ones who would be there to almost single-handedly salvage a club from ruin if ever the sort of thing that has happened to the likes of Portsmouth were to happen) do start to be priced out then all the moaning about 'lack of atmosphere' and 'plastic fans' will become even more common.

Persoanlly, i see the PL as a good product but one which is delicately balanced due to tradition, what makes football so popular in the first place (the accessibility and the fact that anyone with skill and drive can theoreticaly 'make it'). PL clubs will keep pushing their luck on ticket prices at their peril. Personally i see nothing wrong with upping the prices of the very best seats/sections of the ground but i think it should be done in conjunction with offering discount/loyalty deals for families and long-term fans who have followed the club for years through thick and thin. A full stadium with say 20% top whack tickets with top-level facilities and the rest at more 'reasonable' prices should be an easy win for all concerned.
For example: if Arsenal start charging, say, 60% of our prices why would any fan not just go and watch them instead? After all, they routinely offer a 'better product' don't they (CL every year, games vs Barca, Bayern etc, FA Cup finals). Where do you draw the line between 'loyalty' and 'you touch yourself and takes your choice'?

Imo, I don't think you could starkly say one thing and call foul on the other
 
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Anyway, Liverpool eh? Lolololol:D

I still think they will be a force next season under Klopp and will win one of the cup this season...so the time to laugh is NOW and boy am i doing it!
 
Anyway, Liverpool eh? Lolololol:D

I still think they will be a force next season under Klopp and will win one of the cup this season...so the time to laugh is NOW and boy am i doing it!

Next season is too soon. With their reverse moneyball tactics they'll struggle to finance the necessary squad rebuilding.
 
Whilst watching the City V Leicester game, quite a big game I would have thought, I spied lots and lots of sky blue seats. Perhaps we should be wary of this new stadium thing. Imagine if we built it and nobody came?

as long as we make more money on a match day than we do now does it matter?
 
I've got a season ticket so I too have to prioritise to a certain extent. The only thing that would stop me going is time and circumstances, I live only 25 miles from WHL so getting to the ground isn't too difficult. But I feel sympathy for people who are priced out of going. BT and Sky are paying a combined £5bn to show Premier League football! That's an incredible amount of money. The clubs could quite easily decide they want freeze prices for a few years (a couple at the very least) but of course they don't want to. If anything, it will keep going the other way and players wages will sky rocket further but rather than use the tv money they will just keep putting ticket prices up.

I do not disagree with most of that and don't get me wrong I would love to see prices come down, I would to see my JD back at the prices it used to be and I can say the same on most things. However it is" what it is" and if people would rather spend their money elsewhere that is down to them but bitching about ticket prices is no different then bitching about the price of ( Coke, booze, etc etc) you pays your money and takes your choice. There is too much money going out of the game in players/agents wages and yet we always hear fans bitching that we should buy the next multi million player and up the wages of players like Bentaleb, Mason etc etc ( we can not have it everyway).

I have had a season ticket for decades and I have always said that as long as I see my team try to progress I will continue to pay the price ( which when added to the cost of all my travel is huge) but its my choice and no one forces me to do it. If others would rather spend their money elsewhere then that's their choice.
 
As a sidebar - I would love there to a be a Spurs media season ticket, where all games are shown live on TV, for me its due personal mobility problems. But as @parklane1 its for each of us to decide what we spend our money on. Football on TV cost me about £1000 p.a. and I love nearly every minute of it. Mind this season is shredding my nerves.

I bet watching it down the pub is not cheap?
 
As a sidebar - I would love there to a be a Spurs media season ticket, where all games are shown live on TV, for me its due personal mobility problems. But as @parklane1 its for each of us to decide what we spend our money on. Football on TV cost me about £1000 p.a. and I love nearly every minute of it. Mind this season is shredding my nerves.

I bet watching it down the pub is not cheap?

There are currently three issues with football on tv that makes me not want to pay for it.

I would have to subscribe to more than one channel package.

I would have to pay for a package including other channels and sports I'm not interested in.

I don't get to see every Spurs game.
 
As a sidebar - I would love there to a be a Spurs media season ticket, where all games are shown live on TV, for me its due personal mobility problems. But as @parklane1 its for each of us to decide what we spend our money on. Football on TV cost me about £1000 p.a. and I love nearly every minute of it. Mind this season is shredding my nerves.

I bet watching it down the pub is not cheap?

i'd pay for that in a heartbeat
 
There are currently three issues with football on tv that makes me not want to pay for it.

I would have to subscribe to more than one channel package.

I would have to pay for a package including other channels and sports I'm not interested in.

I don't get to see every Spurs game.

So Ifffff there was one channel for all the Spurs games would you pay for it. Let's say for the same price as a season ticket, whatever that is? £750???
 
NFL gamepass is £250 for all your teams games in a season

Yeah I know but the amount of US customer I would have thought would make that considerably cheaper than the UK?

The ideal would be something along the lines of:
EPL your team £xxx
EPL + EL/CL your team £xxx
EPL all games £xxx
EPL + EL/CL all games £xxx
Gold ticket all you can eat + European leagues £xxx
 
It's not practical for me to travel to Spurs games, the next best thing would be TV season ticket. Would I pay £750, yes.

If I lived in London I would have a season ticket, something else would maybe have to be given up to make way/save the money.

It would be even better if it allowed me to apply for away tickets, Manchester, Liverpool and even Saudi Sportswashing Machine are quite easy for me.
 
I do not disagree with most of that and don't get me wrong I would love to see prices come down, I would to see my JD back at the prices it used to be and I can say the same on most things. However it is" what it is" and if people would rather spend their money elsewhere that is down to them but bitching about ticket prices is no different then bitching about the price of ( Coke, booze, etc etc) you pays your money and takes your choice. There is too much money going out of the game in players/agents wages and yet we always hear fans bitching that we should buy the next multi million player and up the wages of players like Bentaleb, Mason etc etc ( we can not have it everyway).

I have had a season ticket for decades and I have always said that as long as I see my team try to progress I will continue to pay the price ( which when added to the cost of all my travel is huge) but its my choice and no one forces me to do it. If others would rather spend their money elsewhere then that's their choice.

I largely agree. If people think it's too expensive to go, then don't go. If someone goes but really hates paying the money for it, they are creating their own problem, because the prices will only come down if people stop going.

My dad grew up a couple of miles from WHL, he used to go to every home game through the 70's and 80's (strangely never had a season ticket, he said he used to just queue up and pay at the gate) and a lot of away games too. I think it was the cup final replay against Emirates Marketing Project, where he said his mate had spare tickets he struggled to give away because everyone he knew that wanted to go had a ticket already! He took his brother with one of the spares, who had no interest in football. So the only game my uncle Eddie has ever seen live was the Cup final replay against Emirates Marketing Project! He took me and my brother to our first game at The Lane in 1994, and even during the 90's he used to say how expensive it was. Fast forward to the present and his sons are grown up with their own families, we just cherry pick games to go and see live, based on price (cheaper league cup games for example) or if it's a big game and we all happen to have the spare cash to get involved (we went to the San Siro twice when we made the Champions League, cheap flights and cheap tickets). If football in general is too expensive, then my advice is just cherry pick games and watch the rest of it for free via the internet. The last time I went to a live game was when AVB was in charge. I can't even remember the game now, but I remember the atmosphere was bad and I just thought that, for the money, it wasn't worth it.

I don't really want to pay £50 a pop or whatever to go and watch us play Norwich, for example, when I can see it on the internet for free with no hassle, so I choose not to. When we have a new stadium, I hope that tickets for the lesser games will be cheap and that the stadium will be full. I'd especially like it if they filled the stadium for these lesser games by offering dirt cheap tickets to kids in the local area.

Anyway -- I care about Spurs just as much, whether I'm going to the games regularly or not. And when we do well, it makes me just as happy and when we do bad, it p1sses me off.

Now I've written it, I'm not sure what the point of this post was haha.
 
That figure is almost certainly incorrect Jord.

they probably play around 30 home games a season if you include prestiege friendlies, 3m a match sounds about right when you factor in all the extras from the club shop and conccessions along with 60/70k tickets sold at an average of £35 each
 
NFL gamepass is £250 for all your teams games in a season
:eek: Don't they only play about 16 games a season or something?

NHL Game Center - access to all teams games and archived games, with the odd blackout - is about £100 for a season. They play 82 times in the regular season.

You could fook off for £750, but if priced more reasonably I would pay for a Spurs TV thing. I can't get to WHL all that often.
 
:eek: Don't they only play about 16 games a season or something?

NHL Game Center - access to all teams games and archived games, with the odd blackout - is about £100 for a season. They play 82 times in the regular season.

You could fook off for £750, but if priced more reasonably I would pay for a Spurs TV thing. I can't get to WHL all that often.
£750 is expensive, but pay nearly £900 a year for a golf membership that I only use 4-5 months a year, so £750 doesn't seem that bad. Also it would be offset by not having to pay sky and by sport for content I don't watch. Only live footy I watch is Spurs, the rest is MOTD. Now sky have the open golf would give me a dilemma mind you!
 
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