Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Rip Van We Go Again on October 18, 2012, 08:21:27 AM
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bbc.co.uk/football
Price of Football: Survey of 166 British clubs revealed
The average cost of the cheapest adult ticket in the top four divisions of English football has risen by 11.7% - more than five times the rate of inflation.
The BBC Sport Price of Football survey found that the average price of the most affordable ticket in league football has gone from £19.01 to £21.24 in the past 12 months.
The survey looked at 166 clubs in 10 divisions across British football, including the Conference Premier and Women's Super League.
We have recorded the most expensive, and cheapest, season tickets and adult matchday tickets as well as the cost of a cup of tea, a pie and a programme, to calculate the cheapest day out at a football match.
•Only three out of 92 English league clubs offer a day out for less than £20 this season. Last year it was 12.
•In Scotland, 21 of the 42 teams across four divisions offer a day out for less than £20.
•The most expensive adult matchday ticket is Arsenal at £126 and the cheapest £6 at Montrose.
•Arsenal also have the most expensive season ticket at £1,955, while Montrose's was the lowest at £90.
•In the Women's Super League, matchday adult tickets range from £4-£6, with season ticket prices between £22-£40.
•The most expensive tea in British football can be found in Manchester, where both City and United charge £2.50. The cheapest costs 50p at Alloa and Brechin in Scottish Division Two.
•Kidderminster, in the Conference Premier, charge the most for a pie at £4, while the cheapest is in Scotland, where Alloa, Albion and Forfar charge just £1.
•Leeds United sell the most expensive programme in Britain at £4, while Inverness CT's is the cheapest at 50p.
"Despite the difficult economic times we live in, prices at some clubs and at some levels of the game are still exceedingly high," Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation, said.
"It is quite shocking that at Arsenal, for example, the cheapest season ticket is only £15 short of £1,000.
"We would like to see a much greater effort to reduce ticket prices and in particular give the benefit of the massive amounts of media income that comes in at the top of the game to the match-going fan."
The highest price of a day out at a football match in England, Wales and Scotland has gone from £109 to £134.30 in just 12 months, with Arsenal the most expensive club to visit for a second successive year.
A trip to the Emirates Stadium can cost as much as £134.40 with top-price tickets going for £126, a £26 rise on last year's figure and a programme (£3), pie (£3.30) and cup of tea (£2) adding to the cost.
Play mediaReduce ticket prices, says Football Supporters' Federation chair Malcolm Clarke
Arsenal's cheapest day out (£34.30) comes in exactly £100 cheaper but it is Newcastle who offer the Premier League's best value day out, with a ticket, programme, pie and cup of tea coming in at £23.
Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis told BBC Sport the club was doing its best to offer value to fans with the club's cheapest league ticket (£26) among the most affordable in the division. This ticket is £9 cheaper than last season.
"We've seen ticket prices rise across the game," Gazidis said. "This isn't just a football issue.
"If you look at the prices of entertainment across the board they have gone up significantly in recent years and clearly we now have an environment where people are economically challenged.
"What we have done is try to hold those prices down, for example our Capital One Cup prices have been £10 for adults and £5 for children.
"What we know, because of the tremendous take up, is that there are people who want to watch top class football but for whom price is a factor. That is something we have to be continually conscious of."
Year-on-year average cheapest ticket price (2011 first)
•Premier League: £24.87 - £28.30
•Championship: £20.37 - £21.07
•League One: £15.52 - £18.54
•League Two: £15.29 - £17.06
•Overall: £19.01 - £21.24 - an overall rise of 11.7%
Former FA chairman Lord Triesman told BBC Sport he was "very disappointed prices keep going up". The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation stood at 2.2% last month, down from 2.5% in August, but our survey found the average cost of the cheapest ticket had gone up 11.7 per cent.
"I think it will prevent the next generation from really seeing live football other than on very unusual occasions every so often when clubs will give the tickets away," he said. "Most of the causes of the increases are driven by the salaries paid to players.
"As it is, it will become a sport in which relatively well-off people will be able to go and watch it live and nobody else. That seems to me to be a tragic historic reverse."
Arsenal once again come out on top with their cheapest season ticket (£985) costing more than all but three of their Premier League rivals' most expensive equivalent.
Wigan offer the Premier League's cheapest season ticket (£255) with Manchester City (£275) close behind. Scottish third division side Montrose offer the cheapest season ticket at £90.
The price of a day out at a Scottish Premier League match remains more affordable with only Celtic (£36.30) costing more than £35. Celtic's most expensive season ticket comes in at £609, however, some £409 more than Inverness Caledonian Thistle's cheapest offer.
Did you know?
•Only three out of 92 English league clubs offer a day out for less than £20. Last year it was 12.
•In Scotland, 21 of the 42 teams across four divisions offer a day out for less than £20.
•Out of 166 clubs in England and Scotland only 38 offer a day out for less than £20.
"I certainly think that our clubs in Scotland make a real effort to ensure that football is accessible," Scottish Premier League chief executive Neil Doncaster told BBC Sport.
"I think our clubs are fully aware of the importance of price in terms of people's decisions to come to a game of football. We've got just over half of our clubs that offer free season tickets, without any charge, to under 12s.
"The cheapest match day ticket, in terms of a season ticket, works out at £11 a game at a club that has a family ticket - that's two adults and two children at £20 a game, so that's real value against any comparable activity that families can carry out."
Kidderminster Harriers, of the Conference Premier, sell the most expensive pie in British football at £4, although the club says the product is a large, homemade cottage pie.
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Is it a case of shopping around and snapping up the offers when they come along ?
I mean my ST was £295 and my sons £100 which is amazing value.
Doubt the club will do it again next year but you never know ?
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4 tickets for £44 for the Norwich game! But cheaper tickets are hard to find!
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The phone in on 5Live is on this very subject this morning. Some interesting guests, such as David Conn, Tom Cannon and some commercial guy from Man City.
Then they introduced Robbie Savage.
*click*
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Cost is a big factor for me these days. It's the reason I don't have a ST this year. I've managed every home game so far but am going to start missing some now. I doubt i'll be at the manure or Arse games. By shopping around my ticket costs so far are
Everton £28
Swansea £20
WBA £12
Norwich £14
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The league table is quite interesting
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19842397
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I dont care what they say, it's a much cheaper day out for me down the Villa than it would be going to watch Montrose!
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Villa is still quite reasonable, it's factoring in all the ancillary costs that make it a bit pricey. Fuel, parking (£5), programme £3, food and drink (you'd need this anyway).
Like this Saturday ticket £35, train £25, tube £5 so £65 before anything else. Adds up.
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Those prices even down to the lower leagues are eye-watering frankly. I've got a season ticket for my local team in the Dutch 2nd division. I sit in the main stand, can buy a halftime beer for €1,50 and my season ticket cost €175. How can you justify nearly double that at the likes of Wycombe.
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You have to hand it to the Germans, a ST over there is approximately £100 give or take 10%. I suppose compared to a lot of clubs Villa is quite reasonable, but with the amount of money put in by the likes of Sky it would be great if this made its way to cheaper gate prices.....
I have friends who have STs at Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea and they pay over £1000. I nearly spat my beer out when they told me. Ridiculous.
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Cheapest ST at Borussia Dortmund is £150.27
Programme £1.61
Bratwurst £2.01
This is what the EPL needs to emulate
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Cheapest ST at Borussia Dortmund is £150.27
Programme £1.61
Bratwurst £2.01
This is what the EPL needs to emulate
Have just looked and a ticket for the chumps league game at the Amsterdam Arena between Ajax and Dortmund will cost €33 for adults. It's very tempting and I suspect a lot cheaper than any chumps league tickets in England.
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Paul Faulkner on the report.
Paul Faulkner has spoken of his delight after seeing Villa perform well in the annual BBC Sport 'Price of Football' report.
The survey, published this morning, looked at the matchday costs of 166 clubs in 10 divisions across British football.
BBC Sport recorded the most expensive - and cheapest - season tickets and adult matchday tickets as well as the cost of a cup of tea, a pie and a programme in order to calculate the cheapest day-out at a football match.
Villa produced strong results in all categories, coming out as the third best-value day-out in the top-flight.
This meant the matchday experience in B6 was cheaper than clubs such as Shrewsbury Town, Notts County, Leyton Orient and Gillingham.
The cost of season tickets remains fantastic value for money - they are less here than League One clubs like Bournemouth and Colchester United and League Two clubs such as Southend United and Rotherham United.
If you look at the range of season ticket prices - from the highest to the lowest - we are the fourth cheapest in the top-flight. In terms of match tickets, we are the second cheapest in the top-flight.
Faulkner was pleased with the results, although ultimately not surprised by the positive findings.
He said: "This survey shows what great value it is for our fans coming to watch the team at Villa Park.
"The matchday experience, ensuring that prices remain affordable and competitive, is immensely important to us here.
"Paul Lambert has stressed the importance of our fans this season, how they can really drive the club and the team on as we look to have a successful campaign, after a couple of seasons when our home form has been disappointing.
"Hopefully these findings show that it works the other way too, that we value our fans and want to ensure that supporting Villa is a premium experience.
"The other thing to bear in mind too is that this survey shows that there is nothing like actually being here at the ground and supporting the team.
"I know we live in an age where there's immense access to games on television but the buzz of matchday simply can't be matched.
"There's nothing like getting up in the morning and looking forward to the journey to the ground, picking up the programme, having your half-time cuppa and watching your favourite team.
"Now it's clear that this can all be done in a very cost-effective manner at Villa Park."
Half season tickets are on sale now - offering you the chance to be a part of the final 11 home games of the season.
There are some exciting games coming up at Villa Park against several of the Barclays Premier League's big guns.
And you can make sure you've got your own seat for all the action.
Tickets are also still available for our match against Norwich too.
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Whatever category you look at in this table shows we get value for money, can't be many fans across the country thinking the same - £37 the cheapest ticket at Reading, £495 the chepeast season ticket at Southampton - ludicrous.
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Our prices are not that bad compared to other teams.
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Our prices are not that bad compared to other teams.
Not a pop at you darren (how could anyone ever have a pop at our Darren?), but this is the type of thinking that has allowed football to take the piss out of the fans for years. We are a captive audience and they know it.
The fans of the cheaper clubs in any division will always say "Our prices are reasonable compared with X." The fans of the more expensive clubs in that division will say: "Yeah, but our prices are okay compared with Arsenal."
Then the fans of Arsenal will either say that their prices are comparable to a good seat at the opera or a pop concert, or will point at sell-outs every week and say that they can't be that bad or no one would pay the price.
So what can we do? Not going is not an option for most and empty seats at VP haven't seen prices come down except for the odd bargains in limited areas anyway.
By the way, the pies at Kidderminster may be £4 but they are as big as your head and bloody delicious.
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£10.00 to watch Harrogate Town in the Northern Blue Circle League.
Of course, it costs me zip all to get there 'cos that's where I live! So, my Villa season ticket at £500 plus the 250 mile round trip makes following the Villa fairly pricey.
Perhaps the English Leagues generally need to take more notice of Germany / Holland for role-modelling ...
... which of course they won't whilst idiots like me continue to pay up for expensive mediocrity!
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The cheapest season ticket down the sty is £26 more than ours. Poor bastards.
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Well done Villa
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PF lost me when he said"matchday experience"
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Whatever category you look at in this table shows we get value for money, can't be many fans across the country thinking the same - £37 the cheapest ticket at Reading, £495 the chepeast season ticket at Southampton - ludicrous.
The only category that really counts is the standard of football being served up and winning more than a handful of home games.
If we performed like Arsenal/ManU even Spurs year in year out I guarantee you that our prices would reflect that. The more entertainment on offer the bigger the attraction/demand. Demand = price hike, not just in football but anything.
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Part of the reason I've stopped going is because of all the bullshit business talk, 'match day experience', 'cheaper than competitors' etc. they really have now fucking clue about footbal fans. I don't care how cheap we are compared to club 'X', I shouldn't have to pay £30 to watch football.
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I tend to think our prices are among the cheapest because many of our fans just won't go if the prices were higher.
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We are football fans who cannot help but want to watch our club play, what can we do ?
These days that means we have to pay out our hard earned pittances to help line the pockets of young men living in multi million pound houses with Ferraris and Porsches on the driveway.
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Is the full report available anywhere?
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Cost is a big factor for me these days. It's the reason I don't have a ST this year. I've managed every home game so far but am going to start missing some now. I doubt i'll be at the manure or Arse games. By shopping around my ticket costs so far are
Everton £28
Swansea £20
WBA £12
Norwich £14
You've got some decent prices there. £18.50 per game so far, if that continues it's £351 for a season. Cheaper than most of our season tickets!
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Is the full report available anywhere?
This BBC page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19842397) seems to have all the data
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I tend to think our prices are among the cheapest because many of our fans just won't go if the prices were higher.
Did you think that 10 years ago when prices were considerably cheaper and attendances were lower?
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My season tickets works out at approx £15 per game - only £3 more than watching Solihull !
My lads is £5.26 a game.
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Cheers.
I wonder who offers the best value this season based on last years performances? Newcastle's cheapest seems really low. As do Man City's.
However, I wonder how many of those tickets were available?
Also, it says our 'cheapest ticket' is £20, but we have loads of adult tickets sold cheaper than that...
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on Radio 5 someone said that with the increase in revenue for the next tv deal they could take around £30 per ticket off the price across the board , any chance ?! :-\
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I know these are tough economic times but I don't think there is any excuse for us not selling out VP every game considering our reasonable pricing.
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I don't think it's the pricing that's putting people off, more the mediocre fayre that's been on offer for over 2 years. People want entertaining.
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I know these are tough economic times but I don't think there is any excuse for us not selling out VP every game considering our reasonable pricing.
Doubt it, it's 40 quid for the Upper Trinity for the Manure game. I wouldn't say 40 quid to watch a game of football is reasonable at all but it's modern times. "sigh"
Like a post on page 1, I haven't bothered with a season ticket for a few years now. In fairness at about 400 quid that is pretty good value for the premier league but usually on Viagogo someone posts their tickets in the upper Trinity for 15-20 quid for most games so I usually do it that way now.
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I don't think it's the pricing that's putting people off, more the mediocre fayre that's been on offer for over 2 years. People want entertaining.
I don't buy that. We should be supporting the team through good and bad. Or we may as well turn up only when we are successful.
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My season tickets works out at approx £15 per game - only £3 more than watching Solihull !
My lads is £5.26 a game.
Bizarrely, because of the TV money most Premier League clubs could, if they wanted, and if they weren't paying obscene money to mediocre cloggers, probably price their tickets at LESS than any of the other clubs right down to Solihull's division.
Solihull need to charge something like £12 to survive, they probably get, what, 200-250 per game? That and the bar takings will be paying the bills, and if they dropped the price it is doubtful that the few extra fans who might turn up would make up the shortfall.
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Good point Plumbett I didn't factor that in. Yes gate receipts mean a lot to a Solihull whereas to a PL club it becomes less relevant.
Interesting times ahead.
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I know these are tough economic times but I don't think there is any excuse for us not selling out VP every game considering our reasonable pricing.
Doubt it, it's 40 quid for the Upper Trinity for the Manure game. I wouldn't say 40 quid to watch a game of football is reasonable at all but it's modern times. "sigh"
Like a post on page 1, I haven't bothered with a season ticket for a few years now. In fairness at about 400 quid that is pretty good value for the premier league but usually on Viagogo someone posts their tickets in the upper Trinity for 15-20 quid for most games so I usually do it that way now.
Yes, obviously I mean reasonable in context. But if Newcastle regularly fill a bigger stadium then ours, then we should be filling out VP.
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I don't think it's the pricing that's putting people off, more the mediocre fayre that's been on offer for over 2 years. People want entertaining.
I don't buy that. We should be supporting the team through good and bad. Or we may as well turn up only when we are successful.
Successful? What does that mean? We haven't been successful since 1996.
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And probably won't be for the foreseeable future. I'd go to every game if we were paying anything close to value for money which in reality compared to other league should be £15-20 at the very most. English football really is shite.
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I tend to think our prices are among the cheapest because many of our fans just won't go if the prices were higher.
Did you think that 10 years ago when prices were considerably cheaper and attendances were lower?
Except they weren't considerably cheaper. Certainly not if you shop around. Cost me £12 to be L5 against Albion, cost me £20 to be in L6 in 2001 v Coventry. £11 v Arsenal in L8 in 1995.
L6 v Spurs 2005 £28, L2 v Everton this year also £28.
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When did Newcastle start selling out regularly at expensive prices?
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When did Newcastle start selling out regularly at expensive prices?
Around 500BC. You have to remember they have the bestest fans in the world.
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When football clubs are going to get so rich they can afford to drop their ticket prices by £32 a game and stand still but won't you know there is literally only one aim in the game today and that is utter greed. I hope in some ways it totally implodes but there seems to be no sign of it. The problem is whilst people will not vote with their feet the bubble will just continue to inflate. The ordinary man has been priced out but replaced by Tarquins with money to burn who see it as a fashionable thing to be involved with. The other thing is, people who talk about the 'matchday experience' need fcukin shooting.
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The clubs won't get rich though ? All this extra TV money will just end up lining players and agents pockets.
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Doesn't anyone else find the results slightly embarrassing in reflect to our attendances ?
With prices like those and a fan base such as ours, we should easily be selling out VP more frequently (when was the last time we even sold out)
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Under McLeish we only got over 40k once (ManUre 40,055)
And just scraped over 30k twice (Stoke 30,100 and Wigan 30,744)
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It's simple, we have a lot of floating fans. Our hardcore is probably around 30k who'll turn up even if we're poor and then the rest will come depending on opposition and league form.
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Considering we are the main team in the second biggest English city, we should be having a bigger 'hardcore' then 30k IMO.
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Why? No one can force the people of Brum to watch Villa.
I don't get embarrassed by our crowds, they are what they are, as long as you are going along to watch whenever you can or whenever you can afford to, or even whenever you can be arsed, what's the problem?
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We have this argument regularly. Our crowds are what they are, never massive but rarely poor.
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Because any club that wants to progress should be filling out their stadium. Everyone seems to whinge that we don't spend enough nowadays little realising that even being a thousand short in attendance over a season is alot of revenue for the club.
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Because any club that wants to progress should be filling out their stadium. Everyone seems to whinge that we don't spend enough nowadays little realising that even being a thousand short in attendance over a season is alot of revenue for the club.
Depends how big the ground is.
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Indeed. But what's the point of raising our capacity to 50k when we hardly ever top 40k?
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Is something I've said all along.
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Because any club that wants to progress should be filling out their stadium. Everyone seems to whinge that we don't spend enough nowadays little realising that even being a thousand short in attendance over a season is alot of revenue for the club.
Yes, but what can we do? Frogmarch Brummies to Witton and nick their wallets?
Besides, glory in the Premier League will no longer come through how many fans we have but rather through the size of our respective owner's disposable income, get used to it.
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Doesn't anyone else find the results slightly embarrassing in reflect to our attendances ?
With prices like those and a fan base such as ours, we should easily be selling out VP more frequently (when was the last time we even sold out)
Considering we are the main team in the second biggest English city, we should be having a bigger 'hardcore' then 30k IMO.
Couldn't agree more with the the two comments and those who are saying that we need to win trophies and fans will follow look at Newcastle. Much smaller city than ours , been relegated recently, won nothing but much bigger crowds than us.
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Newcastle are unique in that they have a massive catchment area and no real rivals.
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Newcastle are unique in that they have a massive catchment area and no real rivals.
Newcastle are unique but that's not the reason why.
Talk to any Geordie, or walk around Newcastle and you quickly realise that it's more than football up there. Following the Magpies is virtually a religion to them. Brummies just seem to have more in their life than football which means that even when the going is good, as it was in the early years of MON, we still don't average that many more than we did in the not so good years.
If we want to justify expanding the ground there needs to be a cultural shift locally. That won't happen over night and will need a combination of a number of things including a successful team over a period of time to achieve it.
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If anything we should reduce the capacity. Expanding makes no sense at all.
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My season tickets works out at approx £15 per game - only £3 more than watching Solihull !
My lads is £5.26 a game.
Great value! Long may it continue.
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As I see it the problem is not so much the cost of tickets. Villa tickets have always been relatively cheap because we have a big ground that we rarely fill even when we're doing well.
As some others have said, it's the combined cost of everything else that mounts up to make it prohibitively expensive- the travel, parking, a few beers, a feed. Many of our fans travel just as far for home games as they would for away games. You could easily be looking at 100 quid plus for a day out at the villa. I think that's the main reason why they struggle for gates in a recession.
Just a stab in the dark, but I think they'd need to lower prices at least 25-30% to even get close to capacity regularly. And with the extra income from sky and dropping the wage bill why can't they? Supporters are still paying too much in my view.
Having said all that, if I was in the uk I'd still go and the clubs know people go out of loyalty and habit even when things are tight financially
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Debate on the cost of football on Five Live imminent. They have a very special surprise guest.
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Janet Street Porter?
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Last weekend at fulham cost me about. £200
It was a top weekend spoiled only be the events on Saturday between 1500 hrs - 1700 hrs
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Debate on the cost of football on Five Live imminent. They have a very special surprise guest.
Who was it? I'm dying to find out and can't get to the i player at work!
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Who was it in the end? Esther Rantzen?
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David Cameron?
Tom Hanks?
Mervyn King?
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Kim Jong Un?