Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Chico Hamilton III on May 21, 2013, 05:09:33 PM
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Our prize money this season
http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2013/05/21/where-the-money-went-premier-league-prize-and-tv-payments-for-2012-13-210501/
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Hope we reinvest it all wisely. Especially with the wages coming in from the big earners that will get the boot this summer. Good times ahead?
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Hope we reinvest it all wisely. Especially with the wages coming in from the big earners that will get the boot this summer. Good times ahead?
They could knock £100 off every season ticket for starters and reward the fans as well as the players. Afterall, everyone said what an important role we played this season.
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It will go towards the losses we have been making every season. The balance sheet has been negative for a while, I would imagine this will simply be put towards the normal running of the club.
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It will go towards the losses we have been making every season. The balance sheet has been negative for a while, I would imagine this will simply be put towards the normal running of the club.
This is the correct answer.
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It will go towards the losses we have been making every season. The balance sheet has been negative for a while, I would imagine this will simply be put towards the normal running of the club.
Lerner is a buisness man. he knows(or should do) he has to speculate to accumulate.
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Hope we reinvest it all wisely. Especially with the wages coming in from the big earners that will get the boot this summer. Good times ahead?
They could knock £100 off every season ticket for starters and reward the fans as well as the players. Afterall, everyone said what an important role we played this season.
Having previously done a little back-of-a-fag-packet maths on this, I reckon that, based on an average gate of 35,000, it'd cost about £3.25million (let's call it an Ireland) to knock off a fiver for every attendee at every game. With these reduced prices, every extra 2,000 that then turn up puts £1million back in over a season.
Remain staggered that this still isn't happening.
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It will go towards the losses we have been making every season. The balance sheet has been negative for a while, I would imagine this will simply be put towards the normal running of the club.
Lerner is a buisness man. he knows(or should do) he has to speculate to accumulate.
Just like Tony Fernandes did at QPR?!
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It will go towards the losses we have been making every season. The balance sheet has been negative for a while, I would imagine this will simply be put towards the normal running of the club.
This is the correct answer.
It wouldn't be if wages were a bit more reasonable. With the money coming into the game season tickets could be £150....
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The sickening thing is that we still get charged unfair prices to go and watch the "show" live... and pegging prices for another season still doesn't make them fair.
I for one will miss Wigan in that respect, although if they had more fans themselves I'm sure they'd have been as greedy as the other 19 clubs.
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Dont slate me please. I think Villa tickets are too cheap. Seriously. I would raise ticket prices by a fiver and invest that extra money in the team. We have been offering very good value for a long time I think a modest price rise is appropriate if we want to push up the table.
For example a Spurs season ticket (similar size club in terms of support) costs £745 next season. Thats a huge difference with us. With that money Spurs are able to compete for higher class players. I think we have missed an opportunity to grow the club by keeping prices so bargain basement.
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What does matches being shown "near live" in the bottom table mean? I remember years ago, Irish tv would show "deferred coverage" of a game on Saturday afternoons (coverage beginning at 3.20 for example and therefore being behind real time by 20 mins) but I don't think this is common practice anywhere anymore...or is it?
Also, interesting to see Portsmouth still get parachute payments. Probably still being used to pay-off Kanu and all those other lads that crippled their wage bill.
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Dont slate me please. I think Villa tickets are too cheap. Seriously. I would raise ticket prices by a fiver and invest that extra money in the team. We have been offering very good value for a long time I think a modest price rise is appropriate if we want to push up the table.
Raising tickets by a fiver would have almost no effect on the team or investment. Say if you go with 35k average attendance, then you're getting at most an extra 3.25 million. What is that to a club whose revenue will be about 100 million next year? (massive assumption based on the increased tv deal). As Uli Hoeness said about Bayern's prices, they could increase season tickets by about £100, but that would bring in only another 2 million, but that is nothing to a major football club, but £100 (or £5 every other week) is massive to a supporter
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Hope we reinvest it all wisely. Especially with the wages coming in from the big earners that will get the boot this summer. Good times ahead?
They could knock £100 off every season ticket for starters and reward the fans as well as the players. Afterall, everyone said what an important role we played this season.
Having previously done a little back-of-a-fag-packet maths on this, I reckon that, based on an average gate of 35,000, it'd cost about £3.25million (let's call it an Ireland) to knock off a fiver for every attendee at every game. With these reduced prices, every extra 2,000 that then turn up puts £1million back in over a season.
Remain staggered that this still isn't happening.
Maybe because it doesn't work like that?
I've said it on several threads before but cheap tickets don't incentivise fans to go to watch football. If it did, my local team, Sutton Coldfield Town would have over 100,000 turning up every week because you can watch a game of football there for less than a tenner.
There are a load of reasons people go to watch football matches but in order of impact the cost of the ticket is pretty low down the list. That's why attendances are pretty much higher than they've ever been across the board despite ticket prices being higher than they've ever been.
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Dont slate me please. I think Villa tickets are too cheap. Seriously. I would raise ticket prices by a fiver and invest that extra money in the team. We have been offering very good value for a long time I think a modest price rise is appropriate if we want to push up the table.
If we've all got another fiver spare then surely there are plenty of better causes to spend £70k a week on.
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Dont slate me please. I think Villa tickets are too cheap. Seriously. I would raise ticket prices by a fiver and invest that extra money in the team. We have been offering very good value for a long time I think a modest price rise is appropriate if we want to push up the table.
Raising tickets by a fiver would have almost no effect on the team or investment. Say if you go with 35k average attendance, then you're getting at most an extra 3.25 million. What is that to a club whose revenue will be about 100 million next year? (massive assumption based on the increased tv deal). As Uli Hoeness said about Bayern's prices, they could increase season tickets by about £100, but that would bring in only another 2 million, but that is nothing to a major football club, but £100 (or £5 every other week) is massive to a supporter
I dunno an extra 3 million odd sounds like it would help, but maybe it is not enough and we should increase even further. I think we run ourselves down by keeping our ticket prices so bargain bin relative to other clubs our size who want to progress. Even with the London difference the likes of Spurs charge double us. Even Liverpool, hardly a rich city have raised season ticket prices this season up to £710.
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Since we're talking about attendances:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22541130
Premier League attendances for 2012-13 have shown an increase of nearly 4% on the previous season.
The average attendance for a game in England's top flight was 35,975, up from 34,601 in 2011-12.
That rise has come during a difficult economic period, with the UK narrowly avoiding a triple-dip recession during the first quarter of 2013.
The official figures from the respective leagues show crowds have fluctuated across Europe, with Barcelona's average gate down by more than 9,000, an 11% drop.
Attendances at Inter Milan have fallen by more than 3,000, but new German champions Bayern Munich have seen an average increase of around 2,000.
In England, 16 of the 20 Premier League clubs increased their average attendance in 2012-13. The three largest rises were for the three clubs promoted from the Championship in 2012 - Reading, Southampton and West Ham - with Everton recording the next largest increase.
But a football supporters' group has warned that these increases could be lost if Premier League clubs do not reduce ticket prices.
Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation, believes that away supporters are particularly in danger of being priced out of grounds.
"We will be watching very closely what happens next season, when there will be a major increase in media revenue under the new television contracts," Clarke told BBC Sport.
"The Premier League clubs will be receiving so much from these contracts that they could let almost everybody in for free next season and still have the same amount of money coming in as they do now.
"Certainly if the match-going fan does not get the benefit of the clubs' extra media revenue, the reaction could be significant."
Did you know?
Wigan featured as the away team in six of the lowest Premier League attendances this season. Reading were involved in four of the lowest
Both Barcelona and AC Milan have seen their crowds drop by an average of 10,000 this season compared to last term
Ajax, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Juventus and PSG have bucked the downward trend across Europe with slight increases in their average attendances
Celtic's average SPL attendance has dropped by nearly 4,000 compared to last season
Five of this season's top 12 attendances in the SPL featured Celtic as the visiting side
Brighton's average attendance has increased by more than 6,000 in their second season at the Amex Community Stadium
The Scottish Premier League's average attendance fell by 28%, from 13,855 to 10,020, although that figure was skewed by the liquidation of Rangers, who reformed in the Scottish Third Division.
Celtic were one of six SPL clubs whose gates fell in 2012-13, with average crowds dropping from 50,904 to 46,917.
Rangers saw only a slight dip in attendances, though, attracting average crowds of 45,750 - down from 46,324 - as they won the Division Three title.
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That prize money will go up a lot next year.
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Since we're talking about attendances:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22541130
Premier League attendances for 2012-13 have shown an increase of nearly 4% on the previous season.
The average attendance for a game in England's top flight was 35,975, up from 34,601 in 2011-12.
That rise has come during a difficult economic period, with the UK narrowly avoiding a triple-dip recession during the first quarter of 2013.
The official figures from the respective leagues show crowds have fluctuated across Europe, with Barcelona's average gate down by more than 9,000, an 11% drop.
Attendances at Inter Milan have fallen by more than 3,000, but new German champions Bayern Munich have seen an average increase of around 2,000.
In England, 16 of the 20 Premier League clubs increased their average attendance in 2012-13. The three largest rises were for the three clubs promoted from the Championship in 2012 - Reading, Southampton and West Ham - with Everton recording the next largest increase.
But a football supporters' group has warned that these increases could be lost if Premier League clubs do not reduce ticket prices.
Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation, believes that away supporters are particularly in danger of being priced out of grounds.
"We will be watching very closely what happens next season, when there will be a major increase in media revenue under the new television contracts," Clarke told BBC Sport.
"The Premier League clubs will be receiving so much from these contracts that they could let almost everybody in for free next season and still have the same amount of money coming in as they do now.
"Certainly if the match-going fan does not get the benefit of the clubs' extra media revenue, the reaction could be significant."
Did you know?
Wigan featured as the away team in six of the lowest Premier League attendances this season. Reading were involved in four of the lowest
Both Barcelona and AC Milan have seen their crowds drop by an average of 10,000 this season compared to last term
Ajax, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Juventus and PSG have bucked the downward trend across Europe with slight increases in their average attendances
Celtic's average SPL attendance has dropped by nearly 4,000 compared to last season
Five of this season's top 12 attendances in the SPL featured Celtic as the visiting side
Brighton's average attendance has increased by more than 6,000 in their second season at the Amex Community Stadium
The Scottish Premier League's average attendance fell by 28%, from 13,855 to 10,020, although that figure was skewed by the liquidation of Rangers, who reformed in the Scottish Third Division.
Celtic were one of six SPL clubs whose gates fell in 2012-13, with average crowds dropping from 50,904 to 46,917.
Rangers saw only a slight dip in attendances, though, attracting average crowds of 45,750 - down from 46,324 - as they won the Division Three title.
Interactive European attendance table which is quite interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22541130
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Hope we reinvest it all wisely. Especially with the wages coming in from the big earners that will get the boot this summer. Good times ahead?
They could knock £100 off every season ticket for starters and reward the fans as well as the players. Afterall, everyone said what an important role we played this season.
Having previously done a little back-of-a-fag-packet maths on this, I reckon that, based on an average gate of 35,000, it'd cost about £3.25million (let's call it an Ireland) to knock off a fiver for every attendee at every game. With these reduced prices, every extra 2,000 that then turn up puts £1million back in over a season.
Remain staggered that this still isn't happening.
Maybe because it doesn't work like that?
I've said it on several threads before but cheap tickets don't incentivise fans to go to watch football. If it did, my local team, Sutton Coldfield Town would have over 100,000 turning up every week because you can watch a game of football there for less than a tenner.
There are a load of reasons people go to watch football matches but in order of impact the cost of the ticket is pretty low down the list. That's why attendances are pretty much higher than they've ever been across the board despite ticket prices being higher than they've ever been.
I'm not saying that cheap tickets encourage attendance, but I dare say that there's quite a lot of lapsed Villa fans around Brum for whom ticket price plays a large part in their decision when it comes to deciding whether or not they CAN attend, and many, myself included, for whom justification of the cost of renewal is becoming difficult. Haven't we just come second-bottom in the division for filling our ground percentage-wise? Football clubs effectively act as monopolies, we can't go and support someone else because they're cheaper. It would be nice if, for once, those that put their bums on the seats and make the game in this country the globally-marketable spectacle that it is, saw some of the £££s it generates going towards making sure our grounds remain full now and for the future.
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ticket prices wherever they are set will still always exclude a section of our fan base irrespective of how passionate they are. Tickets are like anything else you choose to do with your disposable income. Add in that we are trying to compete in a league that is hell bent on paying out astromonical transfers, wages and agent fees. I find our ticket prices quite decent in the grand scheme of things and I don't think reducing them by a fiver will do anything significant. The last few weeks have shown that the product on the pitch is more important, and playing good football, and hopefully successful football will bring people back.
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ticket prices wherever they are set will still always exclude a section of our fan base irrespective of how passionate they are. Tickets are like anything else you choose to do with your disposable income. Add in that we are trying to compete in a league that is hell bent on paying out astromonical transfers, wages and agent fees. I find our ticket prices quite decent in the grand scheme of things and I don't think reducing them by a fiver will do anything significant. The last few weeks have shown that the product on the pitch is more important, and playing good football, and hopefully successful football will bring people back.
I kind of agree with you TV and as Dave W keeps pointing out it seems to have a negligible effect on our attendances anyway but I can't help feeling that we should try and live up to that Uli Hoeness quote and be the first club to actually say no we'll only charge our fans say £15 a game and sell season tickets at £200 a pop because they deserve to share in this new found wealth the game has as well. We create the colour and atmosphere that makes the product desirable so where's our slice of the pie?
Put it this way if we finish 15th next year we'll be about £25 million better off in TV/prize money on the £45 million we've got for this year so what would it cost to reduce everyone's season tickets to £200 maybe £3 to £4million, and what would that do to the fan/club/player bond we've been trumpeting about over the last few months. £200 season tickets or Stephen Irelands new pimped up Range Rover Sport, I know where most of us would prefer the money to be spent!! We're the Villa we're supposed to do the right thing and lead the way on this type of stuff, I think the club have missed a massive opportunity.
Now where's my renewal form...... ;-)
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All this talk of dropping ticket prices works fine if we're the only team in the league but we're not and we're in competition with 19 other teams. Unless everyone drops their prices by the same amount (which they won't) we'll just fall further behind until we get relegated, at which point out attendances will fall a hell of a lot more than they will if we don't put out prices down.
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Hope we reinvest it all wisely. Especially with the wages coming in from the big earners that will get the boot this summer. Good times ahead?
They could knock £100 off every season ticket for starters and reward the fans as well as the players. Afterall, everyone said what an important role we played this season.
Having previously done a little back-of-a-fag-packet maths on this, I reckon that, based on an average gate of 35,000, it'd cost about £3.25million (let's call it an Ireland) to knock off a fiver for every attendee at every game. With these reduced prices, every extra 2,000 that then turn up puts £1million back in over a season.
Remain staggered that this still isn't happening.
Maybe because it doesn't work like that?
I've said it on several threads before but cheap tickets don't incentivise fans to go to watch football. If it did, my local team, Sutton Coldfield Town would have over 100,000 turning up every week because you can watch a game of football there for less than a tenner.
There are a load of reasons people go to watch football matches but in order of impact the cost of the ticket is pretty low down the list. That's why attendances are pretty much higher than they've ever been across the board despite ticket prices being higher than they've ever been.
Disingenous Ad@m.
I'm sure you are familiar with rudimentary price elasticity economics given several previous posts you've made. One assertion that is an undeniable, stone-cold error when discussing price elasticity (which obviously we are) is to compare "Product A" (Villa tickets) at one price with a totally different "Product B" (Sutton Coldfield tickets) at another price, and use this comparison to conclude that a certain action on product A (Villa tickets) will or won't work.
This is like saying "BA wouldn't get any more business pricing flights to Vegas (no relation) at £2.10, because the number 69 bus charges that and they're hardly full"
I think it's a very valid point of view to say that, at the margin, there are fans who just can't afford to go, but a £5 discount (potentially on 4 or 5 tickets if they have kids etc) would make the difference between 35k and say 38k average attendances.
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All this talk of dropping ticket prices works fine if we're the only team in the league but we're not and we're in competition with 19 other teams. Unless everyone drops their prices by the same amount (which they won't) we'll just fall further behind until we get relegated, at which point out attendances will fall a hell of a lot more than they will if we don't put out prices down.
And b), Borussia Dortmund.
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Dont slate me please. I think Villa tickets are too cheap. Seriously. I would raise ticket prices by a fiver and invest that extra money in the team. We have been offering very good value for a long time I think a modest price rise is appropriate if we want to push up the table.
For example a Spurs season ticket (similar size club in terms of support) costs £745 next season. Thats a huge difference with us. With that money Spurs are able to compete for higher class players. I think we have missed an opportunity to grow the club by keeping prices so bargain basement.
Hope we reinvest it all wisely. Especially with the wages coming in from the big earners that will get the boot this summer. Good times ahead?
They could knock £100 off every season ticket for starters and reward the fans as well as the players. Afterall, everyone said what an important role we played this season.
Having previously done a little back-of-a-fag-packet maths on this, I reckon that, based on an average gate of 35,000, it'd cost about £3.25million (let's call it an Ireland) to knock off a fiver for every attendee at every game. With these reduced prices, every extra 2,000 that then turn up puts £1million back in over a season.
Remain staggered that this still isn't happening.
Maybe because it doesn't work like that?
I've said it on several threads before but cheap tickets don't incentivise fans to go to watch football. If it did, my local team, Sutton Coldfield Town would have over 100,000 turning up every week because you can watch a game of football there for less than a tenner.
There are a load of reasons people go to watch football matches but in order of impact the cost of the ticket is pretty low down the list. That's why attendances are pretty much higher than they've ever been across the board despite ticket prices being higher than they've ever been.
maybe not absolute price, but affordability relative to income of the bulk of your support would be very significant. If people feel they can't afford to go and need the money to pay bills etc, it makes no difference whether the price of a ticket is 2 quid or 22 quid.
i think if a fiver per match ticket was knocked off or 150 quid off a season ticket it would probably seem a lot more affordable to a significant section of villa's support for whom current affordability of tickets is an issue. Don't forget also, a lot of it is down to perception. A fiver a ticket might in reality not make that much of an actual financial difference to some people, but if they think it does, then they're far more likely to buy a ticket.
Spurs supporters I'm guessing probably earn relatively more than comparable villa supporters. Liverpool get a lot of tourists who will pay. Your local non league team probably doesn't have a fan base of 100000 so that point doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
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Drop ticket prices by a fiver and you might get a short term boost but long term attendances won't be affected. The club's finances will however.
Anyone who thinks this will either happen or would increase attendances enough to compensate the club financially if it did happen is living in cloud cuckoo land.
If you don't think it would pay for itself and you still want the club to do it then you're basically saying you want the team to be less competitive.
I understand the logic behind complaining about prices - it stops clubs getting carried away with increasing prices - but if you genuinely think a price decrease is either likely or plausible then you're quite simply crazy.
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All this talk of dropping ticket prices works fine if we're the only team in the league but we're not and we're in competition with 19 other teams. Unless everyone drops their prices by the same amount (which they won't) we'll just fall further behind until we get relegated, at which point out attendances will fall a hell of a lot more than they will if we don't put out prices down.
Do you really think it would have that much of an effect? If we cut season tickets by £100 and sell 30,000 season tickets it will cost us £3million. Hardly the difference between success and failure. There are numerous clubs in the league who have incomes that are far more than £3million less than ours. That said, I think everyone realises that this is something that will never happen and we are wasting our time arguing about it. At the end of the day, by the mental standards of the Premier League, our prices are more than reasonable. That's not to say they are reasonable full stop, just more reasonable than most teams in the league.
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I'm sure you are familiar with rudimentary price elasticity economics given several previous posts you've made. One assertion that is an undeniable, stone-cold error when discussing price elasticity (which obviously we are) is to compare "Product A" (Villa tickets) at one price with a totally different "Product B" (Sutton Coldfield tickets) at another price, and use this comparison to conclude that a certain action on product A (Villa tickets) will or won't work.
This is like saying "BA wouldn't get any more business pricing flights to Vegas (no relation) at £2.10, because the number 69 bus charges that and they're hardly full"
I agree, it is a totally misleading comparison.
The products on offer are almost totally different.
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This season last placed QPR gets almost as much money from the Premier League's TV deal as the CL finalists Dortmund and Bayern combined get from the Bundesliga's TV deal
(http://i.imgur.com/k0ITLyt.jpg)
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I'm sure you are familiar with rudimentary price elasticity economics given several previous posts you've made. One assertion that is an undeniable, stone-cold error when discussing price elasticity (which obviously we are) is to compare "Product A" (Villa tickets) at one price with a totally different "Product B" (Sutton Coldfield tickets) at another price, and use this comparison to conclude that a certain action on product A (Villa tickets) will or won't work.
This is like saying "BA wouldn't get any more business pricing flights to Vegas (no relation) at £2.10, because the number 69 bus charges that and they're hardly full"
I agree, it is a totally misleading comparison.
The products on offer are almost totally different.
And who'd want to sit on a 69 bus all the way to Vegas. Is that the one with Hollywood on the front?
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Season ticket prices and ticket bundles are good value compared with other premier league teams already, so I don't see a case for discounting them further.
Single match day tickets bought at 'the gate' are comparatively expensive and, I imagine, deter to some extent supporters who watch the odd match.
I think Dave Woodhall often points out the very long history of variable Villa support. Gates varying by 15k for consecutive games was not uncommon even when we were the best team in Europe.
This was shown again last season when there was something riding on the match the support turned up - regardless of the opposition - arguably more people came to watch the Villa than in seasons where we had higher average attendances. In a way I see this as reflecting the partnership model the German clubs have - the fans and the team sensed they were in it together - a true club spirit which I hadn't personally felt for many many years.
The opportunity as I see it to harness this club spirit and floating support.
My ideas are:-
(a) I know it's not the Lerner business model, but I would give season ticket holders of x (5?) years standing the opportunity to buy shares in the club.
(b) Secondly, I would offer season ticket holders a significant early renewal discount or a 3 or 5 year package to reward loyalty.
(c) I would allocate an area of unreserved seating to floating match day support. You could either pay at the gate to get in or use an 'Oyster Card' system. Cards could be given as gifts and topped up as required. You could incentivise people to top up with special offers etc. Use of the cards would be on a first come first served basis as in the old days of standing.
(d) Keep the ticket bundles as is - they worked well last year.
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Drop ticket prices by a fiver and you might get a short term boost but long term attendances won't be affected. The club's finances will however.
Anyone who thinks this will either happen or would increase attendances enough to compensate the club financially if it did happen is living in cloud cuckoo land.
If you don't think it would pay for itself and you still want the club to do it then you're basically saying you want the team to be less competitive.
I understand the logic behind complaining about prices - it stops clubs getting carried away with increasing prices - but if you genuinely think a price decrease is either likely or plausible then you're quite simply crazy.
Lowering the ticket prices for all does not equate to more money into the club in terms of ticket revenue even with higher attendances.
Example:
Lets say our average price for a ticket is £30 and we sell on average 35,000 tickets that equates to: £1,050,000 per game.
If you lowered the pice to £25 per ticket you would generate [with 35k attending] £875,000 in ticket revenue per game. Which is a loss of £175,000 per game in ticket revenue
Now to make that short fall up we would need to sell an extra 7,000 tickets per game [£875,000 devided by £25 per ticket] meaning we would practically have to sell out every match [42,000] in order to generate the same ticket revenue as leaving the prices as they are.
As has been mentioned Randy is a business man and doing the maths on this does not really balance out.
And besides if cost was the prime factor in attendances our cup games would sell out every season as prices are very well priced [for early rounds] and we have plenty of empty seats.
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My ideas are:-
(a) I know it's not the Lerner business model, but I would give season ticket holders of x (5?) years standing the opportunity to buy shares in the club.
(b) Secondly, I would offer season ticket holders a significant early renewal discount or a 3 or 5 year package to reward loyalty.
(c) I would allocate an area of unreserved seating to floating match day support. You could either pay at the gate to get in or use an 'Oyster Card' system. Cards could be given as gifts and topped up as required. You could incentivise people to top up with special offers etc. Use of the cards would be on a first come first served basis as in the old days of standing.
(d) Keep the ticket bundles as is - they worked well last year.
There's some good ideas there, but (c) is a non-starter because any unreserved area has to be kept at 10% below capacity and the police/safety people aren't going to allow anything that encourages people to turn up and risk not getting into the match.
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My ideas are:-
(a) I know it's not the Lerner business model, but I would give season ticket holders of x (5?) years standing the opportunity to buy shares in the club.
(b) Secondly, I would offer season ticket holders a significant early renewal discount or a 3 or 5 year package to reward loyalty.
(c) I would allocate an area of unreserved seating to floating match day support. You could either pay at the gate to get in or use an 'Oyster Card' system. Cards could be given as gifts and topped up as required. You could incentivise people to top up with special offers etc. Use of the cards would be on a first come first served basis as in the old days of standing.
(d) Keep the ticket bundles as is - they worked well last year.
There's some good ideas there, but (c) is a non-starter because any unreserved area has to be kept at 10% below capacity and the police/safety people aren't going to allow anything that encourages people to turn up and risk not getting into the match.
I see there might be some safety issues which is a pity - perhaps the seating could be allocated - bit I still think there is a type of supporter who turns up at either short notice or only attends a small number of games. We should look for ways of getting these people into the ground as easy and as often as possible.
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My ideas are:-
(a) I know it's not the Lerner business model, but I would give season ticket holders of x (5?) years standing the opportunity to buy shares in the club.
(b) Secondly, I would offer season ticket holders a significant early renewal discount or a 3 or 5 year package to reward loyalty.
(c) I would allocate an area of unreserved seating to floating match day support. You could either pay at the gate to get in or use an 'Oyster Card' system. Cards could be given as gifts and topped up as required. You could incentivise people to top up with special offers etc. Use of the cards would be on a first come first served basis as in the old days of standing.
(d) Keep the ticket bundles as is - they worked well last year.
There's some good ideas there, but (c) is a non-starter because any unreserved area has to be kept at 10% below capacity and the police/safety people aren't going to allow anything that encourages people to turn up and risk not getting into the match.
I like the idea of C also, like a floating half season ticket. Maybe you could sell it so that people could redeem the credit for tickets prior to the matches they want and give the opportunity to do this before tickets go on general sale.
Although some restriction would have to be in place to prevent people just picking the cat A matches which are easier to sell anyway!
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Lowering the ticket prices for all does not equate to more money into the club in terms of ticket revenue even with higher attendances.
Whilst there is no guarantee on anything, you've chosen an example with figures which suit your argument, but you could also have chosen figures which do show higher revenue, so they don't really show anything.
I'd imagine the club have access to all sorts of historical figures and statistics which would enable them to make a pretty accurate calculation on this. We don't have access to them, so any calculation of that type is just guesswork.
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One thing I would say is that with ticket revenue representing an ever decreasing percentage of total income for clubs, it would be nice if, with the new enormous television revenue coming in, they all did something for the fans for a change - ie use it to subsidise tickets to a much greater degree, something a bit clever to think about ensuring there is a decent future generation of fans to come week in, week out, rather than just a nation of people who watch it on the telly.
That won't happen, though, what will happen is that the extra cash will go straight into the pockets of players and agents.
You could make an argument that this money helps clubs buy more and more of the best talent worldwide, but it doesn't really. For clubs other than the handful in the elite, what it ultimately translates to is bog standard average players picking up ever more money.
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Lowering the ticket prices for all does not equate to more money into the club in terms of ticket revenue even with higher attendances.
Whilst there is no guarantee on anything, you've chosen an example with figures which suit your argument, but you could also have chosen figures which do show higher revenue, so they don't really show anything.
I'd imagine the club have access to all sorts of historical figures and statistics which would enable them to make a pretty accurate calculation on this. We don't have access to them, so any calculation of that type is just guesswork.
Its not guesswork to do a simple sum: Reduce prices and you will need to sell x number more to generate the same revenue
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Lowering the ticket prices for all does not equate to more money into the club in terms of ticket revenue even with higher attendances.
Whilst there is no guarantee on anything, you've chosen an example with figures which suit your argument, but you could also have chosen figures which do show higher revenue, so they don't really show anything.
I'd imagine the club have access to all sorts of historical figures and statistics which would enable them to make a pretty accurate calculation on this. We don't have access to them, so any calculation of that type is just guesswork.
Its not guesswork to do a simple sum: Reduce prices and you will need to sell x number more to generate the same revenue
I know, and I don't disagree with the fact you need to sell more if you reduce the price.
My issue is that you've chosen arbitrary figures to prove that the revenue would fall well short, where it proves nothing at all, because you don't know if the figures are correct.
You could just as easily choose other figures which show the contrary happening.
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My ideas are:-
(a) I know it's not the Lerner business model, but I would give season ticket holders of x (5?) years standing the opportunity to buy shares in the club.
(b) Secondly, I would offer season ticket holders a significant early renewal discount or a 3 or 5 year package to reward loyalty.
(c) I would allocate an area of unreserved seating to floating match day support. You could either pay at the gate to get in or use an 'Oyster Card' system. Cards could be given as gifts and topped up as required. You could incentivise people to top up with special offers etc. Use of the cards would be on a first come first served basis as in the old days of standing.
(d) Keep the ticket bundles as is - they worked well last year.
There's some good ideas there, but (c) is a non-starter because any unreserved area has to be kept at 10% below capacity and the police/safety people aren't going to allow anything that encourages people to turn up and risk not getting into the match.
I see there might be some safety issues which is a pity - perhaps the seating could be allocated - bit I still think there is a type of supporter who turns up at either short notice or only attends a small number of games. We should look for ways of getting these people into the ground as easy and as often as ipossible.
In all walks of life people do less at short notice now - witness how we struggled to sell the extra tickets for Wigan. Those who only attend a few games tend to pick the big ones, and quite honestly after years of being asked where the ticket office/Trinity Road/ground is, they can stay at home. We do, though, need to turn fans into supporters and I've said that for years.
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I like the idea of C also, like a floating half season ticket. Maybe you could sell it so that people could redeem the credit for tickets prior to the matches they want and give the opportunity to do this before tickets go on general sale.
Although some restriction would have to be in place to prevent people just picking the cat A matches which are easier to sell anyway!
Easy to do at lower division or non-league clubs where they will realistically never sell-out the ground, but not really practical at clubs which sometimes do reach capacity.
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Perhaps we could do 3 game bundles as an exampe though. Redeemable throughout the season in specific areas of the ground excluding top category matches.
You give the club a couple of weeks notice prior to a game you want to attend.
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Although it seems counter-intuitive I don't think cutting the price of tickets is necessarily a good idea.
History seems to suggest that no matter how good Villa's team happens to be, the biggest factor for predicting the size of the crowd is the opposition and even charging higher prices does not seem to deter customers when the big boys are in town. Decline in Villa's football product over the last few years has failed to make the sort of differences to the club's income which would suggest those cuts have been damaging to the business.
Crowds have held up surprisingly well.
Modern Premiership football has become a prestige purchase and the bourgeoisisation seems all but complete. I am not sure clubs actually want to attract customers whose spending-power is so limited, that a few quid is a deal-breaker.
Cutting prices would be tantamount to announcing that Villa are downgrading their product, so it would seem wiser for them to hold price increases below inflation which would lower the cost but without the risk of declaring themselves the Premiership's Ryanair.
The substantial increases in revenue for next season and beyond, is another step towards creating a virtual Premiership franchise system as the financial gap between even ordinary Premiership clubs and the Championship clubs widens to a gulf.
With the top five or six Premiership clubs out of sight financially, as far as Villa are concerned, and finding themselves in the dog eat dog battle to maintain their elite status, I think Villa will see any extra monies they get as insulation, rather than largesse to be distributed amongst the fans for no positive effect.
They would be better off investing money in improving the match-day experience for their prosperous bourgeois customers and charging them more for the privilege.
We might dream of the huge crowds of the early post-WW2 years, but it doesn't look like we are heading in that direction.
Quite the opposite in fact.
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My ideas are:-
(a) I know it's not the Lerner business model, but I would give season ticket holders of x (5?) years standing the opportunity to buy shares in the club.
(b) Secondly, I would offer season ticket holders a significant early renewal discount or a 3 or 5 year package to reward loyalty.
(c) I would allocate an area of unreserved seating to floating match day support. You could either pay at the gate to get in or use an 'Oyster Card' system. Cards could be given as gifts and topped up as required. You could incentivise people to top up with special offers etc. Use of the cards would be on a first come first served basis as in the old days of standing.
(d) Keep the ticket bundles as is - they worked well last year.
I like the idea of (b). This was what I did at Edgbaston, with the added benefit that I officially turn into a cricketing old fart within that period, although not sufficiently old enough to be a footballing old fart for some reason.
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I like the idea of C also, like a floating half season ticket. Maybe you could sell it so that people could redeem the credit for tickets prior to the matches they want and give the opportunity to do this before tickets go on general sale.
Although some restriction would have to be in place to prevent people just picking the cat A matches which are easier to sell anyway!
Easy to do at lower division or non-league clubs where they will realistically never sell-out the ground, but not really practical at clubs which sometimes do reach capacity.
Why not? Sell it so that you pay upfront for a specific category of seating in the ground and can pick seats in that category for X cat A matches, Y Cat B and Z value matches over the season. If you let people pick the seats before match by match tickets go on general sale then the ground wont be sold out.
Sounds a good deal to have a regular involvement with the club if the one factor prevent you having a normal season ticket is the constant buggering around with KO times by SKY.
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kick-off times change after matches go to general sale, due to sky and the europa league.
from the club's perspective, this pick 'n' mix ticket idea sounds like a massive pain in the arse, for very little gain.
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I wasn't actually thinking about economics, business models, projected figures, increasing attendances or any of that bollocks when I suggested reducing season tickets by £100.
I just thought that, since we picked up £45m for a season where the fans played a major part in keeping the club in the division ( which, in turn, guarantees us the highest payday in our history next season, which, in turn, will make our already super-rich players even richer) that the club might want to share the good fortune and make a truly generous gesture to its long suffering supporters.
Very idealsitic/naive of me, I know.
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kick-off times change after matches go to general sale, due to sky and the europa league.
from the club's perspective, this pick 'n' mix ticket idea sounds like a massive pain in the arse, for very little gain.
Trying to sell and administer the best part of 20,000 match by match tickets every couple of weeks I would imagine to be a massive pain in the arse anyway, but at £20-40 each there is something to gain by doing it.
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I wasn't actually thinking about economics, business models, projected figures, increasing attendances or any of that bollocks when I suggested reducing season tickets by £100.
I just thought that, since we picked up £45m for a season where the fans played a major part in keeping the club in the division ( which, in turn, guarantees us the highest payday in our history next season, which, in turn, will make our already super-rich players even richer) that the club might want to share the good fortune and make a truly generous gesture to its long suffering supporters.
Very idealsitic/naive of me, I know.
Outside the capitalist paradigm it is a quite reasonable suggestion.
It is a measure of the dominance of capitalist ideology that we assume that everything has to be judged within the framework of that ideology.
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I like the idea of £100 off my season ticket for next season. Assuming we have 25,000 season ticket holders (I'm being speculative), it would cost £2.5M in revenues to the club. But then the club could boast what even better than ever value it is, and it might give a nudge to those picking and choosing 9 or 10 home games a season, or having a half-ST to go the whole hog and get a full-ST.
I'd suggest the £2.5M (or approx £50k p/w) is approximately a Shay Given, Stephen Ireland or Richard Dunne.
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Why are German season tickets so much cheaper than ours?
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Why are German season tickets so much cheaper than ours?
Because their supporters are better organized and wouldn't stand for it.
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Where we are at is that the rich clubs get richer and the smaller clubs just cannot compete.
So why not reverse the prize money so the Champions get £39m and the last-placed club gets £60m?
Perhaps this would make a more competitive league.
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Why are German season tickets so much cheaper than ours?
Because their supporters are better organized and wouldn't stand for it.
Don't the fans own 49% of each club as well? Not only that you can drink and scoff sausages on the terraces!
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Why are German season tickets so much cheaper than ours?
Because their supporters are better organized and wouldn't stand for it.
More fool us then...
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Why are German season tickets so much cheaper than ours?
Because their supporters are better organized and wouldn't stand for it.
More fool us then...
Think about that next time you routinely call another team's supporters 'scum' or worse.
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I wasn't actually thinking about economics, business models, projected figures, increasing attendances or any of that bollocks when I suggested reducing season tickets by £100.
I just thought that, since we picked up £45m for a season where the fans played a major part in keeping the club in the division ( which, in turn, guarantees us the highest payday in our history next season, which, in turn, will make our already super-rich players even richer) that the club might want to share the good fortune and make a truly generous gesture to its long suffering supporters.
Very idealsitic/naive of me, I know.
Outside the capitalist paradigm it is a quite reasonable suggestion.
It is a measure of the dominance of capitalist ideology that we assume that everything has to be judged within the framework of that ideology.
Are you an Alien, or David Icke in disguise Villadroid, or are you just a very intelligent person ? Just asking like.
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Why are German season tickets so much cheaper than ours?
Because their supporters are better organized and wouldn't stand for it.
Don't the fans own 49% of each club as well? Not only that you can drink and scoff sausages on the terraces!
I think it's 51% - I think the rule is that no one person or organisation can own more than 50% of any club* and that's for me the real reason the Bundesliga hasn't become as commercialised as the Premier League.
(* This rule is not universal - VfL Wolfsburg are owned by VW and Bayer Leverkusen are owned by Bayer. I also think Hoffenheim are owned by a multi-millionaire and that's how they came flying through the divisions and were leading the Bundesliga at one point. I've also got a recollection that there is a 20 year rule that says that if someone has owned 49% of a club for 20 years they have a right to buy the rest of the club - I'm sure I read or heard about this but I can't find any reference to it on a quick Google search.)
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I like the idea of C also, like a floating half season ticket. Maybe you could sell it so that people could redeem the credit for tickets prior to the matches they want and give the opportunity to do this before tickets go on general sale.
Although some restriction would have to be in place to prevent people just picking the cat A matches which are easier to sell anyway!
Easy to do at lower division or non-league clubs where they will realistically never sell-out the ground, but not really practical at clubs which sometimes do reach capacity.
Why not? Sell it so that you pay upfront for a specific category of seating in the ground and can pick seats in that category for X cat A matches, Y Cat B and Z value matches over the season. If you let people pick the seats before match by match tickets go on general sale then the ground wont be sold out.
Sounds a good deal to have a regular involvement with the club if the one factor prevent you having a normal season ticket is the constant buggering around with KO times by SKY.
You aren't going to sell many of those considering that for most of our poorly attended games Villa already do ticket deals.
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I can't comment on the economic theories or indeed capitalist ideologies but I can say that the original idea - to get £100 a nut off the price of a ST would be nice for ST holders - but not so nice for the club.
The first thing that gets folk to come through those turnstiles is vibrant attacking football. Hence Villa Park has seen a rise during the worst recession in living memory. Villa fans have seen some truly exhilarating attacking football this season - sadly not all of it from the Villa - but as the team grew we were given a glimpse of what they could achieve.
The second thing to draw more supporters -and the thing Lambert will now be working on - is to combine that flair with success. Nothing sells like it.
A young attacking team. A healthy dose of success. And then you will see Villa Park rocking.
And for me - Villa Park bursting at the seams as Villa attack and win is well worth £100.
UTV
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Just think, if Paul Lambert could pick up a player for about £8m then sell him a year later for £30m, around £15-17m of that profit could be used to let 35,000 of us have a free season ticket!
Ok I'm talking stupid, but it does show small gate income actually is compared to some of the figures spoken about when it comes to transfers and TV money.
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Just think, if Paul Lambert could pick up a player for about £8m then sell him a year later for £30m, around £15-17m of that profit could be used to let 35,000 of us have a free season ticket!
Ok I'm talking stupid, but it does show small gate income actually is compared to some of the figures spoken about when it comes to transfers and TV money.
Which is why the fans who actually go to live games no longer count in the grand scheme of things, and we have to re-arrange our lives for 9 months of the year with changing kick off times.
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I am concerned that the amount of home games we had moved for Sky/ESPN last season, may put a few people off renewing. Most parts of the ground aren't cheap and when you are paying around £20-30 a game not including travel, food, drink, etc. many could save their money and watch around half of our home games on TV if next season is anything like this one.