How do we change the 'cultural' make up of football crowds?

[Handsworth Wood Villa]

Who is this 'they' people are referring to?

I hate racial targets of any type, we should be reaching out/encouraging all youngsters, regardless of race, creed or colour.

'They' refers to ethnic minorities i.e. Asian people and black people.

We should target them because a good 20% of Brummies are Asian and a good 6% of Brummies are black.

That's a group of over 200,000 Brummies of which only 1% come to Villa Park.

We should try and tap into that potential fanbase.

[DeKuip]

We should focus efforts on keeping the supporters we already have, rather than trying to think of ways of enticing people who aren't that interested.
If football was made more affordable then less people would be driven away.

[TimTheVillain]

Villa have been selling balti pies for years.

*winky*

[UsualSuspect]

Who is this 'they' people are referring to?

I hate racial targets of any type, we should be reaching out/encouraging all youngsters, regardless of race, creed or colour.

'They' refers to ethnic minorities i.e. Asian people and black people.

We should target them because a good 20% of Brummies are Asian and a good 6% of Brummies are black.

That's a group of over 200,000 Brummies of which only 1% come to Villa Park.

We should try and tap into that potential fanbase.

Burger me

We have had a culturally diverse population in Brum for donkeys years.

If people want to come then they will come, you dont need to target them. I'm sure the black/asian/chinese community have heard of Aston Villa.

If you are going to offer cheap tickets then it's cheap tickets for all,

[Vanilla]

The issue as well is, as modern Premier League football promotes itself as an entertainment, how every game is an event, it loses it's sheen if the location is around the corner. If you live further afield, at least you have got the journey of getting there. To spend £40 just to walk up the road don't seem enticing.

[E I Adio]

Who is this 'they' people are referring to?

I hate racial targets of any type, we should be reaching out/encouraging all youngsters, regardless of race, creed or colour.

'They' refers to ethnic minorities i.e. Asian people and black people.

We should target them because a good 20% of Brummies are Asian and a good 6% of Brummies are black.

That's a group of over 200,000 Brummies of which only 1% come to Villa Park.

We should try and tap into that potential fanbase.

Burger me

We have had a culturally diverse population in Brum for donkeys years.

If people want to come then they will come, you dont need to target them. I'm sure the black/asian/chinese community have heard of Aston Villa.

If you are going to offer cheap tickets then it's cheap tickets for all,

Firstly, it's not "racial" targeting. It's about identifying target markets. It's what every successful manufacturer does to sell it's products.

Secondly, a modern football business is not based on "The field of dreams." People will not just spend their hard-earned without a reason to do so. People need to be persuaded, tempted, prodded, offered something special to get them to try something new. It's only the same as launching a new Cola drink. It might be ten times nicer than Coke and half the price, but to be successful you would need to spend many millions of pounds in promoting it. (without any guarantee of success.)

This is what I'm sure Villa's Marketing Department already know, although I'm not sure there's a huge amount of evidence to suggest that they are doing enough of it.

[dave.woodhall]

As a wise man once said, if you want to start a fight on an aeroplane ask everyone how much they paid.

If you want to get to a particular demographic, you target them. The one obvious market who are woefully under-represented in our crowds are local people. So we aim to get them in. Then we aim at other markets.

That cheap tickets and halal areas promotion for the game against Bolton a few years ago was a great idea. It may be a coincidence, but the number of Asians in the crowd seems to have risen since then.

[Vanilla]

As a wise man once said, if you want to start a fight on an aeroplane ask everyone how much they paid.

If you want to get to a particular demographic, you target them. The one obvious market who are woefully under-represented in our crowds are local people. So we aim to get them in. Then we aim at other markets.

That cheap tickets and halal areas promotion for the game against Bolton a few years ago was a great idea. It may be a coincidence, but the number of Asians in the crowd seems to have risen since then.

Another problem is the dearth of Asian or British-Asian footballers at the highest level.

[pauliewalnuts]

The Bolton initiative a few years ago was the most forward thinking thing the board have done.

[Ger Regan]

The Bolton initiative a few years ago was the most forward thinking thing the board have done.

And it still resulted in moans from some if I remember correctly.

[adrenachrome]

Cultural make-up?

Fair play to Madonna, who has given it a good try:

[pauliewalnuts]

The Bolton initiative a few years ago was the most forward thinking thing the board have done.

And it still resulted in moans from some if I remember correctly.

Gigantic racists.

*popcorn*

[QBVILLA]

Most blacks and Asians don't support a local club anyway...

We'll have to get them started then.

Well I guess we should aim for the really young kids (i.e. 5 or 6 year olds.)

Got to look at free tickets for local children (especially in the black and Asian areas.)

Like the whole class gets a free 'school trip' to Villa Park.

By the time they get into football they will probably already be supporting Man U, Liverpool or Arsenal.

And then we change them. It's easier to get someone who 'supports' a Sky team on TV to support us than it is to get someone with no interest in football.

I managed to convert my mate's lad, then aged 9 from a Man Utd 'fan' to the Villa.He's 12 now and he still hasn't forgiven me

[pestria]

It strikes me there's two separate issues being discussed here.

Firstly there something about connecting the club to it's local community and secondly there's a need to increase attendances/revenue.

From a marketing point of view I don't think it makes a lot of sense to connect the two.  Sadly the inner city population of Birmingham (Asian, black, White, yellow, ....) is not an attractive target Market these days.  Socially disadvantaged (or poor if you want to get down to brass tacks) communities simply don't fork out £40 pp for their weekend entertainment - and given the only simple variable in shaping the marketing mix is price then the club ends up buying bums on seats - a tactic bound to fail in the medium to long term.

So to increase revenue and long term attendances the club should target the more affluent from outside the city - again why be restricted by race?

Having said all that I can't see why the club doesn't simply give awaya couple of tickets to each household within the local area of the ground as a sort of thank you for putting up with the match day upheaval.  That way locals are engaged and their's no bias in on pricing.

[UsualSuspect]

Seeing as the Club already do a lot of good work in schools and do a fairly good job as far as ticket prices go, exactly what more can they do to attract different ethnicities?

 I still believe that price has to be the number 1 factor regarding attendances but if anyone has evidence to the contary i'd love to see it

As far as halal goes, good idea but bugger me do you honestly thing that the asian community didn't attend VP because of meat?

"ooohhh I'm quite happy paying 40 quid for a ticket but as there is no halal meat then sod it"

A bit like us selling salt fish patties will make more people want to attend from the afro caribbean community

4 things will get people to attend:

Success
Exciting football
Cheap tickets
Changing our name to Aston Chelsea Arsenal manure Villa