The rising cost of Football

[Dave Cooper please]

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.

[Mister E]

£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!

[Toronto Villa]

The cheapest season ticket down the sty is £26 more than ours. Poor bastards.

[The Left Side]

Well done Villa

[bertlambshank]

PF lost me when he said"matchday experience"

[Brend'Watkins]

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.

[itbrvilla]

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.

[ez]

I tend to think our prices are among the cheapest because many of our fans just won't go if the prices were higher.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

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.

[JJ-AV]

Is the full report available anywhere?

[JJ-AV]

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!

[CJ]

Is the full report available anywhere?

This BBC page seems to have all the data

[Ad@m]

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?

[silhillvilla]

My season tickets works out at approx £15 per game - only £3 more than watching Solihull !
My lads is £5.26 a game.

[JJ-AV]

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...