When was the last time we went into a league game with 5 to 6000 unsold seats? Pre-Dean Smith?
It probably is. That also coincides with the last time we as a family wouldn't have all gone to a game we could make, but we are definitely not going to Brentford in December this year as we can no longer justify the cost on top of everything else.
Isn't that a mistake to use personal anecdotal exprience as evidence of a wider trend? I'd be suprised if there's anything less than 40,000 on against Brentford or whatever it is with the upper Witton empty, based on every attendance in the league from February 2019 onwards, that we were able to attend.
Possibly - maybe everyone else has just got a spare £600 lying around. All I know is in the past we would have gone to that game, but this year we can't afford it. There have been plenty of games in that period where the ground hasn't sold out but it has been close enough to be unnoticeable, and I am guessing that's down to attendance of regulars that go to every game they can. This year, I suspect lots of us won't be able/willing to do it.
Fair enough, sounds more like you're hoping that will happen to me, as there's nothing to really back it up.
I'm certainly not hoping we have thousands of empty seats, as I think I have tried to say it's vital we fill the ground as much as possible when one or two league points can make a massive difference and home crowds have a demonstrable influence on results. There are very specific reasons why I think this year could see a few league games with low attendances (sub 40k) that we haven't seen since we got promoted:
1 - There were a number of games where home tickets didn't sell out in 23/24, mainly in the first half of the season before we saw how things were panning out. Given we only have roughly 10k tickets to sell for any given match (deducting STs and away support), it's not a huge number to sell for any one game, yet we failed to on at least 3 or 4 occasions last season.
2 - Out of the roughly 10k tickets, most are being sold to members. In that group, I would suspect there is a bit of a 50/50 split between people like ourselves who up until now have effectively treated them as a de facto season ticket (i.e. it's the only way to buy tickets for every match), and those who pick them up for specific games that are convenient or appealing, with then a very limited number going to general sale.
3 - This year, any member that wants to go to CL games will have spent IRO £270 extra by November. Given general admission prices have gone up by 15% already this season, that is a lot of extra money no-one has had to find before, and all in the space of the first 3-4 months of a season that could see much bigger games coming after Christmas.
4 - There is a general loss of 'goodwill' amongst those members who have either been priced out of CL games, or were unable to get a ticket for Bayern due to the frankly shitty prioritisation of ticket sales, with hardly any credit for loyalty from last season.
5 - The number of concessionary seats in the ground was cut this season again. If you are taking a child to a game, there are now less of those seats available and only in specific areas - people who would potentially be filling two seats will now take none.
Like I say, this could be just me extrapolating my own circumstances, but I've seen enough comments in the last few days on here and social media from long-standing fans that show we are seriously close to losing fans who have been match-going for years if not decades. I was also out with friends who are all ST holders over the weekend, and every single one of them has been demoralised by the last few weeks.
As supporters of all clubs have been saying for a long time, there is a tipping point (and this will be at a different level for different clubs) where fans will be priced out of the game and the whole thing will suffer - for the first time as a Villa fan, I honestly think we have reached ours and it has come just as we should be celebrating the best team we've had in a quarter of a century.