Chris Heck - President of Business Operations

[dave.woodhall]

My point was the on-field success has put it on a plate to get better commercial deals. Anyone could have done it off the back of Emery's magic.

and your point is largely wrong, aside from anything else we had to negotiate exits from our existing deals which were both supposed to run for this season before we even started talks with replacements, that's not easy and should be shrugged away as something anyone could do.

After that, and given the time involved, the deals will also have been in talks since last Autumn (with Adidas almost certainly signed by about November at the latest) when all we had was a good start the season (with a couple of heavy defeats mixed in).

Is it really so hard for you to accept that there are things that Heck has done well since he arrived?

Given Sawari's is on the board at Adidas and one of the main shareholders any credit given to Heck for brokering the Adidas deal is laughable . Thank you Nas, Fuck off Heck

Do you know much about how football sponsorships work?

[trinityoap]

Blimey Simboy, you're in a cheerful mood. This is what happens when you go to the shitty part of Strasbourg. Having said that I agree with and I haven't been further than Worcester for two weeks.

[The Edge]

At least at Spurs and Arsenal, in return for getting fleeced you get two modern stadiums with facilities fit for watching football in the 21st century. And with Arsenal, it's a piece of piss to both get to, and away from.

Of course, but nevertheless it's clearly not true to say that other clubs have continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.  Infact, without googling I strongly suspect that with the exception of Man City our league match day prices are cheaper than all the other 'Big 6' clubs we are trying to compete with.

For John's sake I will reconfirm my view that the CL prices were far too high.  The truth is they could have sold all seats at a Cat A prices (which I again feel is too high but that is now an established price for this season) and surely there would have been much less outcry.  As season ticket holders are paying that price anyway, we'd only be talking about knocking £15 off for what, about 6k general admission tickets?

Newcastle and Liverpool have both recently done deals with concessions when playing in the Champions league. Liverpool even did a cheapest kids one for £9. Our fans are being hammered in their pockets. Whether you think it's justified or not is a different matter. My current circumstances mean I can afford it but I'm not a bloke in his thirties with a massive mortgage and young kids to feed. Ordinary people like that with averagely paid jobs are  being frozen out and it's those people I'm voicing concern for. Lose 'em young and you risk losing 'em forever.

It's not just about the CL though is it?  Would you be happy with minimum £1k + season tickets and £100+ pw ticket prices if we did a deal on the CL games?  As that's what the alturistic 6 have been charging for years.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that other clubs have not continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket.

I also don't think Newcastle are the greatest example as they are also fucked by PSR, just like us and they have the benefit of a 52k seater stadium.

Why would we have to pay a grand for season tickets and 100 quid for matchday tickets in the PL just because the club offered concession package deals in the CL? As many on here have pointed out numerous times the price of a match  ticket is a small percentage of the clubs overall revenue so it's just so unnecessary to squeeze the pips out of the fans. Add that to all the other crap things Heck has presided over and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. In his short spell at the club he has  created a lot of animosity at a time when we should be having the time of our lives.

Right, the point I'm making is that all the 'Big 6' have not 'continually raised revenues without resorting to hammering loyal supporters in the pocket'
I supported this by pointing to their £1k+ season tickets and £100 match day tickets for league games.

You responded by saying their CL tickets are cheaper.  Implying that they indeed are not 'hammering loyal supporters' as per the original hypothesis.

And I responded to this by asking if you would prefer the higher League match ticket prices in return for the lower CL prices these clubs charge.  This was my way of demonstrating to you that these clubs do indeed hammer their fans even if their CL tickets are cheaper than ours.

Sorry if this comes across badly, but I'm just trying to draw a line under this part of the discussion which was just in reference to that comment.  I entirely agree that our CL prices are too high, I'm just pointing out that all the clubs we are trying to compete with (perhaps bar Man City - I haven't looked) also fleece their fans - and over the course of a season by substantially more than we do.

Ok i see you have zoned in on one part of my post. I don't want to get bogged down with that. Liverpool are selling child's tickets for £9.50. Our cheapest child ticket for CL is £54. Man City and Newcastle have both done excellent package deals in respective seasons. London clubs just don't compare just because it's London. However we package this our club has absolutely cashed in on the fanbase and it's wrong.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Liverpool are selling child's tickets for £9.50. Our cheapest child ticket for CL is £54. Man City and Newcastle have both done excellent package deals in respective seasons. London clubs just don't compare just because it's London. However we package this our club has absolutely cashed in on the fanbase and it's wrong.

Amen.

[dave.woodhall]

Our cheapest kids is £20.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Are the club are interested in attracting young, long term supporters to be the lifeblood of this club for years?

The Law of Heck is pretty straight forward;

Don't be a child
Don't be a youth
Don't have a family
Be prepared to sell your kidney
Don't be a pensioner
Don't expect anything that doesn't come with additional cost
Do have a company with an extremely healthy 'entertainment' budget

Simple.

[Chip Butty 111]

[Gareth]

Are the club are interested in attracting young, long term supporters to be the lifeblood of this club for years?

The Law of Heck is pretty straight forward;

Don't be a child
Don't be a youth
Don't have a family
Be prepared to sell your kidney
Don't be a pensioner
Don't expect anything that doesn't come with additional cost
Do have a company with an extremely healthy 'entertainment' budget

Simple.

Would have thought every board of directors in football would have that as a ‘nirvana’ list to be fair

Second thoughts I don’t want to be fair to him

[Tuscans]

[chrisw1]

I just don’t see how you can argue one club is fleecing fans more than others based on just 4 CL games and ignoring the overall cost of supporting the respective teams over the season.

And I don’t think you can just discount London clubs from that discussion as I’m sure the majority of their traditional support was as working class as ours. Just because they’ve been priced out a few years before some of our fans doesn’t make the prices those clubs charge any more palatable.

Edit - just seen those Liverpool league prices.  Fair play, they look cheaper than ours.  I’d guess Man City’s are too.

[Villan82]

New statue behind the North stand, intriguing.

Chris, I think we all want a bit of clarity about the stadium plans medium- to long- term

[VillaTim]

I just don’t see how you can argue one club is fleecing fans more than others based on just 4 CL games and ignoring the overall cost of supporting the respective teams over the season.

And I don’t think you can just discount London clubs from that discussion as I’m sure the majority of their traditional support was as working class as ours. Just because they’ve been priced out a few years before some of our fans doesn’t make the prices those clubs charge any more palatable.

Edit - just seen those Liverpool league prices.  Fair play, they look cheaper than ours.  I’d guess Man City’s are too.

They are , as are Man Utd

[cdbearsfan]

I hope we commission the people who did that Liz n Phil statue.

[edgysatsuma89]

Knowing Heck it'll probably be a statue of himself (a tiny one) and even I'd respect the size of his balls if he did. Maybe a man throwing a cabbage? Mings in his greatest moment scoring the own goal to make it 3-0 to Fulham?

[Percy McCarthy]

I'm currently in a meeting with a Man City friend, he is a season ticket holder and in the cup scheme. His ticket for Inter next week was £37:50, and they have been moaning as that is a hike from last year. We have had our trousers pulled down.

Comparing us with Man City is meaningless, they have the turnover, backing and FFP 'clearance' to do whatever they like, as well as a ground that has a 54k capacity that was originally given to them for about £20m quid. They've also cheated the system to a ridiculous degree to create that situation.

Well this has given us all a laugh this afternoon.
The keyword being turnover. The commercial side of the other clubs in the top 5 dwarfs ours. Increasing ticket prices adds next to nothing in the big picture financially. Ditto GA+. Small fry revenue wise. Emery has raised our profile massively, making us very attractive to commercial partnerships. This is how the other clubs have made money, and plenty of it.
As you say City have the backing, then so do we with NSWE.
And yes they clearly are cheats.
But they are way more savvy commercially, along with your Spurs, Arsenals of the world, and this is what we need to learn now we have a successful team.
We are in the limelight for once and need to exploit it to the max.
Raising ticket prices to daft levels, relevant to average wages in the local community, is a business model that no other top club has adopted surprisingly. And about 80% on here are fuming/disillusioned/priced out.
It's a bad idea and hasn't been well received clearly.
I'm involved in the delivery of railway infrastructure projects that cost millions, new junctions/stations/new routes.
They are funded via commercial partnerships.
They are not funded by  Mr Smith on the 8:15 to Paddington
It's how big business works. Perhaps if we get savvy we can charge £30 for Real Madrid like City did last year.

It’s nothing to do with being ‘savvy’. I think there’s no doubt we’re squeezing every penny we currently can out of sponsors. Sadly, sponsors are not willing to pay us what they’ll pay the other clubs you mention, which is quite understandable given the coverage we get in the media.

I watch Back Pages Tonight’ every night on SSN. We barely get a mention. So that’s the papers.  Last season, I sat down to watch The Football Show every Monday morning, a three-hour show that waited about two hours and fifty minutes to mention fourth-placed Villa unless we’d beaten Arsenal. And then Arsenal were the story. We already know about MOTD. Last season The Guardian didn’t do match reports on our UECL games, nobody seemed to know we had any injuries, and we were either tagged on at the end of their podcast or completely ignored. I rarely listen to non-Villa pods but I suspect most general football ones don’t care about us either. The top football stories this week seem to be an Arsenal injury and an ex-player slagging off Manure’s manager, and that is the kind of coverage you can expect all season - hours and hours of it.

Sponsors know that we barely make a splash and pay accordingly. They’d be mad not to.