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Pundits keep talking about ticket prices coming down with the new TV money
- Thread starter RomfordYiddo
- Start date
I think one of the biggest reasons why ticket prices (at least of the top sides) won't be coming down in the near future is because in some sense they are still a long way "underpriced".
Most clubs raise their ticket prices a few percent above inflation every year, yet the demand for these tickets don't decrease whatsoever. I think the owners, executives etc think that ticket prices should be a lot higher than they are now. But can't raise it in one go because of the public backlash that they would receive, as this would have serious potential for fans boycotting. Take our club for instance. We have "fans" who purchase season tickets every year, yet hardly go to any games. Instead they resell their tickets on ticket exchanges, at big mark ups. I'm sure that someone like levy is sick every time he sees this, because that markup should go to our club.
In short, these fans are taking advantage of the fact that clubs themselves can't raise the ticket values to its "true value". And so they are left in a position where they can financially profit from it. I think clubs (espeically the big ones like us), will continue to keep raising prices above inflation so that they reach the true value asap.
There's also a lot of talk about how the atmosphere will get damaged of only "rich" people can go etc, but i think the genuine danger's of that is still a long way off. The Premier League still has one of the best atmosphere's in the world (arguably the best), and this doesnt seem like it will fade away anytime soon. Also, higher prices have meant that a wider demographic of fans are able to now attend the games. In the past, the working class made up most of the fan base, but now you see all sorts of fans from various backgrounds and cultures. All adding to the beauty of the Premier League.
Most clubs raise their ticket prices a few percent above inflation every year, yet the demand for these tickets don't decrease whatsoever. I think the owners, executives etc think that ticket prices should be a lot higher than they are now. But can't raise it in one go because of the public backlash that they would receive, as this would have serious potential for fans boycotting. Take our club for instance. We have "fans" who purchase season tickets every year, yet hardly go to any games. Instead they resell their tickets on ticket exchanges, at big mark ups. I'm sure that someone like levy is sick every time he sees this, because that markup should go to our club.
In short, these fans are taking advantage of the fact that clubs themselves can't raise the ticket values to its "true value". And so they are left in a position where they can financially profit from it. I think clubs (espeically the big ones like us), will continue to keep raising prices above inflation so that they reach the true value asap.
There's also a lot of talk about how the atmosphere will get damaged of only "rich" people can go etc, but i think the genuine danger's of that is still a long way off. The Premier League still has one of the best atmosphere's in the world (arguably the best), and this doesnt seem like it will fade away anytime soon. Also, higher prices have meant that a wider demographic of fans are able to now attend the games. In the past, the working class made up most of the fan base, but now you see all sorts of fans from various backgrounds and cultures. All adding to the beauty of the Premier League.
A salary cap would mean that the money would just end up in levy's pockets instead of eriksen's and kane's. The money going into the club would remain the same. A salary cap has no effect on supply of tickets or the demand of us fans to watch football.
Bayern Munich probably cannot charge what they want. And clubs like Dortmund certainly cannot. They've set themselves a precedent with these relatively small prices. And now if they were to match ticket prices of clubs like us, arsenal, chelsea, they would have a lot of empty seats.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29618299
In the first part of the video, you have the british fans who go on about how they are there because it "works out <to be> cheaper". If dortmund had our prices, all these tourist fans would not be there. And at 1:15 in, the marketing director of dortmund says "if we were to ask for prices like this <england>, we would lose the people".
Isn't the fanbase of premier league clubs more diverse now than 20 years ago? I think the rise in ticket prices has a lot to do with this. Simply put, i think the ticket price rises has indirectly lead to football grounds being more welcoming to a wider demographic of fans
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
football is for everybody, it doesn't cost anything to go to hackney marshes on saturday morning, or your local park, if you want a "better product" you spend a bit more money, pay a fiver, got to charlton, nothing wrong with eating in mcdonalds every now and then, fancy a byron burger, well thats a premium product, pony up
Neymar - I think you have your cause and effect wrong -the fact that football after italia 90's and the changes in the taylor report a wider demographic of fans attended hence they could push up prices.
My argument is the club is not a business like any other, 80% of the fans at the ground are not there because of the product but it is their club. When we were brick we were still getting 20 k +, if we go down the leagues we will still get 15K+ at the ground. In effect the market mechanism breaks down in two ways, one they have a monopoly and two The club is a social good.
Monopoly- you may say that there are loads of different sports and teams but that is not a choice I dont follow football (well i do but not in the same way) I follow Tottenham and there is only one tottenham. Monopolies need to be regulated so they dont take advantage of their dominante position.
Secondly, the club was built by the fans. Not Sky, not Enic. It is still a sports team not a business, it had been going for 150+ years due to the support, The premier League has taken a community asset and sold it around the world without regard for the community that built it. Not everything should be run as a business, I am fairly left wing politically and this may be my bias. Just because you can rip people off it doesn't mean you should.
All in my opinion of course,
My argument is the club is not a business like any other, 80% of the fans at the ground are not there because of the product but it is their club. When we were brick we were still getting 20 k +, if we go down the leagues we will still get 15K+ at the ground. In effect the market mechanism breaks down in two ways, one they have a monopoly and two The club is a social good.
Monopoly- you may say that there are loads of different sports and teams but that is not a choice I dont follow football (well i do but not in the same way) I follow Tottenham and there is only one tottenham. Monopolies need to be regulated so they dont take advantage of their dominante position.
Secondly, the club was built by the fans. Not Sky, not Enic. It is still a sports team not a business, it had been going for 150+ years due to the support, The premier League has taken a community asset and sold it around the world without regard for the community that built it. Not everything should be run as a business, I am fairly left wing politically and this may be my bias. Just because you can rip people off it doesn't mean you should.
All in my opinion of course,
Robspur12
Nick Barmby
great post. Typical of the Tories in this thread to know the price of everything and the value of nothing
I can empathise with your overall opinions, and i think it shows that ultimately this debate comes down to each persons socio-political views; ie. People who are left wing will generally beleive that football clubs are somewhat public goods which should be run for good of the population rather than for profits etc. and vice versa.
Ultimately i dont think football clubs should be defined as a "social good" because they dont inherently provide any benefit to society, and if we were theoretically able to remove football clubs from england, i dont think english society would be any worse off. In addition, attending football games is just one form of entertainment. If football were to become deprivatised, why shouldnt other forms of similar entertainment be too?
You would think theres only one tottenham, but FC United and AFC Wimbledon show that football fan's can change their tastes. I've no doubt our fans could do so too. Like you have mentioned above, crowd figures do fluctuate depending on club performance, clearly showing that fans are not "trapped" by their club by any stretch of the imagination.
The problem with this line of thought is that it can be applied to almost anything. Change iphone/apple in for tottenham/enic etc, and you'll see my point.
Every year we see that more and more fans across england are giving up their season tickets, but crowd figures/waiting lists grow. I think the discontent lies mainly with those that are having to give up their season tickets. football is changing, and i think these fans are struggling to accept that the days of the heavily underpriced season tickets are gone. If this demographic were to accept that they just have to pick and choose games, i don't think the vitriol against the clubs would be quite as strong. At the end of the day, going to watch other sporting events, theatres, concerts etc cost similar amounts to going to a premier league football game, so i think these current prices are fair enough. and thats even before the supply/demand argument.
Ultimately i dont think football clubs should be defined as a "social good" because they dont inherently provide any benefit to society, and if we were theoretically able to remove football clubs from england, i dont think english society would be any worse off. In addition, attending football games is just one form of entertainment. If football were to become deprivatised, why shouldnt other forms of similar entertainment be too?
You would think theres only one tottenham, but FC United and AFC Wimbledon show that football fan's can change their tastes. I've no doubt our fans could do so too. Like you have mentioned above, crowd figures do fluctuate depending on club performance, clearly showing that fans are not "trapped" by their club by any stretch of the imagination.
The problem with this line of thought is that it can be applied to almost anything. Change iphone/apple in for tottenham/enic etc, and you'll see my point.
Every year we see that more and more fans across england are giving up their season tickets, but crowd figures/waiting lists grow. I think the discontent lies mainly with those that are having to give up their season tickets. football is changing, and i think these fans are struggling to accept that the days of the heavily underpriced season tickets are gone. If this demographic were to accept that they just have to pick and choose games, i don't think the vitriol against the clubs would be quite as strong. At the end of the day, going to watch other sporting events, theatres, concerts etc cost similar amounts to going to a premier league football game, so i think these current prices are fair enough. and thats even before the supply/demand argument.
But football clubs were built by fans long before big money came in to the game -- I'm not talking about finance, but I'm talking about importance, made to matter, to one day become something worth obscene amounts. Money only came in because of the buzz and spectacle that fans created. Otherwise, it's just some blokes kicking a ball about. Now, those fans, their next generations in line, the sons, the grandsons, many of them have been discarded. IMO, that makes a football club in no way comparable to an iPhone.
Despite what all the spivs associated with the game now say, a football club isn't just a product to be sold. That thinking is the disease of the modern game imo. In the end though, this will only get worse and after a long enough time, none of the fans will have any attachment to the past, and will basically see the club in similar terms; a product, an iPhone.
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
actually...
when Steve Wozniak finished his first Apple logic board he intended to show it off and give the plans away for free, he did it for the fun of the challenge and to impress his peers at the homebrew computer club, it was the vision of Steve Jobs which turned it into a business, the iPhone isn't a bad long term analogy to professional football at all
Yeah, I'm convinced now, the analogy is perfect.
It's like in the 50's/60's/70's and 80's, when most poncey people didn't really care much for iPhones. You could buy an iPhone for peanuts. Didn't really matter if the phone was crap or not, there were people who'd buy them and they could afford them because they were cheap. In the 90's, they started getting a bit dearer, more so in the 2000's. Many of the people who had iPhones in the past couldn't afford the ones on sale, even though the whole 'brand' was something built by the people who gave a sh1t in the decades that came before -- it was the reason Sky bothered to buy the rights to watching people play candy-crush in the first place. But no iPhones for those people anymore.
As you say, a clear parallel.
As you say, a clear parallel.