Ticketing pricing

[Linz]

The only rationale I can think of is perhaps the lack of 3pm kick offs at home? I know we have Luton, but the next one after Stoke is December I think?

It’s still not great though. As an aside, 10 years ago when I was a student there were regular £5 games if you bought through the Student Union. No idea if that relationship/offer is maintained.

I don't think it is any more and if it is, it isn't advertised. Midweek games used to be ones where school groups were offered subsidised tickets way-back-when too.

I think we may have got a bit complacent when the Premier League was the only advert we needed to sell tickets.

 

[wak1889]

Rape in this country has trebled in the past 20 years. Record numbers of women are being assaulted on public transport https://news.sky.com/story/violent-...trains-up-by-more-than-50-since-2021-13196789

I know many women who no longer feel safe going out in the evenings in Sheffield.

No one will say it but everyone is thinking it

 

[GlosBlade]

To put it into perspective, my season ticket renewal would have been just over £400, so for arguments sake call it £400. If you POTD every game of the season assuming an average price of £30 it would come to £690, so you pay £290 more, that would put off alot of POTD fans attending regularly. If POTD was capped at £20 POTD over the season would pay £460, so incentive is still there for ST holders but also encourages POTD. Id take an educated guess tickets capped at £20 would mean we could easily achieve an average attendance of 30000. Pulling in more casual fans and families, they will buy a programme, buy items from the club shop etc increasing those revenues.

But what do i know?

I agree, ticket prices at the lane have generally been ok but the last few years the POTD has become a little crazy. If you can afford it (which I appreciate, not everyone can) then it’s a no brainer to buy a season ticket. Sky Tv and dodgy fire sticks add to the problem, it makes little sense to spend £40 if you have those other options unless it’s a big/important game. Really disappointed to hear the kids tickets are so dear now ( I hadn’t noticed) that’s tomorrows fans that we’re failing to hook. I think £25 tops for POTD, maybe £30 for the couple of big ones ( Owls and Leeds). But once people lose the habit of going it’ll be hard to get some of them back. At £40 a pop I can’t say I blame them, if I didn’t have my season ticket I’d be thinking long and hard about the cost.

 

[ListerBlade]

If our ST numbers are around the 23k mark, at its upper pricing echelon games are roughly £23 per match for a supporter.
This is pretty good value for money, and means we might be attracting a higher number of ST holders.

This is good as it drives more loyal and consistent support, and obviously revenue generated up front.

The issue here is that overall ticket revenue is impacted by this, so despite guaranteeing a set level of income, it will be lower than the potential of ticket revenue generated if we had lower ST.

Essentially, the less ST’s we have, the cheaper walk up pricing can be. The cheaper ST’s are, the more expensive walk up tickets need to be to help achieve ticket revenue goals.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

Stoke being a Category A fixture is laughable.

There should only be two or three Category A matches this season.

Wednesday, Leeds and possibly someone like Burnley.

 

[Tickhill Blade]

Stoke being a Category A fixture is laughable.

There should only be two or three Category A matches this season.

Wednesday, Leeds and possibly someone like Burnley.

Category A is really category B though. There is a category A* for Wednesday and Leeds

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

Category A is really category B though. There is a category A* for Wednesday and Leeds

Even worse then.

I haven't been regularly since the 2018-19 season.

I didn't have a season ticket though, I just used to turn up and buy one for the Kop for about £20 which I thought was fair at the time.

 

[dingledog]

I don't think it is any more and if it is, it isn't advertised. Midweek games used to be ones where school groups were offered subsidised tickets way-back-when too.

I think we may have got a bit complacent when the Premier League was the only advert we needed to sell tickets.

Surely in PL revenue from fans at the game is verging on irrelevant compared to the money received from Sky and PL. In the championship, unless you have parachute payments, it makes a more significant contribution to your income, hence the ridiculous prices.

 

[Tickhill Blade]

Surely in PL revenue from fans at the game is verging on irrelevant compared to the money received from Sky and PL. In the championship, unless you have parachute payments, it makes a more significant contribution to your income, hence the ridiculous prices.

I don't think the clubs think like that, they try to get every £ they can out of the fans. An extra fiver on a shirt because it's 'limited edition' is irrelevant, but they still do it

 

[Bartleby]

To put it into perspective, my season ticket renewal would have been just over £400, so for arguments sake call it £400. If you POTD every game of the season assuming an average price of £30 it would come to £690, so you pay £290 more, that would put off alot of POTD fans attending regularly. If POTD was capped at £20 POTD over the season would pay £460, so incentive is still there for ST holders but also encourages POTD. Id take an educated guess tickets capped at £20 would mean we could easily achieve an average attendance of 30000. Pulling in more casual fans and families, they will buy a programme, buy items from the club shop etc increasing those revenues.

But what do i know?

If you went to 20 of the 23 games at £20 that would work out the same as your season ticket. So conversely you'd only have to miss 4 or more games with a season ticket to be worse off. I think personally that would reduce the incentive a lot, and make season tickets much less attractive, the only real advantages then being loyalty points, the convenience of not having to buy a ticket each time, and maybe the bladeyness factor.

Plus by making it more attractive (especially with the reduction given for renewing vs new season tickets) they are guaranteeing the income from 20000 plus supporters.

 

[Greasy Chap Butty]

To put it into perspective, my season ticket renewal would have been just over £400, so for arguments sake call it £400. If you POTD every game of the season assuming an average price of £30 it would come to £690, so you pay £290 more, that would put off alot of POTD fans attending regularly. If POTD was capped at £20 POTD over the season would pay £460, so incentive is still there for ST holders but also encourages POTD. Id take an educated guess tickets capped at £20 would mean we could easily achieve an average attendance of 30000. Pulling in more casual fans and families, they will buy a programme, buy items from the club shop etc increasing those revenues.

But what do i know?

I don't think that's enough differential. A lot of people would go POTD. For example if they struggle to afford the lump sum up front, the low difference would make them drop to POTD, also people who might miss a few for whatever reason could drop out.

 

[bladesmanluke]

I'm a former ST holder now pay on the day due to work commitments. I have no kids and I'm on a comfortably higher than average salary round our parts.

This week the club could've taken 2 matches worth of gate money from me, but I can't afford that. Not at the prices they charge. If the prices were more reasonable they'd have made £50 from me this week plus whatever else I decided to spend my money on in the ground across 2 fixtures. Instead they'll make £31 for one fixture.

If I can't afford it in my circumstances how do they expect the thousands of other POTD fans that have kids and maybe don't earn as much to? Where is the sense in charging what we do for second tier football? We don't seem interested whatsoever in having supporters in the ground.

 

[spikeachu]

When I need information about a place I find What Three Words fairly reliable. When it comes to Bramall Lane Full.Price.Buddy puts you on the kop.

Urgent.Repair.Today will put you in the middle of Hillsborough stadium.

Snack.Table.Secure is also used at Hillsborough when Tango arrives and Complaints.Entry.Price was secured when Tuna man took over, but is being considered by United for a transfer window swoop after reading this thread.

 

[Balham]

QPR was Cat A too. Pointless having such a system when games that should be Cat C are designated as Cat A.

I would imagine that QPR was Cat A by virtue of being the first home game. Nothing more than that.

OTD pricing (particularly for kids) is far too high but that’s a different story.

 

[Sheffsteel]

I might be part of the reason why match day prices are so high.

When it came to renewal time there were a few of us on the Kop seriously considering not renewing and paying on the day instead.

However we knew the ST price is fantastic value compared to pay on the day. So we kind of felt blackmailed to renew.

It’s the same at Hillsboro too. Everyone goes on about their high prices but most of their fans has season tickets and if you buy on early bird their ST’s are similar prices to ours, it’s only their South grandstand that’s expensive.

My brother is a ST holder at Hillsboro, he’s usually 50/50 whether to renew but he said if he didn’t renew he probably wouldn’t go because paying £38 for unattractive matches seems obscene.

 

[s4-blade]

When you look at the going rate for tickets to evens in general these days, our prices are very fair.
That’s another can of worm opened however.

 

[WORKSOPBLADE]

Stoke will be Cat A as they’re likely to sell out the away end like Derby !

No thought here for the home non ST holders

 

[FriethBlade]

Talking about exactly this earlier today with a mate of mine who also lives down south. He's got a season ticket and I don't as i dont get to enough games. I've got 2 lads one in Uni the other in the 6th form. We've all got a lot of points due to having season tickets in the past and getting to away games down south. However none of us have a membership as I refuse to pay the club 120 quid a year for nothing. This makes it difficult getting tickets for some games as I can't get them til late on. This combined with the expense and ease of watching on the box is going to mean less matches attended.

We've been to the QPR and Derby matches and it cost me over 80 quid for tickets on the kop for the Derby game. Add in petrol and a few beers and it was a 200 quid day. I'm not going to be spending that too often.

It cost me 37 quid on the kop, I can remember it was only a few seasons back you got a ticket in the south stand for less than that and a ticket on the kop was low 20s so they've gone up 70-80% in price in no more than 5 years.

There's no way neutrals are paying this kind of money and to cap it all, this money we are all forking out is going to kids earning a million pounds a year and their parasitic agents

 

[diplomat]

My son is a lapsed season ticket holder, and only working part time at the minute. He won't pay anywhere near current POTD prices, and just waits until one of ST holding mates isn't going. I suspect most people do the same. Every game being free to watch on TV exacerbates the problem.

I’m working and have a decent income but if I didn’t have a season ticket I would barely go unless I could use a ticket of someone who couldn’t go. I’m taking the kids to their first game on Saturday and mainly picked it because my mate and his lad can’t go so I can take their mum and only have to buy one junior ticket or it would be about £60-£70 quid and I’d rather us all have a full day out at the Deep or Sundown or something.

I would definitely watch anything in tv in the pub and spend less rather than pay £40 for a ticket.

 

[Pedro Verde]

The POTD prices are ridiculous especially for kids who are the supporters of the future

Dont we have some sort of supporters group that have been picked out to converse with the board on these sort of issues think its high time they spoke up for our more normal supporters and do what they are supposed to do

 

[Tickhill Blade]

The idea that tickets prices are a purely commercial decision to maximise revenue would be fine if any other part of football at all was run on a commercial basis, and especially at United.

All clubs lose millions, they pay more than 100% of turnover on wages, they're happy to pay agents even though they act for the other party in deals. At United, we can't even find a sponsor for the shirts, we make no attempt to communicate with our customers, we can't get a new shirt in the shop before the season starts. But tickets must be priced commercially.

 

[Tickhill Blade]

Talking about exactly this earlier today with a mate of mine who also lives down south. He's got a season ticket and I don't as i dont get to enough games. I've got 2 lads one in Uni the other in the 6th form. We've all got a lot of points due to having season tickets in the past and getting to away games down south. However none of us have a membership as I refuse to pay the club 120 quid a year for nothing. This makes it difficult getting tickets for some games as I can't get them til late on. This combined with the expense and ease of watching on the box is going to mean less matches attended.

We've been to the QPR and Derby matches and it cost me over 80 quid for tickets on the kop for the Derby game. Add in petrol and a few beers and it was a 200 quid day. I'm not going to be spending that too often.

It cost me 37 quid on the kop, I can remember it was only a few seasons back you got a ticket in the south stand for less than that and a ticket on the kop was low 20s so they've gone up 70-80% in price in no more than 5 years.

There's no way neutrals are paying this kind of money and to cap it all, this money we are all forking out is going to kids earning a million pounds a year and their parasitic agents

The membership scheme is a rip off and purely exists to get some cash out of non ST holders who might want to use their loyalty points.

It'd be like Tesco rewarding their loyal customers by letting them use their Clubcard, but only if they paid £40 a year first.

 

[FinchleyBlade]

One thing you can't criticise McCabe for is the affordability of tickets. He was always good with ticket offers and ensuring that they were affordable for lesser off and working class families. Those days long gone now. I still can't get over charging nearly 40 quid to watch Derby at home. It's insanity.

 

[Rusty]

This is the 1st season in a very long time I haven't had a season ticket, nothing to do with last seasons freak show just life/circumstances. However still going to games but jeez it ain't cheap, could be worse, I'm now a senior! Also not many decent seats knocking about, won't go on kop... think too much of my knees. Really hoping they'll do half season around Christmas for rest of season, even though won't be a great seat just need to get back on board and hopefully upgrade to a better seat next summer

 

[71Blade]

Not sure if this has always happened but sky have added the plus channels showing alot more EFL games add in IPTV and the high prices you would think the clubs would do something to entice fans to attend in terms of lowering prices.

 

[Greasy Chap Butty]

This is the 1st season in a very long time I haven't had a season ticket, nothing to do with last seasons freak show just life/circumstances. However still going to games but jeez it ain't cheap, could be worse, I'm now a senior! Also not many decent seats knocking about, won't go on kop... think too much of my knees. Really hoping they'll do half season around Christmas for rest of season, even though won't be a great seat just need to get back on board and hopefully upgrade to a better seat next summer

BLUT seems very good for view, and can get season tickets on it I think.

 

[Russ]

The club needs to have a big push on mini-season tickets for the second half of the season.

Maybe do some kind of returning Blade offer.

And occasional offers throughout the season.

That’s if they are bothered.

 

[YES Blade]

Gene Simmons said the following regarding fans moaning about Oasis tickets:

“Somebody sits in a room and tries to figure out how far the rubber band can stretch. And if you're not selling tickets, guess what happens? The price goes down. Capitalism! If you don't want to pay that amount, don't go."

It’s as simple as that for me, if you think it costs too much just don’t go!

 

[Tickhill Blade]

Gene Simmons said the following regarding fans moaning about Oasis tickets:

“Somebody sits in a room and tries to figure out how far the rubber band can stretch. And if you're not selling tickets, guess what happens? The price goes down. Capitalism! If you don't want to pay that amount, don't go."

It’s as simple as that for me, if you think it costs too much just don’t go!

If you think your gas costs too much, just don't put the heating on. Capitalism!

 

[Snake]

The club needs to have a big push on mini-season tickets for the second half of the season.

Maybe do some kind of returning Blade offer.

And occasional offers throughout the season.

That’s if they are bothered.

Totally agree. It's really easy to get out of the habit/routine of going to the games. The folks that didn't renew their ST cos of the scars of last season, should be able to sort it for the second half of the season. Call it 'fair weather supporters' if you like, but I call it sound business sense.