Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Having sit down over the last few weeks and seen both the rugby and football and seen some very good match,s of both,but looking round the stands they are not full anymore.
Years ago top football clubs and Rugby the stands would have been full right up with others waiting outside to get in.
I think it now costing far to much for tickets to get in, add the cost of getting to the grounds on top ,and some football clubs play more then one match a week it must cost supporters at time £100s per week to see them.So more and more are staying at home and see it on the TV .
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I can't comment on Rugby prices as I know nothing about them but Football at premiership level is beyond the pale with 60 quid a match on average, you are right there are fares to be paid, programmes at 4 quid a go, pie and mash before the match etc - certainly beyond many family budgets. Not many years ago when Alan Sugar was in charge of Tottenham he said that with the money from Sky Sports and a slight reduction in top players wages they could let supporters in free off charge and still make a profit. I have a lot more to say on the subject but will wait for other opinions first
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Most supporters are workers like ourselfs and would love to go and see more top match,s but it would cost me half of my OAP income of one week to get there and see the match ,even seeing Dover play cost for a OAP is £12 and even more for the younger ones .I do go and see Stoke play at times but family pay for that.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
My Karen had to pay out £500 just so her ten year old son could be the mascot for a day,then we have the cost of the kit the boy likes to wear on match day,and Stoke is not one of the top clubs so how much would that have cost if they had been.The players are well over paid to what the rest of us get some get £300.000per week that more than some workers get in over 50years of working
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Football has changed in my lifetime from being a sport and has now become a huge industry in which the rich live high on the hog thanks to the gullible poor who meekly cough up the obscene sums demanded for a seat to watch the gods at play.
The Performing Rights Society are greedy enough but the football clubs make them look positively philanthropic.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
The gentrification of working class areas where the vast majority of our football clubs are situated meant that the new affluent "yuppie" class had a new interest which then drove prices up meaning that match admission became out of the reach of many true supporters For the "gullible poor" supporting their club has been passed down through the family, it is not like a supermarket where people chop and change loyalties when prices go up or down. Bayern Munich are one of the world's elite clubs with a stadium full of 75,000 match by match. Seats costing 10 or 15 Euros are set aside for those less well off and they can still compete for the very best players in the transfer market.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Well it good to see we are all thinking the same way on this one.
Years ago we had stands with no seats for the like of us but it did not cost so much to see the match but over the years we have seen more and more seats go in. There are still some clubs with stands without seats but not many but the top clubs still cost the standing only ones high.The walk out by the Liverpool fans was good but we need to see a lot more of it and then we might see the return of the low cost for the real fan on a low income.
Paul M- Registered: 1 Feb 2016
- Posts: 393
There are no 'top' football clubs with standing only and there haven't been for decades now. More than 95% of seats are sold at every round of Premiership games these days and unfortunately that means the clubs do not have to do anything to help those who cannot afford to go anymore. It's simple supply and demand, there is plenty of demand so they can pretty much charge what they want.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
But that demand is falling off each time the cost of a seat goes up, a family now will have to pay well over £100 just to get in.there should be a capping in place of cost of seats.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
It looks to people watching on the box that there are standing areas as so many people prefer to watching a match standing up, myself included. Once the front row starts to stand all the rows behind have to do the same just to see the game.
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,171
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Paul M- Registered: 1 Feb 2016
- Posts: 393
Vic Matcham wrote:But that demand is falling off each time the cost of a seat goes up, a family now will have to pay well over £100 just to get in.there should be a capping in place of cost of seats.
I disagree. More and more working class people are no longer able to afford to go to football matches because of the high pricing structure but they are very simply being replaced by those that can afford to go. Demand is increasing year on year and for the really big clubs, especially in London, there is a massive demand from tourists to go to matches. As long as the demand is there the Premier League can charge as much as they like with the losers being the old supporters plus the next generation who will never be exposed to football because their parents can't afford to take them. The atmosphere at Premier League matches is rubbish these days.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
I agree with most of what you are saying Mr Paul M .
The atmosphere at Stoke is great but the ground only holds about 28000 and like you say it is hard to get a ticket at times still .but there are clubs outside the top premier League that still charge alot to get in but you can see on the TV 100s of seats with no one siting in them..
It is only the money they get from TVrights that keep them from going under so why the high charge? and even in the premier League not all clubs are playing to a full house each week it is only the ones that are in the top ten that get a full house the other ones only get a full house when playing the top clubs. Thank you for your views.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Bubbles tend to burst when many who pay out for the Premier league realise it is no longer the best product in Europe, then it will be reliant on genuine supporters. Some clubs are charging ridiculous prices - Arsenal stand out while you can still get a seat at a Stoke home match for £.25. My own club is run by life long supporters and when they move to the Olympic stadium next season they will have spare capacity of at least 10,000 seats which will be sold at around 10 quid a game, therefore bringing many lost supporters back.
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"