14k season tickets sold at Bradford

[Albert Trousers]

Priced at 149, how many do you reckon we'd shift at that price? 8-9k ?

[colincramb]

A lot more than we will at the current price that's for sure. Match day tickets are still massively overpriced as well for adults I'm afraid to say

[Jonathan]

It's something I think the club should genuinely be looking at. I just hope somebody in there is able to demonstrate that charging a higher price (as we do) is actually in the best interests of the club from a financial planning perspective, as looking at it from the outside I'd take some convincing that it is.

I'm fully aware that we're not the highest priced club but that alone doesn't make our price right, and the cost of football in general is obstructive in my view. The deterrent factor of the high price results in empty seats, which impacts on the matchday experience for those in attendance (significantly including the floating fans) and the effect snowballs from there. It's harder and harder to encourage people to go. Surely it's better to get people through the gate. It's working for Bradford, I feel it would work here too.

[idler]

Priced at 149, how many do you reckon we'd shift at that price? 8-9k ?

It includes flexi tickets though so not all 14,000 are season tickets.
At £149 you only have to attend six games to break even as it is £25 pay on the day. OAPs are £149 as well. I did mention this to the club when I renewed my season ticket so they are now aware of what City have done.
They targeted 15,000 but are hoping to get near 17,000.
I 'be been there when there was 7,000 odd for the Rovers game and then the next home gate was about 1,500.
They managed to build their fan base up in the 1980s and had a decent run of success and have recently had some good cup runs to keep interest going.

[colincramb]

I agree Jonathan. Aside from season tickets, how can pricing games at £23/24, depending on the fixture, be an attractive proposition for 'floating fans'? This is league 1, not the championship. I feel the club have made a big mistake here

[Jonathan]

I agree Jonathan. Aside from season tickets, how can pricing games at £23/24, depending on the fixture, be an attractive proposition for 'floating fans'? This is league 1, not the championship. I feel the club have made a big mistake here

I agree. Off the top of my head I can imagine that squeezing the highest price out of every paying customer and effectively driving down crowd figures has the benefit of reducing security, policing and utility costs allowing certain areas of the stadium to be closed. Aside from that I'm struggling to think of how it's advantageous. I don't have any evidence to support this but I imagine that football at our level is fairly price elastic. I hope that whoever sets the prices has carried out some kind of sensitivity analysis and if we are indeed at our optimal level by pitching in at the higher end then I'd concede I'm wrong to a degree as it does have to be run as a business. But even then from a long term strategic perspective I'd have to be convinced that this approach supports the aim of growing the club within the town. There's also the consideration of increased secondary sales and merchandising generated by bigger gates.

Im fully aware that the owners don't have it easy and as a fan I'm grateful for everything they do, I just hope they're not being hindered by our pricing structure rather than supported by it. I think it needs looking at.

[IDM]

But how many "missing" supporters are only staying away because of the price?  Would many folks still stay away even with cheap offers?

I can'f afford the ST for cash flow just now and possibly I won't be able to make several fixtures for other reasons - but the multi-game voucher book at £19 a game is a very attractive option for me.

[colincramb]

Agree. The thing is, there is some evidence to suggest that lower admission prices does increase the amount of floaters that attend. This has been proved several times since the KM opened with the most recent occasion being the Peterborough game last season. Obviously I'm not naive enough to suggest that the club allows people in for £10 a game all season, but I think some middle ground needs to be established as £24 is, in my opinion, too much.

Also, it would be interesting to see the figures in terms of how many season tickets we've sold post the early bird price. No evidence, but I would hazard a guess that it isn't many. Why could the club have not kept this pricing structure for the whole pre-season period?

[IDM]

I too was a little surprised at the £23/£24 matchday prices.  I would have thought £20/£22 would be more appropriate...

[Jonathan]

I think these should all be taken as questions rather than criticisms. If the current pricing structure is in the best interests of the club as a business then fair enough. I'm happy to take my own self interest (the price would need to be lower for me to attend regularly nowadays) out of the equation. The most important thing is that the club runs as a successful and sustainable business. The problem is that I'm not convinced it's working.

It'd be interesting if someone with links to the club could provide the official line on it, hopefully looking at it entirely objectively and not just considering that people unwilling to pay circa £20+ per game are just ungrateful. I genuinely hope they have the evidence to support that they've got it right.

[Silkscarf]

It's ridiculously expensive to attend third tier football at Rovers. Like many people in S Yorks I'm pretty skint these days, so the Peterborough game was the last one I went to and only the fourth or fifth all season. I took my wife (who doesn't like football but tolerates a game sometimes) and my son (for whom it was his first game at the age of 1 and a half). We had a great day (despite the result). If it was cheaper we'd go more often. It's easier to go to Owls or Blades for us but it was important I went to Donny for his first game.

I've been a STH in seasons past but found that I never quite managed all the games and it was never a sellout anyway, so not much point apart from first dibs on big cup match tickets. If it was loads cheaper then maybe I would buy one.

[Askern_reds]

went to rochdale 15 for home fans 20 for us we should adopt same policy

[mrfrostsdad]

This is interesting.
Does anyone know how many season tickets we've actually sold for next season? It seems to be a closely guarded secret. We usually get the 'same as this time last year' answer. My guess is we'll sell less than last year because we were quite frankly, shite at home. 3500 maybe???
And I do have to PMSL at the 'twenty's plenty' cobblers as pushed by we all know who. We don't even have it at our own club!!

How many would we sell at £149? Who knows? I suspect not as many as we'd like to think

[Underwood]

The figure i'd got when the earliy bird offer finished was 1600 sold. So i'll guess at 3000 in total for next season.
Interesting to see match day prices for category B seats have risen from £20 to £23 for next season. Far too muc.

[The Red Baron]

We have had some good attendances when prices have been cut on a one-off basis but this doesn't appear to have any long-term effects.

The logical next step is to cut ticket prices across the board, whether that be for season tickets only or for match day prices as well. Trouble is, if you do that and there isn't a big time increase in take-up then you are looking at a shortfall in income. I suppose Bradford City do serve as an example of how it could be done.

[Rich_The_Conisbrough_Rover]

The price of football these days is way too expensive, if our season tickets were priced at 149 quid I'd certainly get one even if i do work rotating shifts at work, you'd still save a hell of a lot of money.

[StocktonRover]

This is not a new initiative at Bradford.

When they were in the Premier League every game was a sell out (as most smaller clubs would be).
When Bradford got relegated from the PL, they came up with an offer that if 10,000 fans renewed there season tickets they would sell them at a flat rate of £100.

There timing was perfect as they held on to those new fans who came to watch premier league football. Whilst the price has crept up since then, they have maintained a similar offer and as a result have held on to a generation of fans who are now regulars.

Timing was everything. If we did a similar offer now it would be trying to draw in new fans not just holding on to existing fans.

[IDM]

And I do have to PMSL at the 'twenty's plenty' cobblers as pushed by we all know who. We don't even have it at our own club!!

I expect the person you are referring to would be delighted if tickets at the KM were £20 or less, but that's for him to say.

[Underwood]

And I do have to PMSL at the 'twenty's plenty' cobblers as pushed by we all know who. We don't even have it at our own club!!

I expect the person you are referring to would be delighted if tickets at the KM were £20 or less, but that's for him to say.

Cat B seats were £20 last season. The club seems to think twenty is not enough.

[IDM]

More's the pity.  £20 is about right.  I think the club is probably encouraging people to buy STs or the multi game vouchers - I'll go for the latter as almost certainly I will attend more than 10 games.

[mrfrostsdad]

So, does anyone know how many season tickets we've sold?
Because if the object of the club is to sell more season tickets by putting up match day prices, and it isn't working, they need to have a re-think sharpish.
Maybe someone ITK knows how many we've sold??

Just as a footnote: if match day ticket prices were £20 last season (cat b) and £23 next season, that's an increase of 15%. When inflation is running at 0.2% that is an absolute disgrace and the club should look at that immediately. If your car/home insurance or whatever went up 15% you'd be looking for a better deal

[drfchound]

Being over 60 years old has a few advantages and one is the cost of a season ticket.
Mine works out at around £11 per game.
It consider it to be very good value and have no hesitation in renewing it.
I would think that a similar price for all adults would attract more buyers.

Slightly off topic but does anyone know whether a match day attendance includes all sold season tickets irrespective of whether the ticket holder attends the match?

[BillyStubbsTears]

MFD

So we're not selling enough because the prices are too high, but a campaign to bring prices down is "cobblers"?

Time of the year again chuckie egg?

[mrfrostsdad]

I'm not convinced we would sell twice as many if season tickets were half the price. In fact if I'm being honest I don't think we would. Don't think I know what the answer is. The campaign to bring prices down will never happen. We can't even get it at our own club in the third tier, so what chance in the higher leagues? None.

Hound: I'm 60 at the beginning of October, but still had to pay the full £399. Thought I may get a pro rata reduction, but no

[drfchound]

My birthday is also in October and I had to pay full price in the year of my sixtieth.

[Underwood]

MFD

So we're not selling enough because the prices are too high, but a campaign to bring prices down is "cobblers"?

Time of the year again chuckie egg?

Cobblers in the sense that DRFC have decided to increase matchday prices by 15% = which is shocking.
We had sold 1600 season tickets at the end of the early bird scheme, so we'd do well to sell 3000 by the start of the season. That means we'd need between 2500-3000 paying on the day to reach last seasons average. At those prices, is it going to happen? Not by a long way
How many clubs are actually taking any notice of Twenty's Plenty?

[Jonathan]

Slightly off topic but does anyone know whether a match day attendance includes all sold season tickets irrespective of whether the ticket holder attends the match?

Not entirely sure, but I think most clubs report actual numbers through the gate on the day rather than number of tickets (including unused) sold. I think Arsenal are possibly one of few exceptions to this and they report on seats sold rather than occupied.

[Iberian Red]

The figure i'd got when the earliy bird offer finished was 1600 sold. So i'll guess at 3000 in total for next season.
Interesting to see match day prices for category B seats have risen from £20 to £23 for next season. Far too muc.

Phone him, or text him.

[Sammy Chung was King]

It would be interesting if we could have a four game period, playing similar games against clubs of the same size, and charge fifteen quid for four, and the current amount, and see how the crowd numbers change.

[godlike1]

Bradford has the 4th highest number of people living there in the country, Doncaster is around 26th I think that also speaks volumes