alphabet_king
Vital 1st Team Regular
So ST Prices are imminent. A common comment this time of year is that our STs are just too much. I’ve seen reliable reports (Eddie the binman) that our ST prices are the 4th highest in the league and the classic cliché this time of year is to compare us to the likes of Bradford who simply have a huge fan base in the first place so can afford to reduce prices.
I always argue that lowering the prices is very unlikely to result in a sufficient increase in ST uptake. Likewise, I think scally knows he can usually get away with a 10-20 quid increase each year and not lose too many fans either so we as fans are in a hard place.
However I wonder if we could at least give it a try lowering prices for once though. We’ve just had a fairly big windfall from the Centreplate thing. And while I know that’s not all money we could spend, I do wonder if some could be earmarked as back up incase the strategy didn’t work out. Okay so if you get it wrong and you’ve lost that money, but get it right and Scally could actually increase profits and take up.
I think the above is unlikely though. Scally does not like to take that kind of risk, and maybe rightly so. I wonder though if there’s a relatively risk free way of doing this without actually risking hard cash.
I’ve seen other clubs offer a price dependent on uptake. So STs are sold at the normal price, but if we hit a certain target of ST sales the prices would be changed to a ‘headline’ price of say £250 each. The logistics would need to be worked out, I assume you’d need ST holders to pay the higher price up front, and then would need to refund them if the targets are hit. And it needs to be a proper refund, not like a free shirt and vouchers for the Factory etc.
In terms of the figures - I’ve read that we had 2,242 ST holders this year. Say the average price of an ticket including concessions last year was £350 – then we’d made say approx. 785k in total ST sales last year. So some simple calculations shows that if we sold 3140 ST’s at £250 next year then we’d get the same amount of money overall. Obviously the maths here would need to consider Kids/Students and OAP prices and numbers in more detail, but this is back of the fag packet calculations just to show a point.
Let us bear in mind also that in the last 2/3 years it’s been rumoured that we’ve lost around 700 ST holders. I don’t know how true this is, but it comes again from Eddie the Binman so I’d be tempted to believe it. With those kind of figures of recent ST holders lost, it may well be possible to achieve these numbers of sales uplift at these kind of prices. I don’t think a 10-20 quid drop would make a difference, but I do think a significant headline price would have a chance of making a difference.
I’d certainly like to see it tried. Maybe there could be a step increase. I.e. if we achieve 3200 we get them for £250, or if we sell 2700 then it’s £300.
At the very least it would finally shut up some of the moaners who moan about Scally never tying anything, or that claim tickets would magically fly off the shelves if they were cheaper. Also - If it doesn’t work then Scally can use it as justification in the future for not lowering them. But if it works, the club would be in a much better position due to higher foot fall. Even if they only made the same amount of money on STs it would mean an increase in match day income at the Factory/Tea Bars/Club Shop etc. That’s 1000 more fans who might well be buying the new shirts etc. It would also of course hopefully improve the atmosphere, and as such more people might want to come in the future. It would be a snowball affect really. The more people who come, the better the atmosphere is. The better the atmosphere the more other people who want to come back and bring their mates too.
Whether or not this would work, I don't know. But it seems to me a risk free experiement from Scally and at the very least a good PR exercise - to show he's trying to reduce ticket prices and improve attendances and atmosphere.
Keen for scally to really try something innovative this year. Lets at the very least hope he doesn’t have another cock up like he did with the kids tickets last year. That was truly awful - although thankfully remedied in the end.
I always argue that lowering the prices is very unlikely to result in a sufficient increase in ST uptake. Likewise, I think scally knows he can usually get away with a 10-20 quid increase each year and not lose too many fans either so we as fans are in a hard place.
However I wonder if we could at least give it a try lowering prices for once though. We’ve just had a fairly big windfall from the Centreplate thing. And while I know that’s not all money we could spend, I do wonder if some could be earmarked as back up incase the strategy didn’t work out. Okay so if you get it wrong and you’ve lost that money, but get it right and Scally could actually increase profits and take up.
I think the above is unlikely though. Scally does not like to take that kind of risk, and maybe rightly so. I wonder though if there’s a relatively risk free way of doing this without actually risking hard cash.
I’ve seen other clubs offer a price dependent on uptake. So STs are sold at the normal price, but if we hit a certain target of ST sales the prices would be changed to a ‘headline’ price of say £250 each. The logistics would need to be worked out, I assume you’d need ST holders to pay the higher price up front, and then would need to refund them if the targets are hit. And it needs to be a proper refund, not like a free shirt and vouchers for the Factory etc.
In terms of the figures - I’ve read that we had 2,242 ST holders this year. Say the average price of an ticket including concessions last year was £350 – then we’d made say approx. 785k in total ST sales last year. So some simple calculations shows that if we sold 3140 ST’s at £250 next year then we’d get the same amount of money overall. Obviously the maths here would need to consider Kids/Students and OAP prices and numbers in more detail, but this is back of the fag packet calculations just to show a point.
Let us bear in mind also that in the last 2/3 years it’s been rumoured that we’ve lost around 700 ST holders. I don’t know how true this is, but it comes again from Eddie the Binman so I’d be tempted to believe it. With those kind of figures of recent ST holders lost, it may well be possible to achieve these numbers of sales uplift at these kind of prices. I don’t think a 10-20 quid drop would make a difference, but I do think a significant headline price would have a chance of making a difference.
I’d certainly like to see it tried. Maybe there could be a step increase. I.e. if we achieve 3200 we get them for £250, or if we sell 2700 then it’s £300.
At the very least it would finally shut up some of the moaners who moan about Scally never tying anything, or that claim tickets would magically fly off the shelves if they were cheaper. Also - If it doesn’t work then Scally can use it as justification in the future for not lowering them. But if it works, the club would be in a much better position due to higher foot fall. Even if they only made the same amount of money on STs it would mean an increase in match day income at the Factory/Tea Bars/Club Shop etc. That’s 1000 more fans who might well be buying the new shirts etc. It would also of course hopefully improve the atmosphere, and as such more people might want to come in the future. It would be a snowball affect really. The more people who come, the better the atmosphere is. The better the atmosphere the more other people who want to come back and bring their mates too.
Whether or not this would work, I don't know. But it seems to me a risk free experiement from Scally and at the very least a good PR exercise - to show he's trying to reduce ticket prices and improve attendances and atmosphere.
Keen for scally to really try something innovative this year. Lets at the very least hope he doesn’t have another cock up like he did with the kids tickets last year. That was truly awful - although thankfully remedied in the end.
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