How much should football cost?

[allezallezallez]

As a season ticket holder I never have to worry about the match day price.  But looking at the Wolves game it's advertised as a \"deal\" at £20 save £5, however the Reading game a week later is only £15 to start with.

Derby away is £31!

Also, if you look at match day prices for say West Ham, you are looking at £50 for one game.  

For me no standard league football game is worth £50.

One pundit suggested flat prices across all clubs and leagues. This would allow the \"working man\" to once again enjoy football.

If Rovers ever got to the top flight would you pay £50?

[mushRTID]

I have to admit im losing at bit of interest in footy. Il still be there next season at the KM but for me its away games is what its all about. Really wanted to go to Derby but theres not a chance I am paying over £30 for a game of football.

I cant see it getting any better and the more it costs, the shitter the atmosphere is.

£20 tops to answer your question.

[Dimples-D]

Football must be the 3rd most over priced, rip off there is, behind weddings and funerals.
Would I pay £50 to watch Rovers in Prem? Would I f**k..

£50 for ANY football match is ridiculous.

[allezallezallez]

personally, I don't know people can justify £31 for Derby away.

When you think the cash is going into the pockets of over paid football players.

£20 tops for me

[Dagenham Rover]

Heard on the radio today about Tevez on 150,000 pw
Cos he wants away Man City have apparently offered him another 100k per week

£250,000 per week or £1 million  per month

if its true its totally and utterly fcuking ridiculous

[Viking Don]

Pizz in the ocean compared to what his employers 'earn'.

£25 tops for me. For £50 I'd want a sexual favour thrown in.

[JonnyRover]

Not sure I agree about the bubble; in my opinion crowd numbers across the leagues are well down this season.  

£31 at Derby is too much and for the first time I'm not going to watch Rovers because of price.  Instead I'm off to the Bishop Auckland v Spennymoor derby for a fiver and a saving of another £20 on diesel!

I'll be keeping my season ticket at KM next season but it will certainly be fewer away trips, we were ripped off yesterday at Leicester (both by the club & the ref) and I'm not prepared to put up with any longer!

[gillinghamrover]

Personally I think £25 tops for Championship footy, however chairman/plc`s will charge as much as they think they can get away with, Gillingham for instance in league 2 charge £23 for an adult for away fans and although you do get a seat in a scaffold stand for that you get no roof!!!

[I-was-there1976]

£15 for adults at Championship level

[silent majority]

Rigoglioso wrote:

Football is over-priced and it has been for years. Even in the darkest depths of non-league football you still have to pay around the £5 mark.

At the start of this season I adopted a policy for myself that I would not pay anymore than £20 to see a football game. I'm fortunate with the fact that I can get into most grounds at the student price and also the fact that I have a few \"free\" trips a season because of the Sports Journalism course I'm doing at university.

Anyway, to get back to the point, I've found out that generally clubs will never lower their prices. In the years ahead, I expect match day ticket prices will continue to rise and several Championship clubs will ultimately end up charging similar admission prices to those clubs in the Premiership.

However, the clubs that start this trend of over-chaging will justify their actions by having more and more \"special offer\" games, where fans can get in at a cheap rate.

If people think the bubble is anywhere near bursting within football though, they should think again. We're absolutely nowhere near the bubble-bursting point yet!

Rigo,

I think you are a long way short of the mark here. Check the results so far for this season and you will see the bubble has burst. The Premier League is down on attendance, check out the figures for Carling Cup and Champions League etc. Man Utd waiting list is down to zero. League 1 has a reduction so far of about 23%, and Lincoln City is a prime example of how bad its become, the FL allow 4 special promotions per season, so far they have had 8!! The Championship is the only division to see an increase, and that's possibly due to Blackpool getting promoted. This season is a watershed for football in this country, expect major changes for next season.

[godlike1]

Rigoglioso wrote:

I still don't believe we are at that stage yet though, Martin. It's certainly getting nearer as that is an inevitability of time, but we haven't yet reached the stage of apathy IMO where there is a national problem with the attendances that all clubs are getting.

When it does go belly up, I expect that clubs in the lower divsions will be hit hardest. The majority of them will up their prices to keep up with their peers, but when the apathy sets in and the casual punter refuses to pay the prices what the clubs ask, the problem the lower division clubs will face is the fact that they don't have hugely inflated sums of TV money to fall back on.

We shall see what happens over the course of time, but I still maintain we are nowhere near the worst of the issues with ticket prices.

There must be something that we as supporters can do to make clubs realise that they are ripping fans off. Tobermory fair to our club and John Ryan and the board they have listened and taken on board their mistakes for the pricing this season and saw how the town responded magnificently for the swansea game. Ok we may struggle to achieve that again in the near future with results like that on sat as it does kind of go hand in hand but at least our club realise charged away fans the same as the home, a clear realisation that the whole country is in a recession and not just a select few. I've just unfairly ranted at one of my mates who went to the game in the away end because paying those prices Leicester robbing bas**rds fc think they are justified because people paid. If say 1500-2000 of us had gone but stayed outside the ground chanting and cheering while only 1 person went in and kept everyone informed then a message may start to get across and the players would know we were there and still supporting them.

I don't agree with the violence the students are using to protest about the fees and eventhough I've had to work my nuts off to work my way out of uni debt my support for them us dwindling however by being a little cleverer I think we could start to make animpact if all fans of away clubs did the same as my suggestion above. It is only a suggestion mind and maybe not practical but if clubs listened in the same way as drfc and made it affordable then fans would be back in their thousands

[godlike1]

Ignore the bad spelling by mistake as I've done this on my phone which seems to like to make some word of it's own up but hope my comments made some sense

[danum]

Mass Protests - Vote with your feet

I feel massively bitter about Leicester (not just the result), it was one rip-off too many and hence for the first time ever (Boxing Day) I won't bother with Derby
2008 - £22
2009 - £26
2010 - £31 or £34 on the day (think these figures are correct)

FSF - advise us to hold on to Leicester tickets as \"still ongoing\".
The FLS praised Leicester for 27000 crowd but failed to mention how we were abused because of our town of origin

Football needs to take stock and quick, as once the \"man in the street\" finds alternative entertainment they could well be lost forever.

[irishcontingent]

Whilst i realise that the admission price to football matches is directly linked to \"salaries\" paid to players, (ie people will pay more to watch better players), the point of no return for me is when it costs more for 90 + minutes of football than it does to get drunk.

Yes i know ech individual has different tolerance level of alcohol, so some may require a dozen or more pints of falling down water to actually reach anhebriation, but from a personal perspective 8 will do it, so depending on cost at the bar , between 16 and 24 pounds of the realm ( lets say 20), so i will not pay over £20 for the \"Privelidge\" of watching a football match.

[keyser_soze]

At £31 a pop it's no wonder Derby can afford to pinch our players!

[Dimples-D]

Going on people's comments on this topic and how much people are willing to pay. I would say that the bubble is very close to bursting if not already burst.
I was priced out of football a long time ago.
I would love to go to every home game but the cost is just too much.

[normal rules]

This will no doubt go down as about as popular as Nick clegg at a student union but I for one would prefer to watch rovers in front of bigger crowds with lesser players in a lower division.
(and of course pay less for tickets/players etc)

Take Bradford as an example of what can be done in league two.

It's not just about success and playing at the highest level. Although the standard of football at championship is undoubtably sublime at times you just can't beat the grass roots feel of football at the lower levels. It's all getting a bit too sanitized for me .

Rovers are obviously in the third round of the cup by default and it just isn't exciting. Remember not long ago when getting to the third round really meant something. Ok rovers have now earned the right to be there but I guess it just sums up for me what playing at this level actually means.

Boro at home this fir night and it will no doubt be an entertaining encounter. Rovers have done well to keep the price down. For me I would prefer a blood and guts lower level bout at somewhere like Lincoln, Mansfield or York.

All in my humble opinion of course.

[DonnyNoel]

normal rules wrote:

This will no doubt go down as about as popular as Nick clegg at a student union but I for one would prefer to watch rovers in front of bigger crowds with lesser players in a lower division.
(and of course pay less for tickets/players etc)

Take Bradford as an example of what can be done in league two.

.

As I'm shovelling my tea down my throat and about to get the little 'un ready for bed I can't read and digest your post fully but just thought I'd point out that Bradford only get 50-70% of the gate that they publish. The £100 season ticket deal worked to the purpose of selling season tickets in advance of the season but as the match day price is circa £20-£25, a lot of people thought \"well I'll probably go to 4/5/6/7/8 games so I'll buy a season ticket\" and these people don't go to matches regularly. Its estimated for the Morecambe game that there was less than 50% of the \"released gate\" in attendance.

All that guff aside, I'm fully behind the point of the thread - an isolated match day is far too expensive. Will clubs listen? I'm not convinced. Once they get to the Premiership I'd imagine gate money lags way behind TV money?

[idler]

I live in Bradford and have just been out with a city supporting mate. Saturday's game against Hereford was crap. They had 10,000 odd there and season tickets about £150. Don't think that they woyuldn't rather pay a bit more to watch better football. If the Rovers had gone tits up I would have started watching Thackley in the North East Counties League or equivalent. A pensioners season ticket for £30. Plus at half time you can leave the ground and get a pint or two of hand pulled in the club house.

[CusworthRovers]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet. Maybe one for Silent Majority to expand on but, there was something on the news last week about an all Party Committee getting together to look at the possibility of interfering with the running of football in this country due to the money issues and debt problems. Not sure where it got too and what's happening with this.........right I'm off to watch MUFC v Donny Of The South. Come on DOTS

[DadsleyRover]

Football in Germany is much cheaper I believe and they have standing terraces and make a profit.

What are we doing wrong.

Ticket prices should be £15-£20 I think I will give Derby a miss this year also. Its a pity as I like the ground.