7th most expensive club to watch in English football.

[Nano]

The daft thing about comparing PL teams to us is that the PL teams sell out. Particularly the big clubs. The most basic supply and demand models state that if demand outstrips supply that the price will be higher. We don't sell out, we haven't sold out regularly for over 20 years. We have had an extremely high number of empty seats over recent years.

England historical attendance and performance

According to this, just league matches. We have averaged 69% capacity over our last 6 championship seasons (90% in our one PL campaign). That's a total of over 1.5m empty seats over those 7 years (I've excluded the covid season). Bear in mind that this is our successful period for ticket sales because the preceding 6 seasons were dreadfully low (2.4m empty seats). It doesn't include this season either.

I feel like this is the ultimate short-sightedness of Gibson and his ticketing model/strategy. At no point has he ever attempted to do anything to sell out the stadium on a regular basis. His one experiment was calculated on us losing money after a single ticket sale without considering that the long term benefits of increasing the fanbase and number of regular attendees will offset the loss made on the occasional sale. If his ticketing strategy isn't drawn up based off a single spreadsheet Excel model I would be very surprised. Basically, his whole ticketing strategy is based on not missing out on us being successful and being able to charge full price for a 90%+ full stadium but that has happened once since 2005.

This is why it is so frustrating that fans are being asked to pay more to cover his incompetence and intransigence.

 

[atypical_boro]

Yes, we are expensive, but I am sorry it is misleading to compare our prices to PL clubs. Those clubs can offer lower season ticket prices because they get huge revenue from other avenues – TV, merchandise, online platforms etc. Boro do not. It is of course fair to compare us to say Sunderland (although again get revenue from Netflix etc), preston, leeds etc.

We are expensive and concerning that one of our main revenue streams is through season tickets. The club should be looking at alternative avenues also.

They also play 4 less matches. We have to cover the (apparently) exorbitant matchday costs of 4 more.

 

[Redwurzel]

There are waiting lists at some clubs, so in reality you can't buy their season tickets so its a bit pointless putting those teams in - Leeds is one example.

The stats show I pay £590, but I paid £480, probably more like £400 with the free drink. Also received a £10 discount from the Villa and Chelsea home games this season. Its less than £17 if every home game is attended. Soon it will reduce to about £300 or about £13 a match.

I suggested yesterday giving every ST holder a free drink to bring MFC more in line with average value

 

[Redwurzel]

Nano

We are currently averaging around 27k on a 32k effective capacity - thats 85% seat utilisation. Relatvely poor away support has reduced that percentage too. Typically 1,200? away fans in a 2,600 block i.e less than 50% utilisation.

The Clubs that went down the cheap ST policy have not done very well overall - Blackburn and Huddersfield - they may sold extras STs, but that has not produced extra revenue for their clubs and may in effect lost their clubs revenue

 

[Redwurzel]

Its a bit of deflection but if this is about money - Could MFC put on a second Music Event at the end of June say - light evenings, warmer temperatures, improved infrastructure now for the stadium and surrounding area. They tend to do one early June. These events must bring in around £200k net revenue.

 

[parmoboy]

My works manager recently mentioned to me that he'd spoken to Gibson once regarding the high ticket pricing and Gibson basically said it's because of not receiving the TV money and being unable to acquire the same sponsorship deals in the Championship.

At the end of the day though, it's the same for all clubs in the Championship, just as it is the same for every club who are up against the cost of living rise.

 

[Nano]

Nano

We are currently averaging around 27k on a 32k effective capacity - thats 85% seat utilisation. Relatvely poor away support has reduced that percentage too. Typically 1,200? away fans in a 2,600 block i.e less than 50% utilisation.

The Clubs that went down the cheap ST policy have not done very well overall - Blackburn and Huddersfield - they may sold extras STs, but that has not produced extra revenue for their clubs and may in effect lost their clubs revenue

I calculated on 33k capacity. It's more than 32k but not what it was before the big screen and the cameras got moved.

The high prices contribute to the poor away support. We're already a long way away for people to travel to so to charge some of the highest prices is just stupid. No wonder away fans don't want to visit.

 

[InglebyUTB]

Only Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, Villa Liverpool & Bournemouth are more expensive.

Genuinely interested. Justify it.


View attachment 72298View attachment 72299

Comparing us with Premier League clubs is like comparing apples and oranges.

They all get £100m+ in TV money a season, we get around £10m. They can afford to have cheaper tickets where as Championship clubs without parachute payments are heavily reliant on gate receipts.

 

[jam69]

Worse still when you look at kids walk up prices

 

[Soutra]

Comparing us with Premier League clubs is like comparing apples and oranges.

They all get £100m+ in TV money a season, we get around £10m. They can afford to have cheaper tickets where as Championship clubs without parachute payments are heavily reliant on gate receipts.

I agree. There seems to be a lot of comparisons between next season's Boro prices, and this season's Prem League team prices. Boro fans see more home games, get discounts on Cup games and some get free drinks. And are those quoted Prem League team season tickets available? Or is just what the longest standing ticket holders pay?

 

[Redwurzel]

Ref: getting full houses

Most clubs have a fixed fairly limited support base that includes the Boro - we did sell 30k season tickets under Robbo for 1 or 2 seasons, but those were exceptional times. The last time we averaged 30k or more was around 2001/2 and that included walk up and away fans. My guess is that away from Boxing Day we struggle to attract more than 29k home fans, because we are limited by our catchment area and history. Trying to attract over 29k home fans with cheap pricing is pretty pointless. At Ayresome Park in the period 1975 to 1993 - it was the same, the games with over 30k were because of sizeable away support and admission prices were low during that period.

 

[parmoboy]

Ref: getting full houses

Most clubs have a fixed fairly limited support base that includes the Boro - we did sell 30k season tickets under Robbo for 1 or 2 seasons, but those were exceptional times. The last time we averaged 30k or more was around 2001/2 and that included walk up and away fans. My guess is that away from Boxing Day we struggle to attract more than 29k home fans, because we are limited by our catchment area and history. Trying to attract over 29k home fans with cheap pricing is pretty pointless. At Ayresome Park in the period 1975 to 1993 - it was the same, the games with over 30k were because of sizeable away support and admission prices were low during that period.

It would be great if we could charge Sunderland's prices but if we're going to be honest, we'd probably only be able to attract an extra few thousand ST holders.

Not sure how many ST holders we have at present but if we have 21,000 who are all paying £510, the club would be making £10.7m.

If we charged £390 and ended up with 23,000 ST holders, the club would make £8.9m.

Obviously those figures wouldn't be accurate because there are different price brackets but it still gives you a rough idea of how much the club would lose out on in terms of revenue.

I still feel the club could reduce pricing slightly Charge £460 and we would still average similar crowds, and if we were to suffer a loss in revenue it would be a small loss.

 

[outoftown]

It would be great if we could charge Sunderland's prices but if we're going to be honest, we'd probably only be able to attract an extra few thousand ST holders.

Not sure how many ST holders we have at present but if we have 21,000 who are all paying £510, the club would be making £10.7m.

If we charged £390 and ended up with 23,000 ST holders, the club would make £8.9m.

Obviously those figures wouldn't be accurate because there are different price brackets but it still gives you a rough idea of how much the club would lose out on in terms of revenue.

I still feel the club could reduce pricing slightly Charge £460 and we would still average similar crowds, and if we were to suffer a loss in revenue it would be a small loss.

Your figures are miles out ..
About half of ST are concession ish .