Early Bird Season Tickets on sale

This thread has gone from "tickets are too expensive" to "tickets are being sold too cheaply" to "let's increase ticket prices by 66%".

And people wonder why Gibson doesn't want to engage more with the fans.
 
fmttmadmin said:
OK I now have arrived at the figure for average ticket money to the club. Nett amount for every ticket sold
It is £12.37 per seat.
Isn't that amazing!
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501,983 people saw us in the league last season (transfermarkt) and league ticket revenue was £6.42m (published accounts), meaning ex VAT revenue was £12.79 per league ticket. (This revenue excludes the money paid by Boxes and Hospitality, but includes them in attendance, so understates the averages).

If that is the case, then it is clear just how very many heavily discounted kids there must be in the stadium.
The kids concessions are cheap everywhere, but in the Family stand they are extremely so.
Over 65 prices are much higher in all cases. Even next season the exVAT price for an Over 65 in the N or S is the current (supposed) average Ex VAT price at £12.68. (Hence Gibson's comment about it not being an ageing burden).
There are an awful lot of adults paying a lot more than that.

MFC Cost of Sales £35.3m
Total Wage Bill £28.4m. Football Wage Bill will be at least £24m of this. Non football wage bill c£4.4m.
Non payroll Cost of sales thus £6.9m (subject to inflation)
Total Opex £13.6m
Amortisation & Impairment £8.0m (not subject to inflationary pressures)
Depreciation £2.9m (not subject to inflationary pressures)
Opex ex Amortisation and Depreciation £2.7m. (subject to high inflation)

So if inflation (quoted by club at 10%) is applied to the Non football wage bill £4.4m, Non payroll COS £6.9m and the balance of Opex £2.9m, then the club need to recover the inflationary pressure on £14.2m of their cost base to stand still, so c£1.42m

£30 per SC increase ex VAT would get £25 per card. We'd need to sell 56,800 to recover that. Clearly not on.
Even a £60 increase per card would not do this inflation recovery.

The Club however will book a £22.5m Profit on Player Sales for this season, but parking that for now.

Steve Gibson is I believe entitled to ask supporters to pay more to cover costs he can't control.
The cost of the playing staff dwarfs all other costs at the Club. They don't deserve more money in this league, that is for sure, they are contracted so won't.
However the increase the club has imposed will not even provide enough additional revenue to cover the inflationary impact on the non player costs.
Either supporters pay more, we raise more Commercial revenue, we continue to sell players for profit, get promoted to unlock PL revenues, or Gibson covers losses as he has for every year but two.
Paying players less will almost certainly eventually relegate us, collapse squad value and slash all revenue streams.

On reflection I think the price increase is justified and I think the kids concessions are extremely generous.
 
Air Resistance said:
Crazy world we live in when 20,000+ season tickets doesn’t even cover the stadium costs, let alone the playing squad.
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It actually states "gate receipts" which is therefore unclear. Is that STs plus on the day tickets? If it is, both, then that seems incredible that stadium costs are not covered by a 25000 crowd.
 
fmttmadmin said:
A Statement from Middlesbrough Supporters Forum regarding the price increase of Season cards and walk-up tickets for the 2023/24 season.

We received acknowledgement from Middlesbrough Football Club of a potential price increase of 8% for the 2023/24 season. The Football club asked for our initial thoughts and views on this increase.

Middlesbrough Supporters Forum are aware of how expensive attending football matches has become and have made it clear to MFC that they are disappointed in any increases in ticket prices that prevents football being affordable for all.

Through the work Middlesbrough Supporters Forum does with MFC, local Foodbanks, MFC Foundation, Michael Carrick Foundation, and other local charities it is very much apparent how the cost-of-living crisis is impacting local people and that football is often the only escape people have from the challenges of everyday life.

The role of Middlesbrough Supporters Forum is not to run Middlesbrough Football Club or to make announcements on their behalf. The role of MSF is to represent the views of Boro supporters, to put arguments forward and influence the decisions of the football club.

Since first being consulted on potential price increases, members have held several in person conversations with Neil Bausor and Steve Gibson about this, with the last meeting taking place with the Chairman in his office before the QPR game to put points forward on behalf of Boro supporters.

MSF presented research and pricing comparisons to other clubs and had an open, honest, and frank discussion with the Chairman and his executive team about the impacts an increase would have.

The chairman also presented his own facts and figures and provided context as to why a minimum price increase of 8% was required. Although we are against the increase in price, we do now have a greater understanding of why prices are being raised and we have outlined some of those high-level reasons given to us below:

  1. Current rate of inflation is above 10%
  2. Operational running costs of the football club have increased by over £1m a year, which include utility bills, business rates and staff wages. (national minimum wage / cost of living increases)
  3. Gate receipts no longer cover the running costs of the stadium.
  4. The extra revenue generated by raising ticket prices for the 2023/24 season covers less than 50% of the growing operational costs.
  5. The club has made significant gains in increasing commercial revenue, all of which is used to ensure that ticket prices remain as low as financially possible whilst trying to plug the gap between operational costs and ticket revenue.
  6. Almost 50% of tickets sold fall into the concessions category – (not a full paying adult) which is a very high proportion compared to other clubs.
  7. The stadium (which is now over 25 years old), and training ground requires ongoing investment to maintain facilities and overall matchday experience.
  8. The football club wishes to remain financially stable and competitive whilst remaining within the financial fair play rules.
  9. The mean average per person per match going through the turnstile from season ticket sales is £12.50, net of VAT.
The chairman has committed to working with Middlesbrough Supporters Forum more closely going forward and consulting with us earlier in the process. We already have a date in the diary with him for further discussions around this topic for future seasons as well as memberships schemes.

Although price increases is something that nobody wanted, we appreciate Steve Gibson taking the time to meet with us and committing to more engagement going forward.

We will keep you updated. UTB

Middlesbrough Supporters Forum
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As has been mentioned this should have come directly from the club not the supporters forum. Notwithstanding that it's easy enough to pick holes in many those points., many of them are doubled up and some of them are vague and lacking detail. I'm disappointed we didn't get a more robust condemnation from the supporters forum that reflects the reaction we've seen from the fan base as a whole. Red Faction hit the nail on the head.
 
Nano said:
On average, yes, because some seasons we would be near the top of the league like this year and sell way more. 15k average isn't very high. It would need sustained years of poor football to drop that low again. Even on a week to week basis we might shift way more for big games on a Saturday and less on weekday winter tickets.

Is anyone suggesting the current model is working if we are averaging £15 per ticket? 15k at £20 would still beat the current model.

So I'm saying is that maybe season tickets aren't the best way to fund the club and in fact, appears to be a terrible way to do it seen as though we aren't even covering the running costs.
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people moaned about just over £1 per ticket price rise but you think the best idea would be to charge people way more than that including kids lol. I'm sure it would work well and people would keep going lol.
 
Steve Bee said:
It actually states "gate receipts" which is therefore unclear. Is that STs plus on the day tickets? If it is, both, then that seems incredible that stadium costs are not covered by a 25000 crowd.
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yes it is, it includes all money from not only season tickets and general sale, looks like the maths is off if using transfer market (like above did) it says closer to 478k which would be £13.44 before vat or £11.20 after vat if its 20%, although I would believe there is VAT to be credited against this for items bought by the club, which would explain why the club are quoting a figure in the £12's.

I would also say that number may be skewed to look a little better than it was to build up the 6.42m due to when they run the accounts upto and the performance of the team in that season (ending with optimism for promotion next year under wilder and increase in season ticket sales)

As it should include the early bird season tickets revenue for the following season (but excluding the early bird sales for the actual season the accounts are related too) so with these being better for 2022/23 than the previous season that will inflate the revenue slightly when dividing it by the number of tickets as the early birds should include the majority of season ticket sales which a google about shows they had sold 18,000 by june 2022.

Of course when we go from a positive season to one ending negatively then it will bring that years gate sales down in the same way even if that season did better business through season ticket sales and general sale.

1677070369053.png

and 25k is only around our current average with recent matches pushing that up

1677070148028.png
 
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muniz said:
yes it is, it includes all money from not only season tickets and general sale, looks like the maths is off if using transfer market (like above did) it says closer to 478k which would be £13.44 before vat or £11.20 after vat if its 20%, although I would believe there is VAT to be credited against this for items bought by the club, which would explain why the club are quoting a figure in the £12's.

I would also say that number may be skewed to look a little better than it was to build up the 6.42m due to when they run the accounts upto and the performance of the team in that season (ending with optimism for promotion next year under wilder and increase in season ticket sales)

As it should include the early bird season tickets revenue for the following season (but excluding the early bird sales for the actual season the accounts are related too) so with these being better for 2022/23 than the previous season that will inflate the revenue slightly when dividing it by the number of tickets as the early birds should include the majority of season ticket sales which a google about shows they had sold 18,000 by june 2022.

Of course when we go from a positive season to one ending negatively then it will bring that years gate sales down in the same way even if that season did better business through season ticket sales and general sale.

View attachment 53448

and 25k is only around our current average with recent matches pushing that up

View attachment 53447
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Quite proud I was in that 1,000 :ROFLMAO:
 
I have all the actual figures for this season - I will give you some when I have the opportunity - got plumbing and car issues this week.
Income is £6, 508, 472 gross
Divided by 1.2 for VAT
= £5, 423, 726 net of VAT
Divided by 23 games a season
= £235814
Divided by 19061 tickets actually issues
=£12.37 per game.
 
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