New Season Tickets on sale for 2024/25

www.skysports.com

Sky Sports agrees new five-year EFL deal: Over 1000 matches per season!

From 2024/25 to 2028/29, Sky Sports will broadcast a minimum of: 328 Sky Bet Championship matches; 248 Sky Bet League One matches; 248 Sky Bet League Two matches; All 15 Play-Off matches; All 93 Carabao Cup matches; All 127 EFL Trophy matches
www.skysports.com www.skysports.com

there is also this to consider. there are going to be tonnes of games on live. with this new coverage the standard of dodgy box streams will improve also i would think especially in the championship.
 
Shamelessly stealing a comment from @Nano on another thread, but why are over 65s tickets so heavily discounted?

It could be argued that this is to the detriment of people who have older children so will probably have to buy at least two season tickets, whereas the majority of over 65s will only be buying 1 ticket???
 
I think we could also accept a pay rise if it was because as a club we were doing the right thing. If we were paying our non-football staff the living wage for example or we were making other ethical choices around sponsorship etc then you accept paying higher ticket prices than others but we don't do that. We pay minimum wage where we can get away with it so begrudgingly accepting that prices are rising because the national minimum wage is rising sounds like we're not particularly friendly towards staff or fans.

You don't have to work in football to understand football finance but particularly to understand the commercial/ticketing/retail/marketing side of things. Plenty of people have worked in plenty of businesses from much smaller to much larger businesses than Middlesbrough FC and there are things that we do as a club which fly in the face of common sense business practices. The most obvious one is doing our hardest to deter new customers. It's mental. Every business going knows the hardest thing to do is to attract new customers and we deliberately choose deterring them as a strategy.

Everyone is up in arms about the season ticket prices but a lot of those people will be along to tell us how it's perfectly fair for walk-ups to pay £40 when those prices are released.
 
Last edited:
Merlin said:
Yep and i suspect we have bigger wage bills than most of those clubs you’re talking about too. We’re consistently one the biggest spenders and biggest payers in the championship. How do you think we’re going to pay for all that ? Gibson isn’t daft, they will have worked what we need to keep the club competitive and on an even keel. I agree club communication and customer relations is poor but if he did drop prices then everyone would be moaning about buying bargain bucket signings when we can’t afford to sign anyone decent - you can’t have it all ways you know.
Click to expand...
The only clubs who were Championship and have published their accounts inc wage bills for last season are:
Middlesbrough £29.6m
Hull City £23.7m
Norwich City £56.4m (received PP's)
Preston North End £21.0m
Bristol City £36.0m
Stoke City £28.2m
Luton Town £27.6m.

Burnley, Watford and Norwich received PP's from 2021-22 relegation.
West Brom and Sheff Utd received PP's from 2020-21 relegation.
If you don't have PP's you have a massive problem.

West Brom are ****ed if they don't go up this season.
Sheff U were last season if they didn't.
I think Norwich are done now as they were only back up 1 season and due PP's for 2.
Watford have next season left on PP's.

Burnley and Fulham got out well.
Bournemouth too the season before them.

Leeds, Forest, Brentford, Luton and Sheff Utd are the only teams to go up without PP's for 6 seasons now.
 
indeedido said:
The only clubs who were Championship and have published their accounts inc wage bills for last season are:
Middlesbrough £29.6m
Hull City £23.7m
Norwich City £56.4m (received PP's)
Preston North End £21.0m
Bristol City £36.0m
Stoke City £28.2m
Luton Town £27.6m.

Burnley, Watford and Norwich received PP's from 2021-22 relegation.
West Brom and Sheff Utd received PP's from 2020-21 relegation.
If you don't have PP's you have a massive problem.

West Brom are ****ed if they don't go up this season.
Sheff U were last season if they didn't.
I think Norwich are done now as they were only back up 1 season and due PP's for 2.
Watford have next season left on PP's.

Burnley and Fulham got out well.
Bournemouth too the season before them.

Leeds, Forest, Brentford, Luton and Sheff Utd are the only teams to go up without PP's for 6 seasons now.
Click to expand...
Yes it’s very difficult for clubs to get back up without PP - Boro basically have two options of raising transfers funds
1. We sell a player or players for significantly more than we bought them for or
2. Gibson puts his hand in his pocket.
Ticket sales, merch, and tv income don’t even cover yearly running costs with us being outside of the cash bubble of the premier league. That is where we’re at.
There has been a slight increase in prices but it is a relatively small one - I totally agree that communication from the club to the fans is shocking and needs drastic improvement though
 
The club just raked in around £12m with the sale of Rogers and Crooks.
I think we have circa 22,000 ST holders, minus the kids in GRFZ.
The price increase will raise around 500/600k. Hardly worth the deserved backlash and dreadful PR.
Last season saw a real connect with the fans - just been totally flushed.
 
It's really poor from the club, both the increase and the insane deadline. There must be something else behind such a deadline, but to not even give any explanation is weird. I can afford a ST, but gave it up years ago when the quality dropped along with the enjoyment. I still like making the odd game with my old man and my brother when he's home. Although, as others have already said. The match day experience isn't much to write home about. Crap food and even worse beer (that I wouldn't even enjoy if it was "free"). I can see the attendances declining badly again, unless we have a big summer spend.

When you factor in the travel costs, food, etc to go to a match it's an expensive do, especially if you have children. All to watch a mediocre game of football.
 
B_G said:
This season championship pricing. Our child's prices are a fvcking joke by the way,

AdultChild (U12)Family of 4
Leicester£ 36.00£ 10.00£ 92.00
Ipswich£ 30.00£ 7.00£ 74.00
Preston£ 30.00£ 5.00£ 70.00
Hull£ 33.00£ 9.00£ 84.00
Sunderland£ 29.00£ 12.00£ 82.00
Leeds£ 32.00£ 5.50£ 75.00
Cardiff£ 24.00£ 11.00£ 70.00
Norwich£ 31.00£ 11.00£ 84.00
Bristol£ 25.00£ 10.00£ 70.00
Birmingham
Millwall£ 24.00£ 5.00£ 58.00
Plymouth£ 23.00£ 6.00£ 58.00
WBA£ 28.00£ 5.00£ 66.00
Blackburn£ 30.00£ 9.00£ 78.00
Southampton£ 30.00£ 15.00£ 90.00
Watford£ 30.00£ 5.00£ 70.00
Huddersfield£ 25.00£ 10.00£ 70.00
Coventry£ 24.00£ 15.00£ 78.00
QPR£ 31.00£ 12.00£ 86.00
Stoke£ 25.00£ 8.00£ 66.00
Swansea
Middlesbrough£ 32.00£ 19.00£ 102.00
Rotherham£ 29.00£ 10.00£ 78.00
Sheff Wed£ 39.00£ 10.00£ 98.00
AVERAGE£ 29.09£ 9.52£ 77.23
MEDIAN£ 30.00£ 10.00£ 76.50
Click to expand...
Wow that's astonishing. Way out in the lead as the most expensive!
 
Merlin said:
And did you handle multi million pound transfers of football players and dealt with their agents ? - it’s all well and good having a go at Gibson but none of us have a clue what it’s like to run something like a football club
Click to expand...
No, I didn’t. But I do know my way around a set of accounts, irrespective of the industry.
 
Merlin said:
Depends on what you call bargain bucket - Lath cost £4.7m if i remember rightly, Engel £1.7m Rogers £1.5m
Click to expand...
They are not very expensive signings for football in general nowadays I know they are bigger signings than the majority of our competitors make though
Loop said:
It's really poor from the club, both the increase and the insane deadline. There must be something else behind such a deadline, but to not even give any explanation is weird. I can afford a ST, but gave it up years ago when the quality dropped along with the enjoyment. I still like making the odd game with my old man and my brother when he's home. Although, as others have already said. The match day experience isn't much to write home about. Crap food and even worse beer (that I wouldn't even enjoy if it was "free"). I can see the attendances declining badly again, unless we have a big summer spend.

When you factor in the travel costs, food, etc to go to a match it's an expensive do, especially if you have children. All to watch a mediocre game of football.
Click to expand...
The deadline has been extended to 30th March now
 
Loop said:
It's really poor from the club, both the increase and the insane deadline. There must be something else behind such a deadline, but to not even give any explanation is weird. I can afford a ST, but gave it up years ago when the quality dropped along with the enjoyment. I still like making the odd game with my old man and my brother when he's home. Although, as others have already said. The match day experience isn't much to write home about. Crap food and even worse beer (that I wouldn't even enjoy if it was "free"). I can see the attendances declining badly again, unless we have a big summer spend.

When you factor in the travel costs, food, etc to go to a match it's an expensive do, especially if you have children. All to watch a mediocre game of football.
Click to expand...
Every now and again, I see a fixture and think yeah I could probably go to that. However if I think about it for any longer I just think the 'investment' from me in time and money just isn't worth it. Football is an addiction or habit that once you fall out of love with it, you look at it differently.

I could easily do Leicester this weekend; it's only an hour on the train out of St Pancras and I've got nothing particularly planned. I don't think I'd enjoy it like I used to and the thought of watching our current bunch of plodders get played off the pitch just doesn't appeal when I consider it will cost me £120 for the travel and match ticket.

I realise that's totally on me, but the club has lost me as a paying fan and supporter of the team at matches (if they even value that - which I doubt). They do nothing to attract me back. I can't even buy a replica shirt that fits.
 
B_G said:
View attachment 71777
Click to expand...
Its pointless LFC posting season ticket prices to the General Public - the last time I checked they had a waiting list of 70,000 fans for a season ticket and they had stopped taking new names. The Club have decided the subsidise their fans and as its impossible for someone not on the waiting list to buy a new season ticket and its also pointless for Boro fans to compare. Its probably a very long wait to get a season ticket - now that is a closed shop (Humpty ;)) . BTW I thought it was common knowledge there was a waiting list at Liverpool?

Comparing us with Sunderland on price is more applicable.
 
Nano said:
I think we could also accept a pay rise if it was because as a club we were doing the right thing. If we were paying our non-football staff the living wage for example or we were making other ethical choices around sponsorship etc then you accept paying higher ticket prices than others but we don't do that. We pay minimum wage where we can get away with it so begrudgingly accepting that prices are rising because the national minimum wage is rising sounds like we're not particularly friendly towards staff or fans.

You don't have to work in football to understand football finance but particularly to understand the commercial/ticketing/retail/marketing side of things. Plenty of people have worked in plenty of businesses from much smaller to much larger businesses than Middlesbrough FC and there are things that we do as a club which fly in the face of common sense business practices. The most obvious one is doing our hardest to deter new customers. It's mental. Every business going knows the hardest thing to do is to attract new customers and we deliberately choose deterring them as a strategy.

Everyone is up in arms about the season ticket prices but a lot of those people will be along to tell us how it's perfectly fair for walk-ups to pay £40 when those prices are released.
Click to expand...
Nano - What about all the work MFC Foundation do? Don't you think this have some positive impact?

I did some work for them on a Voluntary basis and was quite impressed.
 
Gramsci said:
The discount for over 65s is gradually being eroded. Once just half price they are now nearer 75% of full price..
Click to expand...
Interesting point - the discount is £190 on £580 for the West Stand lower which is popular with over 65s. This is 32.7% discount.

My local theatre gives a 50p discount for films and £1 for live productions - in percentage terms that is around 6% on films and 4% on live performances. Discount for over 65s are in general dropping in general, probably because this age group incomes are on average higher than they were in the past.

In general I think over65s get a reasonable deal @ MFC - you don't often hear them complain about prices. Those in the West Stand lower are paying £390 (£16.96 per game) next season and probably getting a free glass of wine every game.
 
Last edited:
Merlin said:
Yes it’s very difficult for clubs to get back up without PP - Boro basically have two options of raising transfers funds
1. We sell a player or players for significantly more than we bought them for or
2. Gibson puts his hand in his pocket.
Ticket sales, merch, and tv income don’t even cover yearly running costs with us being outside of the cash bubble of the premier league. That is where we’re at.
There has been a slight increase in prices but it is a relatively small one - I totally agree that communication from the club to the fans is shocking and needs drastic improvement though
Click to expand...
Good post Merlin.

If I was in Marketing @ MFC I would make a short video of what it means to be a Boro fan and going to matches. Why it is better than sitting at home watching a dodgy box or in a pub or sitting at home watching Netflix etc. How football live memories stay with you all your life.
 
Unravel_Morrison said:
Every now and again, I see a fixture and think yeah I could probably go to that. However if I think about it for any longer I just think the 'investment' from me in time and money just isn't worth it. Football is an addiction or habit that once you fall out of love with it, you look at it differently.

I could easily do Leicester this weekend; it's only an hour on the train out of St Pancras and I've got nothing particularly planned. I don't think I'd enjoy it like I used to and the thought of watching our current bunch of plodders get played off the pitch just doesn't appeal when I consider it will cost me £120 for the travel and match ticket.

I realise that's totally on me, but the club has lost me as a paying fan and supporter of the team at matches (if they even value that - which I doubt). They do nothing to attract me back. I can't even buy a replica shirt that fits.
Click to expand...
U/M

Supporting the Boro is not easy there is often more pain than pleasure and it comes in waves.

How did you feel just before the second leg of the League Cup semi say on the afternoon of the 23rd January?
 
Redwurzel said:
Nano - What about all the work MFC Foundation do? Don't you think this have some positive impact?

I did some work for them on a Voluntary basis and was quite impressed.
Click to expand...
I'm sure the foundation does some great stuff and does have a positive impact but it's not something I know a huge amount about. I'm not sure how it relates to my post either. I also assume it's a separate entity altogether and not funded by the club but by donations. I.e. it's not something that would justify ticket prices being charged at a premium to cover.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top