Red Faction - walking out on 30th minute

[Duffman]

A walk out is only detrimental to the team not the club. The club have already got your gate money from entering. The team need our support on the pitch. What if we go 1-0 up or 1-0 down on 29 minutes. Do we just ignore that? A slow walk to the ground from town behind an appropriate banner with hopefully a few thousand marching is far better than a couple of hundred flouncing out at 30 minutes and only impacting the players on the pitch who have no role in ticket pricing. I am unhappy at the ticket pricing, have been for a few years now but I have a choice - renew or don’t renew. I won’t be walking out at 30 minutes, I will stay and support the team.

 

[Zoophonic]

A walk out is only detrimental to the team not the club. The club have already got your gate money from entering. The team need our support on the pitch. What if we go 1-0 up or 1-0 down on 29 minutes. Do we just ignore that? A slow walk to the ground from town behind an appropriate banner with hopefully a few thousand marching is far better than a couple of hundred flouncing out at 30 minutes and only impacting the players on the pitch who have no role in ticket pricing. I am unhappy at the ticket pricing, have been for a few years now but I have a choice - renew or don’t renew. I won’t be walking out at 30 minutes, I will stay and support the team.

I agree. Its the wrong protest.

 

[BoroMart]

But I’m not advocating for £3.50 tickets.

I get that, but football costs have increased across the board sadly. This is a fact of life.

I get no one wants price increases, neither do I, I'm just accepting it as part of life. But there are two things that nobody seems willing to address in this debate:

1. Just how much Gibson has spent and written off this year. In December Gibson wrote off £107m that the club owed him. Imagine writing that off, that must be equivalent to a 1/4 of his wealth, and when he puts the prices up, people complain. 107m, is nobody able to comprehend just how much he has done this year? Do we owe it in some way to do our bit? Shouldn't he have our full support for this remarkable action, not face a barrage of abuse?

2. He is not personally profiting from this increase, none of the board are. This is purely about getting more money into the club, and don't we all want that?

 

[Scrug]

I must say I agree with you wholeheartedly, I understand supporting boro is a way of life but the costs of everything are going up and it’s the same for football.

Do you think our ST prices should be higher than the rest of the division, yes or no?

 

[Scrug]

What I would do is refuse to buy anything in the concourse. No pint, food from the vans outside.

 

[Nano]

I agree there are certain issues with ticket prices but the price of season tickets isn’t one of them.

My day at Leicester cost me the best part of £100 and I’m sure the RF spent similar yet people complain about £30 over a .

Season tickets are the baseline which means everything that comes after it is set at a level above them. The whole strategy around having super high cost tickets for new season ticket holders compared to renewals, the early bird system, the walk-up prices etc. If the season ticket prices are high then all those other things have to be even higher. They can't reduce walk-ups to a reasonable level because they've already charged too much for season tickets.

I haven’t seen a single viable method of the club increasing revenue to help cover costs here, other than get rid of the free pint, which might save £30 a ticket

There are a million different things they can do better. It's been discussed multiple times. Basically we are F***ing dreadful at retail, marketing and revenue modelling. If Gibson had expanded the fanbase to the 3bn people that watch English football and don't have a Teesside postcode then he could sell more stuff at a lower price. The reason he has to charge so much to a tiny group of people is because he has failed to grow and capture any of that expanding market. He decided to only sell Boro merchandise in a single retail unit at the stadium instead of them being available in places like Sports Direct. Just that decision shows how unsuitable he is at retail because it's an isolated view. He's seeing £50 for a shirt, £40 profit and that's it when he should be looking at £50 for a shirt, £20 to the club and £20 to Sports Direct but potentially a fan in London, Manchester, Portsmouth, Bristol etc that might spend £1000s in the long run. Even if you want to buy from MFC direct they stupidly charge you £6 for delivery if they ever have any stock. That's just selling kit. Extrapolate the fact he has no retail/marketing sense and apply it to the concourse being unable to serve drinks quick enough to take people's orders (for 30 years), a stadium that is never full which indicates ticket prices are wrong etc. There will be 100s of revenue streams we are missing out on because Gibson doesn't have the knowledge to take advantage of them, nor does his CEO who's prior experience was working at a chemical company and he pays below market value for staff because he's thinking about the few quid he can save instead of the money that could be made by employing better people by spending a bit more.

I get that, but football costs have increased across the board sadly. This is a fact of life.

I get no one wants price increases, neither do I, I'm just accepting it as part of life. But there are two things that nobody seems willing to address in this debate:

1. Just how much Gibson has spent and written off this year. In December Gibson wrote off £107m that the club owed him. Imagine writing that off, that must be equivalent to a 1/4 of his wealth, and when he puts the prices up, people complain. 107m, is nobody able to comprehend just how much he has done this year? Do we owe it in some way to do our bit? Shouldn't he have our full support for this remarkable action, not face a barrage of abuse?

2. He is not personally profiting from this increase, none of the board are. This is purely about getting more money into the club, and don't we all want that?

It's all his own doing because of decades of mismanagement. It's not the fans fault that he has been **** at his job but it's the fans being asked to pay a premium to cover for his incompetence. He is personally profiting. He's not taking money out but he's putting less in than he should be. Fans spending more saves him money.

 

[TeaCider]

What I would do is refuse to buy anything in the concourse. No pint, food from the vans outside.

Nobody would notice that was even happening.

It would get absolutely no coverage either.

The media might pick up on fans leaving the stands at 30 minutes (especially if Boro were winning) and mention the reasons why it's happening, as it's all being broadcast, nobody's going to pick up on a few burgers not being bought.

 

[BigAl76]

I've got no issue with RF staging a walk out. Emotions run high around everything football, especially when it comes to your own club and your access to it.
Do I think it will make any difference to the club - no. Will it make a difference to the people who stage the walkout - absolutely it will. Engineering a situation to give yourself empowerment is an important social construct - especially in the north east.
Fans just want to be heard. If the price had increased but the communication from the club was better I think people would accept that much more readily.
It's all about the optics - and MFC have dusty windows.

I'm not an "I'm alright Jack", person although I have saved money for our season tickets. Purely based on the clubs renewal email I've a good mind to put that money in the bank and use that pot to pay on the door each home game instead. There is always 1 or 2 games a season I cant make so it would actually make financial sense to do that. Lets face it there is no incentive to buy a SC otherwise.
That would be my little protest. Would it make a difference to the club - no. Would it make me feel a little bit better - absolutely it will.

 

[Quicksilvera]

Do you think our ST prices should be higher than the rest of the division, yes or no?

Ideally they would be free but that isn’t the case, what are we paying per game with a pint? £22-23?it’s a pretty cheap hobby compared to a lot of activities we could otherwise be doing.

 

[FatFrank]

I've got no issue with RF staging a walk out. Emotions run high around everything football, especially when it comes to your own club and your access to it.
Do I think it will make any difference to the club - no. Will it make a difference to the people who stage the walkout - absolutely it will. Engineering a situation to give yourself empowerment is an important social construct - especially in the north east.
Fans just want to be heard. If the price had increased but the communication from the club was better I think people would accept that much more readily.
It's all about the optics - and MFC have dusty windows.

I'm not an "I'm alright Jack", person although I have saved money for our season tickets. Purely based on the clubs renewal email I've a good mind to put that money in the bank and use that pot to pay on the door each home game instead. There is always 1 or 2 games a season I cant make so it would actually make financial sense to do that. Lets face it there is no incentive to buy a SC otherwise.
That would be my little protest. Would it make a difference to the club - no. Would it make me feel a little bit better - absolutely it will.

Great point about the Club not showing transparency. Whilst I don't agree with the walk outs, they did shoot themselves with the "immediate" deadline. Sometimes, you do wonder who runs the PR department at that place!

 

[indeedido]

If Gibson has promised to meet them and has not done so then I appreciate them being angry by that but I don’t think a walk out is the best option. It is the players who ultimately suffer.

The players don't suffer mate, they really don't.
They still hire forklifts to take home their wages for being pretty ordinary.

 

[Scrug]

Nobody would notice that was even happening.

It would get absolutely no coverage either.

The media might pick up on fans leaving the stands at 30 minutes (especially if Boro were winning) and mention the reasons why it's happening, as it's all being broadcast, nobody's going to pick up on a few burgers not being bought.

Depends if it was done en-masse. It’s a revenue stream for the club, so hits them financially.

Realistically, the only major statement will be if people refuse to renew. But they won’t, judging by the amount of ‘I’m alright jack’s’ on here alone.

 

[Philly-Red]

Ideally they would be free but that isn’t the case, what are we paying per game with a pint? £22-23?it’s a pretty cheap hobby compared to a lot of activities we could otherwise be doing.

For you. Not for others, which is the point you are deliberately missing.

 

[Duffman]

Ideally they would be free but that isn’t the case, what are we paying per game with a pint? £22-23?it’s a pretty cheap hobby compared to a lot of activities we could otherwise be doing.

Some who renew on the early bird in east and west upper will be paying £30 to £32 per game with no free drink. - is that still pretty cheap? Not everyone sits behind the goals

 

[BigAl76]

I must admit - I would like an explanation from the club as to why our SC prices are so high in comparison to other Championship clubs.
As is mentioned above.....are those other clubs marketing themselves more successfully to a wider audience? Are we too insular in our reach? Do we have technology at our ground that is more expensive to maintain than your average championship ground? Are we also funding the (must say - excellent) training facilities at Rockliffe?
I dont need to see balance sheets - just an explanation or communication from the club would be nice.

Also, I do feel the argument that we are more expensive than prem clubs is a flawed one. Premiership clubs can probably afford to loose money on matchday attendance financials because it is offset by the huge amount they are pulling in from TV rights alone. It's like comparing apples to space craft.

 

[Scrug]

Ideally they would be free but that isn’t the case, what are we paying per game with a pint? £22-23?it’s a pretty cheap hobby compared to a lot of activities we could otherwise be doing.

You didn’t answer the question.

I’ll rephrase it using your justification. Do you think we should be paying £22-£23 per game when other teams in the division with significantly higher wage bills are paying far less?

Yes or no?

 

[InglebyUTB]

I agree with what many others have said, it’s a silly protest that achieves nothing other than hurting the lads on the pitch and the manager. Gibson already has your ticket money, whether you leave after 30 minutes or not.

I still think much of this is about the way it was done as oppose to the increase itself. I know several people saying they can’t afford it who spent £100+ going to Leicester at the weekend and will be spending £200+ going to QPR in a few weeks.

If Gibson and Bausor had been upfront with fans and explained their thinking behind the rises I don’t think there’d have been half the backlash we’re seeing.

 

[TeaCider]

Ideally they would be free but that isn’t the case, what are we paying per game with a pint? £22-23?it’s a pretty cheap hobby compared to a lot of activities we could otherwise be doing.

A substantial portion of our season ticket holders don't get a free pint, and not everyone that uses it drinks alcohol, so I wish people would stop trying to include inflated lager prices in their justification for the prices.

We get a bottle of water and a bottle of coke at every match, that's costing the club naff all.

You have to have been continuously renewing since 2015 to even be eligible, and we had 16,000 season ticket holders then, we have 23,000 now, even assuming everyone who was a season ticket holder then is going now, which they won't be, that's a minimum of 30% of season ticket holders that aren't eligible for a free drink.
The actual number will be much higher.

 

[CG85]

The tickets have risen 5.5%-6%, we had about 21k season ticket holders this season. If we lose around 1250 season ticket holders for 2024, that totally negates the rise.

I know this a simplistic view as this rise isn't the only contributing fact to people not renewing. However, the club need to be looking at other way to bridge the rising costs as there is no guarantee this rise in ticket prices will cover the other costs.

As other have said the retail arm of the business is managed so poorly. I went in the shop back end of September for a birthday present and I could'nt get anything unless you are a small or xxxl, that included the club branded polo shirts etc.

Are we using social media enough to boost the brand and its appeal. Could we starting being more creative on Tiktok and YouTube with our output and gain revenue from these streams. They put out a few videos a year (Rav and Bangura food challenge is 1 from this season that was popular), more content like this to boost the views online will create some revenue.

The whole pricing structure seems very here and now. The none early bird new season ticket prices are going to be eye watering that with the under 18 pricing and removal of the half season tickets, feels like there is no attempt to grow the fan base at all. eventually the existing ticket holders will reduce and reduce and with no strategy in pace to grow the fanbase numbers will slowly shrink.

The other thing (I've not looked into the numbers), but are we getting the best deals form our sponsorship streams. Kit, stadium, etc?

Once positive I've noticed from the last few homes games (I'm in the south) it's much quicker to get served at the bar, they've converted the old betting booth into a little bar (that happened a while ago). But, now they're actual staffing it properly, last home game 5 staff, 3 pouring drinks 2 taking payments it worked really well.

 

[h_m_boro]

Always seems like a massive elephant in the room when these issues arise - no-one mentions players wages and agents fees.

They are the real leeches in football. Bang average Championship footballer on £10-15k week, with their agent getting huge cuts to move him on every couple of years. Multiply this by, what, 6-7-8 players .......that's where your hard earned is going.

Boro have to compete. Have to pay these ridiculous wages otherwise we would be League 2 in next to no time. I accept that.

But, it does look like the fans are bearing the brunt of years of bad decisions. I can't afford a ST, living 100 miles away makes it even less viable - but that's my choice, that's life. But even picking and choosing game - paying £19 for my 10 yr old + booking fee.....joke.

How do you get kids hooked charging them £20 a game? These are the fans of tomorrow who are being priced out, so will find other things to do. Other teams to support (well they couldn't get a Boro top but they had Man City ones in Sports Direct - and they can watch them every week on Sky Sports).

"It's only 57p / £30" isn't correct either, wait until the cheapest walk up is announced at £35 or new ST holders having to pay £150 more than the gadge in the seat next to them .......add it all together and there is definitely a two tiered fans system in place. Walk ups are scum, we know, we know........

Fully support the RF action, but it will achieve nothing. Until this becomes a nationwide movement against the level of greed in football we will all have to smile, bend over and grimace as the vaseline has been out priced.