Sunderland Season Ticket Sales
- Thread starter BeanBeany
- Start date
Jedi boro
Well-known member
Gibson has gone on record as saying he’s not bothered about crowd numbers as his model makes money look at that 10 k less but almost on a par with sunlun.
His policy has never been one of full occupancy our pricing structure shows that. It’s about loyalty and regular income.
That’s the bedrock a standard early war chest that fans have locked into. I honestly don’t think he cares about walk ups.
His policy has never been one of full occupancy our pricing structure shows that. It’s about loyalty and regular income.
That’s the bedrock a standard early war chest that fans have locked into. I honestly don’t think he cares about walk ups.
That's fine but he's currently got a stadium full of people that grew up watching Premier League football and there was much less televised football. When I was at school there was 3 kids in my year in primary that didn't support Boro.
Now, kids all want to watch Man City, Liverpool, United etc and it's far more accessible through sky, YouTube, dodgy sticks etc. I run two junior football teams, in the two squads (21 kids in total) there's 6 that are boro fans. The rest are all wearing Premier League clobber. And out of them 6, 4 of them have season tickets.
My point being, his hardcore fan base will decrease over the years unless he taps into the youth and people just genuinely can't afford/justify spending the money he's charging.
Do you think it's right that he's ripping off his loyal fans. I.e the ones who will attend no matter what. because that's what he's doing. He's charging 20%+ more than other similar teams.
Jedi boro
Well-known member
Heh I agree with you but I recall he was asked on the 3 legends about this and he said it a false economy if scale as yes they could lower prices to sell more burger beers etc but studies showed it didn’t work
I’m paraphrasing but that was the jist.
As I say he’s never really changed from the path since either.
Look at pre season charge everyone £5 fill the place or have it half full or even open only 1 stand for £10-20.
Think it has been said on here before but the average revenue per ticket is really low for us which shows that our sales are good for oaps and kids and terrible for adults. We're pricing out the majority of the fanbase in the price bracket that should be the biggest. Working age adults are getting shafted.
Gibbo will probably be gone before the real long term effects hit but in 20-30 years time we'll have a fan base that resembles Blackburn or Bolton in my opinion
Redwurzel
Well-known member
BG - Ref Full Utiliation - Average home crowd was around 26.25k - Capacity (seats that could be bought) for most of the season was around 31k = 84.7% - the club seem to want capcity to be around 31k for security reasons - think they don't need 1800 seats of segregation, but they seem to think they do.
Last season - crowds went up from Boxing Day onwards, but it was a poor season until mid November.
Away teams
Coventry, Sunderland, Burnley sold their full away allocation last season - I can't remember about Sheffield United but it must have been close.
Next season - Leeds, Sunderland, Sheff Wed, Leicester will very likely sell out.
Boxing Day team will probably sell out if we get one.
Southampton, Ipswich, Huddersfield, Coventry, Norwich, WBA could sell out their allocations if they are doing well.
I would have thought the distance to the Riverside, is the biggest cost factor, not the ticket price - from Brum to Boro its £80 return on the train and thats with a railcard.
****
The O/P of the thread was about current prices. I agree with you utilisation was poor in some past Championship seasons, but what is more important is this season. I do remember average crowds of 18,500 at the low points which is 60% utilisation and unacceptable.
I am sure our crowds would go up if we cut our prices to Sunderland levels (approx 30% cut) but our crowds would go up by around 1500 or around 6%. (most Boro fans that want to some already come to games) - Meaning total revenue would be less and thus less to spend on players and probably a drop in results which reduces crowds.
Possibly there is an argument to reduce child prices to keep the fans of the future and the basis kids are more likely to want other spending - scarf, drink, food - so a £5 ticket becomes say £12 in revenue and adult has to pay £30 to £35 to come with them and that adult may not have come.
As said before a fair price is not a cheap price. To me a fair price is the price equivalent for a live show at a local theatre say of a tribute band. My local theatre has Mousetrap play tickets for sale at £27.50 adults, £26.50 concessions plus booking fee to me roughly the same as the Riverside last season prices. To me Championship clubs charging £20 or less for adults are selling the product short. The league is probably 6th best in Europe.
Last season - crowds went up from Boxing Day onwards, but it was a poor season until mid November.
Away teams
Coventry, Sunderland, Burnley sold their full away allocation last season - I can't remember about Sheffield United but it must have been close.
Next season - Leeds, Sunderland, Sheff Wed, Leicester will very likely sell out.
Boxing Day team will probably sell out if we get one.
Southampton, Ipswich, Huddersfield, Coventry, Norwich, WBA could sell out their allocations if they are doing well.
I would have thought the distance to the Riverside, is the biggest cost factor, not the ticket price - from Brum to Boro its £80 return on the train and thats with a railcard.
****
The O/P of the thread was about current prices. I agree with you utilisation was poor in some past Championship seasons, but what is more important is this season. I do remember average crowds of 18,500 at the low points which is 60% utilisation and unacceptable.
I am sure our crowds would go up if we cut our prices to Sunderland levels (approx 30% cut) but our crowds would go up by around 1500 or around 6%. (most Boro fans that want to some already come to games) - Meaning total revenue would be less and thus less to spend on players and probably a drop in results which reduces crowds.
Possibly there is an argument to reduce child prices to keep the fans of the future and the basis kids are more likely to want other spending - scarf, drink, food - so a £5 ticket becomes say £12 in revenue and adult has to pay £30 to £35 to come with them and that adult may not have come.
As said before a fair price is not a cheap price. To me a fair price is the price equivalent for a live show at a local theatre say of a tribute band. My local theatre has Mousetrap play tickets for sale at £27.50 adults, £26.50 concessions plus booking fee to me roughly the same as the Riverside last season prices. To me Championship clubs charging £20 or less for adults are selling the product short. The league is probably 6th best in Europe.
Last edited:
Redwurzel
Well-known member
Nano
Adults who are Chairman Drink renewers are doing OK - £480 or £20.87 for a seat and a pint if they go to every game.
Redwurzel
Well-known member
Thanks for putting up their cheap ST prices - did they sell out last season?
I thought the Hawthorns as a stadium felt dated - some parts were uncovered, the away concourse was very crampt with low roof, tight toilets, quite a bit of exposed to rain seating and some restricted views. In the away end it felt like terracing converted to seating. It was a fiver to park the car on an industrial estate 15 minutes walk across the M5 or its a long wait for a packed tram. Was it over £6 for a pint?
Colgates_shaving_foam
Well-known member
Redwurzel
Well-known member
Our last reported wage bill was £25m - the club itself are not greedy. Most of its costs are out of its hands.
Ref KId wearing "Plastic team" tops always has happened when I was at Primary School in the early 1970s - Leeds Don Revie's Leeds had more kids supporting them in many parts of Teesside than Stan Anderson's Boro, until Big Jack arrived. The Brazil kit of 1970 was more popular than Boro's. There was one live club game a season - the FAC Final.
Ref KId wearing "Plastic team" tops always has happened when I was at Primary School in the early 1970s - Leeds Don Revie's Leeds had more kids supporting them in many parts of Teesside than Stan Anderson's Boro, until Big Jack arrived. The Brazil kit of 1970 was more popular than Boro's. There was one live club game a season - the FAC Final.
18MFC76
Well-known member
I think we need to remember who the target audience is here. Middlesbrough is one of the most deprived areas in the country. Child poverty figures etc make pretty grim reading in this area. Other clubs pricing is fair and exactly what it should be. The going rate for Championship football can't be compared to local theatre costs. The going rate is set by what clubs are charging across the league and it's clear that Boro fans are being ripped off in comparison. As another poster mentioned, football is a lot more easily accessible these days with the internet/firesticks etc. You need to factor that in too. If prices go too high some people will just think no I'll not bother.
The positivity around the club at the minute is as good as it's been for as long as I can remember. People are behind Carrick and feeling positive about the future. Despite this we have only sold around 20k season tickets at the cheapest prices. That for me shows there is an issue with our pricing. In my opinion if our pricing was in line with other clubs at this stage we would be looking at a ST sell out next season. The only reason we're not is because too many people are being priced out.
Borokian1876
Well-known member
Just the small town mentality a lot of fans seem to have and constantly undermine our size and potential, we have the highest prices in the league well, third. We have already sold 20,000 season cards and will likely sell 24,000. Bolton and Blackburn are clubs with no real catchment area while ours is huge in comparison to them two, Blackburn in particular
But this is my point. We are losing our next generation of fans to the same clubs they are. By not making it affordable. Like I said above, there's a lot more kids walking round in City/United/Liverpool tops now in boro than there was 20 years ago. Its doesn't matter how big your catchment is if you don't get the kids in and involved. If you price them out, you'll lose them to the Prem teams.
We've done that on the back of a successful season. Look at the last 15 years. The boro fans are fickle. If we have a bad season we'll be back at 15k season tickets in no time
We've done that on the back of a successful season. Look at the last 15 years. The boro fans are fickle. If we have a bad season we'll be back at 15k
It's just smoke and mirrors. There's still thousands of empty seats that can be filled with the right pricing structure. And we haven't been filling it regularly for years. There's no justification for being the most expensive club in the Championship in my opinion and in the long run we'll pay the price.
You can get away with it when you are in the Premier League. But we aren't and haven't been for a long time.
Colgates_shaving_foam
Well-known member
You can't buy Boro tops anymore, that might have something to do with it.
We order in about 100 every season and then we can't restock, it's ridiculous.
When I was at school most of my class had man u tops, loads of them still went to boro games and are all boro fans now.
The replica shirt market is not a reflection of what team they will support as a grown up.
Exactly. They went to the games.
A lot less kids do now, and more would if they were more affordable. Will they get that buzz and turn to support boro if they don't attend the games, my guess is not. They'll stick with their prem teams.