I disagree, I can sit at home on my sofa with my flask and blanket and not get judged. Can’t do that at the ground without snarky comments and being made to feel uncomfortable. In fact can’t even take a flask into the ground at all anymore.
How? I think if they rolled out iFollow fully in the UK, they'd all be surprised at how many signups they'd get from people who no longer live locally.
I still think gates would suffer. I think some people would cancel/not take out memberships if games were available on tv for a tenner, not good for the clubs cash flow and if people aren't committed to a regular payment it's much easier to decide to watch from home for a tenner than fork out 30/40 quid for a day out at the MKM. I'm not opposed to your idea but a tenner just isn't enough, it would need to be at least the same as the ticket price at the gate imo. As for the 'type of fan the club needs' I'd guess the club will be happy to take anybody's money, The issue of people watching illegal streams will persist either way.
You can already legally stream, every game that doesn't kickoff at 3pm on a Saturday and most the midweek games are live on the Sky red button. Has this impacted our attendances this season?
Lose out on what? Members will go to the games. People have been getting ten quid tickets recently, they will either pay the club a tenner to go live or pay them a tenner to sit at home. Either way the club get paid.
Who in their right mind would give up their membership and seat at the moment? We have an ambitious owner and some quality staff trying to build the crowds. There is every chance we will soon be knocking on the golden door of the Prem again. Why would someone give up their guaranteed seats to save a few quid and watch games at home? And as I said earlier, if they're that fickle then probably for the best we weed them out now before Acun takes us to the Champions League spots.
Look at the average and compare it to recent seasons. It has not impacted the attendences. If there are more people watching on the red buttom and ifollow via a vpn then there are also many more who are now attending in their place so my theory about weeding out the flakers is correct. The streamers can stream and the dreamers can dream (from a proper seat in the stadium)
I can't do as you suggest because I don 't have attendance figures for midweek and other non-saturday 3pm games going back a few seasons. If you have these figures I'd be interested to see them. I don't really understand your flakers theory. And anyway I'm sure the club is as happy to take 'flakers' money as it is anyone else's.
You'd have to be pretty desperate to cancel a membership to save £5 a game or whatever it is (0.17p for over 65s). Giving up the atmosphere, social aspect and loyalty/support for the club and players, in order to sit at home and spend the fiver you've saved on a 4 pack of lager is not going to be up there for many people. Good luck to those who would prefer to do that, the club still get a tenner from them and it will hopefully mean someone else buys their seat meaning the club is actually up on the deal.
Attendances are up, it doesnt matter who is in the stadium or what time it kicked off, the fundimental is that gates are not suffering even though free streams and vpns are making the ability to watch City from home widely available. Making it legal to watch City on ifollow for a tenner would not damage attendences, as others have said no real fan would want to watch on a screen when they can be in the ground. The idea of selling every game for a tenner is aimed at people who cant attend through sickness, work reasons or simply because they live too far away.
I'm inclined to agree with you, I would much prefer to be at games rather than watch on ifollow or any other stream.
The 3pm Saturday blackout is done for the benefit of the game across all leagues, specific optimism about our upcoming season is completely irrelevant, they're not Hull City rules.
