If you pop across to various sports websites, in my case BBC Football, you'll see that the subject of pricing has popped up again, due to a recent BBC Sport study. One of the most interesting interviews I came across was with Alloa Athletic [yep, really] Mike Mulraney, who was very down-to-earth, very realistic, and very forward looking. Quite refreshing, I thought. Do you agree..? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24056582
Not of interest..? We're not bothered about the pricing at St Mary's then..? Safe standing not an issue for you..?
You can't really compare Alloa with an EPL team, but I do support the idea of safe standing. "Be like Germany" tends to be sensible advice nowadays.
No, I didn't suggest to compare an EPL team with Alloa Athletic, Joe. I merely suggested that their Chairman had a refreshing attitude to the modern game and how it could be priced and presented. Yes, they are dealing with much smaller numbers, but the dynamics are remarkably similar. If that is comparing then OK, I'm comparing. That wasn't my intention though.
They're also probably dealing with different kinds of fans. He said that there aren't die-hard fans any more, and that they could all easily find something else to do with their Saturday afternoon, but when it comes to EPL fans, you can charge them a whole lot more and they'll keep showing up. That's why Alloa's pricing hasn't changed in ten years but EPL prices keep increasing: enough people will pay these silly prices to see an EPL game, but no one is that interested in a club like Alloa.
I could easily find something else to do with my Saturday afternoons. Last winter I paid £80 for 4 Saturdays at Cheltenham racecourse, and was lucky that none of those days clashed with a Saints home game. For £20 a visit, I got a whole afternoon's top class sport at the home of Jump Racing. This winter, my mate was up for getting membership at Cheltenham, but I passed on that as I want to get full value for my seat in the Chapel at SMS. It was close though. In a sense I was choosing between my two current sporting heroes, AP McCoy and Rickie Lambert. So do the business please Rickie.
Whole afternoon of sport, there was probably about 40 minutes of racing in total, I bet you spent a lot of money on alcohol & gambling when you were there? It's a simple case of supply & demand and price elasticity, people want to see Premier League football live & will pay good money to do so
Yes, good point about Alloa's situation. I was hoping that their Chairman's interview would provide a bit more of a spark towards an open conversation. After all, he touches on a few topics that are close to people's hearts. One, of course, is safe standing. From my point of view that's not something I'm too bothered about as a principle. However, I'm one of those supporters who cannot afford to go to St Mary's week in, week out, because the crucial minimum price is too high, so with safe standing, perhaps the tickets could be significantly lower. However, I have several active interests outside of watching football. We make our choices. My own circumstances are subject to change anyway, as I have recently completed my mortgage [Yippee..!] so I'll have a wee bit more disposable income coming through. I was this )( close to allowing myself the prospect of a season ticket, this year. We'll see how it goes. On the subject of captive fans, if you look at the attendances of St Mary's in the PL, last season they managed to average nearly 31,000 overall, which is quite astonishing. That's not far off a full house each match, minus the hospitality areas. Makes you wonder how much more there is to come. Would safe standing result in more or less revenue..?
I think a lot of supporters of EPL teams might watch that video on the BBC site and ask themselves "well how come Alloa fans don't have to deal with increasing prices but my team still have the nerve to keep charging me more money? Ain't that some ****." It's almost as if it were designed to get EPL fans a bit irate. I think the fact is that demand simply works differently in the big leagues, and someone at the BBC could possibly do with explaining that to people. Safe standing, however, is definitely a good thing to get people talking about, because we could do it, and it would result in some cheaper options. I can't afford to be going to St Mary's every weekend either, especially with the train journey on top (and now my job won't let me go at all ) . I think the safe standing would probably result in a similar revenue; not much either way. You'd be removing a fair few seats, but that new area could probably contain twice as many people, so if standing were half the price then it'd work out the same. That's a very simplistic explanation of it, anyway. Oh and congrats on the mortgage.
