Surprised this hasn't been mentioned anywhere yet... the BBC have released their annual price of football study and has apparently found that the price of going to football is putting off young fans. Shocked. Interesting too to note that no other club charges £4 for a programme. Our cheapest ST's are apparently the 5th most expensive in the league and STH's apparently paid an average of £31.82 for each goal scored at home last season Main overview: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41901398 Stats for Saints: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41914171 Full results: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41482931
The BBC (and other media outlets) banged on about the "price of football putting off young fans" and the low percentage (4%) of young people going to games however........ ..........they seem to have forgotten, yet again, that football is not just the fkn Premier League. There are lots of youngsters going to lower league games and not just at Lincoln. I would suggest the reason is not so much ticket prices but travel. With so many Londoners supporting teams from Manchester and so so many Midlanders supporting Arsenal (etc, etc) then that is one reason why so many young people don;t go to Premier League clubs. Not that many young people are supporting their "local" Premier league team so can;t afford to travel to their chosen gloryhole. Whereas the bus into town to watch the local side is pretty cheap. Especially if you got a discounted season ticket for your local side which includes free bus on matchdays.
Youngsters have a strange ability to find money for what they want....struggling to pay their bills, but still drinking regularly and going on holidays. Sorry....had to stop to pick up my eyeballs which had just rolled across the kitchen floor. Perhaps football just isn't the priority that it once was, because there are so many other choices.
There's an awful lot more football on the telly too, which undoubtedly effects people's willingness to fork out to go to live games.
You all make very good points. But they don't detract from the fact that football is simply unaffordable for many young people. If they live at home then yes, not so much an issue. If not though...
The price of attending football is absurd and has been for many, many years. One doesn't even have to point out details. It's just massively over-priced.
Incidentally, the average like for like price for the cheapest ticket in the Bundesliga is £10.28. The same ticket in the Premier League is £28.33. Kind of says it all really.
I've not been to a single game this season, but did a couple of expensive ones last season. I may try and go to Watford away but cannot afford it otherwise this season. Even at university I managed to go to 4 or 5 a season because I was guaranteed to be home until September and over Christmas. It's too expensive for me now I don't live at home, and really attending matches can't be a priority over other things as they're accessible online pretty easily.
Well they don't do stupid things like privatise them. If they are privately owned they are state supported. In fact. the UK has the most expensive public transports systems in the whole of the EU. It staggers me how ****ing stupid our governments manage to be. Did you know that in railway systems, the closest country to the UK, in price, is France. Their average tickets are 57% of the price of the UK's. Then again, France has a fabulous hi-tech railway system, which has seen enormous investment. Everyone else in the EU is way, way cheaper. Poland is something like 12% of our price for the same journey. It's ridiculous.
I was in Budapest for a short break recently and the public transport is both staggeringly good and absurdly cheap compared to most cities in the U.K. I have been to. The sooner the buses and trains are renationalised the better.
This is true of a lot of things that are blamed on [insert singular but false correlation] Like pubs struggling. The days of every man going to the pub nearly every night are over. The days of weekend evenings being pub nights are gone. People do all sorts of things these days. Play computer games, watch Netflix, Gym, Sports, Taking coffee etc. It is no longer pub every night, Go to the game every fortnight. Pubs struggling is just the latest movement in social habits evolving. Same as happened to the Working Men's clubs a couple of decades ago. And football is struggling because it now competes with masses of other entertainment much of which is actually cheaper even though it is overpriced. So linking football struggling to attract the younger attendee directly to the ticket price is far too simplistic a correlation. I would bet the main driver is tech savvy young people watching free streams. And that cost of football analysis is in no way accurate. It has the cheapest season ticket at £299. This is true however that is a Junior Imp (kids under 14 membership scheme) season ticket and it includes Dad and Child. It also saves me the bus fare to and from the game which would come to £8. My season ticket at £304 (2 kids) comes out at £13.22 a game for the 3 of us. Take the saving off bus from that and it comes to £5.22 a game for the 3 of us or £1.74 each!!!! I take £30 out of the bank on matchday, I have a few beers, they have a few cokes, a foot long Lincolnshire sausage hot dog each and I go home with change. I would hardly say that ticket prices are scaring the younger generation (nor any other generations) off football. Maybe the Prem but not the lower leagues and probably less go to away games than used to as well. It says the cheapest matchday home ticket is £18. £18 is the pay on the gate price of which there are next to none at Lincoln because there are 6,000 season ticket holders and most other tickets are sold prior to matchday which means the highest home tickets are mainly £16 with a scattering of £18pay on the gate if it is not a ticket only match and homes seats not sold out. That of course is the adult price. Junior tickets not in the junior Imps (or over 14 but under 16) club are £7. OAPs are also concessions. The average for tickets taken on matchdays is in the £10 region. This will be the same at other league clubs. The Prem "banks" on its full houses. Lower league clubs have to work to get their attendances and are very very competitive in the younger end of the market. All sorts of stuff going on to attract families or Dads (or Mums) with kids. Fanzones around the ground hours before kick off etc. Just the Junior Imps section and Lincoln City is 1,200 seats and that does not account for youngsters sitting elsewhere in the ground. I would guesstimate that under 24s represent at least 30% of Lincoln's crowd. The report is more a case of "spend 5 minutes collating information and then spend hours making assumptions based off that information. Then extrapolate the PL failures as representative of football as a whole." The real problem with PL football is that they are getting near full houses and they are quite happy to have the older generations that have more spare money filling their seats. And will of course be there again tomorrow vs Coventry City (<----eek SISU) at another Sincil Bank sell out, with 2 very enthusiastic boys who continually say "who cares" every time sky adverts come on TV banging on about upcoming Premier League games.
Thought I would add this seeing as the papers and media have made out kids aren't going to football these days. An exerpt from the article from the EFA and the whole article linked at the end which contradicts the media depiction this week: "The biggest news the EFL will take from these figures will be the increase in junior supporters attending, as junior Season Tickets have shown a 37% growth over the last decade and juniors continue to make up 20% of overall season ticket sales." “It is particularly pleasing to see that the number of young people attending EFL matches is continuing to grow and it is no surprise to see season ticket holders are continuing to reap the best value for money, while also providing EFL clubs with a solid foundation with which to operate financially in an intensely competitive marketplace. “I’m sure such efforts being implemented to encourage families and youngsters to attend live EFL football at an early age will ensure that football has a bright future with generations of supporters getting an early taste of the matchday experience.” An analysis of the official gate receipts submitted to the EFL reveals that the average admission price received by all clubs is £13.53 across all three divisions. https://www.efl.com/news/2017/november/efl-attendances-continue-to-increase-across-all-competitions/ Maybe someone should send the Beeb a copy for them to get all confused over. Their analysis should read "The price of Premier League football" or "The most you could possibly spend at football." Their analysis of what I am paying when I type in Lincoln City is more just for me than I pay total for all 3 of us.
