Price of Football

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Brad
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Only 11 out of the 104 clubs in England and Scotland will offer adults the chance to enjoy a day at the football for less than £20 during the new season.

A survey by the BBC Sport website of every club in the four English divisions and Scottish Premier League showed that fans in the north west have some of the cheapest deals available for matchday tickets.

Clubs were asked for their cheapest and most expensive possible matchday adult tickets, as well as the prices for a cup of tea, a programme, and a pie in order to work out the price of enjoying a day at the football for fans without season tickets.

In the Premier League Blackburn Rovers offered the best deal at £17.50, while Watford's £17.30 represented the best deal in the Championship. Rochdale and Preston in League One and Rotherham and Torquay in League Two also came in cheapest in their divisions, while Inverness are the best value for money in the Scottish Premier League.

This weekend sees the start of the Football League season in England - a competition which attracted more than 16m fans across its three divisions last season.

John Nagle, head of communications at the Football League, said: "Football League clubs are working extremely hard to attract the next generation of fans through a variety of innovative marketing initiatives. As a result, crowds in recent seasons have been at their highest levels for 50 years."

"Much of the focus is on improving the matchday experience for supporters, particularly families. This has seen the League introduce a programme of 'mystery shopper' visits to matches in order to assess the experience and the introduction of the Family Excellence Award, to reward those clubs that are offering a particularly outstanding day out."

Despite the high attendance figures - an average of 352,260 fans attended Football League fixtures each weekend last season - the chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation Malcolm Clarke says clubs must work harder to ensure football does not become too expensive for ordinary fans.

"This is an industry that has more money going into it at the top of the game through media rights than it's ever had before," said Clarke.

"It's important that football continues to be attractive to the whole cross-section of society, so it doesn't just become something only middle-class and upper-class families can afford."

But despite the prices demand remains strong. Arsenal have the most expensive ticket in domestic football at £100 for one of five category A games for the new season - representing just 1% of tickets available. More than 60,000 fans turned out to watch them draw 2-2 with Boca Juniors in a friendly at the Emirates Stadium last weekend.

And a spokesman for the Premier League pointed out that fans are not being turned off by the expense.

"With Premier League grounds over 92% full on average in each of the last three seasons, fans are clearly enjoying the football, and the overall matchday experiences, that are on offer," said a Premier League statement.

"It is also worth taking into account that fans want to watch games featuring top talent in safe stadia; our clubs have invested more than £2bn in facilities and continue to invest heavily in developing and acquiring the best possible players to make the whole fan experience as good as possible."

But football matches compare favourably with other live sport. The cheapest day out at Super League side Hull FC is £27, while an equivalent day watching England's four-day victory over India at Trent Bridge would have cost at least £41.10.

Newcastle United were the only club out of the 104 surveyed who did not reveal their prices.
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Premier League

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Championship

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League 1

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League 2

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SPL

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By that chart, my local club Altrincham in the blue square north's cheapest day out totals more than Blackburn at 18 quid! What a joke
 
This doesn't take value for money into consideration, as a neutral would you rather spend £17.50 going to Blackburn or £35.60 going to Man United?
 
Average Joe said:
Don't think value for money is what's being questioned here.
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Any price survey that doesn't take customer satisfaction or return visits into consideration isn't worth the paper it is written on - hence Blackburn more often than not has less seats filled than it has empty.
 
Team Brian GB said:
Any price survey that doesn't take customer satisfaction or return visits into consideration isn't worth the paper it is written on - hence Blackburn more often than not has less seats filled than it has empty.
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Double negative?

On a side note, you are correct but the survey isn't there to give the reader any insight into value for money. Its simply just there to give you the average cost of a day out for the football fan at the various clubs.

You can deduce your own value theories with that (and probably a little more) information.
 
Why does the cheapest day out include pies and tea?

Surely those shouldn't be included.
 
How the f*ck can Arsenal justify £4 for a cup of tea?!?
That's £3 more than Bendtner's worth...
 
A hot dog at Chelsea (or to be more accurate a badly cooked frankfurter in a piece of french bread) is £4.00
 
The premiership ticket prices are bad enough but compared to the lower leagues they're a bargain. Charging £20 for a ticket to watch a league 2 match is outrageous, none of them ever sell out and I'd actually go to a few games if it was say 6 or 7 quid.
 
Irwin said:
The premiership ticket prices are bad enough but compared to the lower leagues they're a bargain. Charging £20 for a ticket to watch a league 2 match is outrageous, none of them ever sell out and I'd actually go to a few games if it was say 6 or 7 quid.
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True that - I cant believe the cost of lower league footy, even the Conference and they arent even pros.
 
According to the survey in the OP, the top-priced seats at Ipswich are £59, which is higher than every club in the country apart from the London-based PL clubs. What possible justification could they have for that?
 
As ever, these kind of things never take into account what it's like living in London compared to Blackburn. Of course Arsenal's tickets are much higher priced than Blackburn's. It's obviously going to be the case because the team is better, and also the average salary in London is much higher. The north is cheap as chips full stop. It cost me something like £3 for a return ticket to Old Trafford from Manchester Picadilly. That'd be £6 in London.
 
Christ I thought Yankee Stadium was expensive. Some of these prices are insane.
$5 bleacher seats in NY if you need to get in.
 
Northstand said:
According to the survey in the OP, the top-priced seats at Ipswich are £59, which is higher than every club in the country apart from the London-based PL clubs. What possible justification could they have for that?
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They're probably still payin off the loans they obtained for the restructuring of the changing rooms at the stadium / training ground & the managers office - from Keano bashin the shit out of it...
 
alastair said:
As ever, these kind of things never take into account what it's like living in London compared to Blackburn. Of course Arsenal's tickets are much higher priced than Blackburn's. It's obviously going to be the case because the team is better, and also the average salary in London is much higher. The north is cheap as chips full stop. It cost me something like £3 for a return ticket to Old Trafford from Manchester Picadilly. That'd be £6 in London.
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This survey isnt even about that, no one is saying the price at Blackburn should be comparable to Arsenal - it is more about the high price of football in general.
Although the info about prices for cricket, rugby, gigs etc actually shows that maybe footy tickets are not so overpriced after all.

Anyway your point is not such a good one anyway because Arsenal still charge a lot more than a team like Fulham - both are London clubs.
 
Rood said:
There is a thread about that from a Hartlepool supporter on here somewhere - a great initiative from the club, hoepfully others follow suit.
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Definitely, why not have a full ground than an empty one even if it doesn't make you more money on gate receipts? Those fans will all spend more money every time they turn up anyway. There are 3 leagues of clubs that could do with implementing this or something similar.
 
Alastair is right, the London GRP per capita is 75% ahead of the national average.

I recall from a thread on PL season ticket costs that after London clubs the next most expensive is at Wolves - that is just ridiculous.
 
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