[Football] North Stand Scudmore Protest

[Bry Nylon]

i looked at buying tickets to see Rocky Horror Show at the Theatre Royal for some of my family instead of presents. Tickets were between £50-65. for about 2 hours of entertainment. Actually quite similar to the cost of "one off" tickets to the Albion.

Agreed. But how many people go to the theatre every fortnight between August and May at £100 a time?

 

[El Presidente]

Comparing to cost of tickets to a top show or band seems odd to me as you don't go to see that show 19 times (or more) in a year do you? It's expensive partly as it is a rarity or a treat. Football should be an everyday thing and priced as such.

I pay £515 for a season ticket, which works out as £27 a match, that includes the travel voucher worth a fiver, so £22 a match to see Premier League value 19 times a season is good value IMO.

 

[el punal]

53 quid for a replica shirt is outrageous

Albion adult shirts are £50.00, youth shirts are £40.00 as advertised on the official club site. Where does the £53.00 come into it - post and packaging?

 

[Weststander]

I pay £515 for a season ticket, which works out as £27 a match, that includes the travel voucher worth a fiver, so £22 a match to see Premier League value 19 times a season is good value IMO.

A s/t you don’t use, as you’ve normally blagged a freebie to sit with the Barber and Bloom clans, or with the visiting Scudamore.





Just joking

 

[blue-shifted]

But would they lower prices if we went down? They weren't much lower when we were in the Champ. More likely they will say they need to keep them high to make up for the loss of income.

And to be fair it is totally justifiable to charge higher prices when we weren't breaking even. But now we're getting the TV money. So my complaint is that now we have this fabulous income, given the tiny proportion of our income which comes from gates, even if we took 1% of the TV money (about £1m per year, please correct me if I'm wrong) and used it to lower ticket prices, you could knock approx £50 off from the 20,000 season tickets. Or better reduce some of the ridiculous single ticket prices which prevent us from expanding our fanbase. I'll say again. You'd only have to divert 1%!

But Barber won't do that. It's not in his DNA. Maximising revenue is his ideology. He's not a football man, he's a money man. I don't dislike the bloke, he's very good at what he does. I just think we need to look after the longer term health of the club more and making watching us more accessible is part of that

ST prices are reasonable, not cheap, but you get more at the Amex in terms of comfort and facilities than offered by other clubs. One off tickets are similar, if the club is relegated then ticket prices would have to reflect the lower demand.

The club lost £110 million in six seasons in the Championship, it would have lost more with lower ticket prices. It has the fifth lowest playing budget in the Premier League, with Palace playing their players on average £20,000 a week more than we do.

ST prices are reasonable, not cheap, but you get more at the Amex in terms of comfort and facilities than offered by other clubs. One off tickets are similar, if the club is relegated then ticket prices would have to reflect the lower demand.

View attachment 102359

 

[Weststander]

Albion adult shirts are £50.00, youth shirts are £40.00 as advertised on the official club site. Where does the £53.00 come into it - post and packaging?

What about the additional cost of PL badge sleeves?

 

[Weststander]

But would they lower prices if we went down? They weren't much lower when we were in the Champ. More likely they will say they need to keep them high to make up for the loss of income.

And to be fair it is totally justifiable to charge higher prices when we weren't breaking even. But now we're getting the TV money. So my complaint is that now we have this fabulous income, given the tiny proportion of our income which comes from gates, even if we took 1% of the TV money (about £1m per year, please correct me if I'm wrong) and used it to lower ticket prices, you could knock approx £50 off from the 20,000 season tickets. Or better reduce some of the ridiculous single ticket prices which prevent us from expanding our fanbase. I'll say again. You'd only have to divert 1%!

But Barber won't do that. It's not in his DNA. Maximising revenue is his ideology. He's not a football man, he's a money man. I don't dislike the bloke, he's very good at what he does. I just think we need to look after the longer term health of the club more and making watching us more accessible is part of that

ST prices are reasonable, not cheap, but you get more at the Amex in terms of comfort and facilities than offered by other clubs. One off tickets are similar, if the club is relegated then ticket prices would have to reflect the lower demand.

The Albion board (let’s not wrongly point out PB) set out to maximise revenues from every possible avenue, including from consumers.

The Huddersfield board set out to maximise commercial, broadcasting and merchandise revenues, whilst setting s/t prices at an affordable level. This proves that this can be done.

 

[el punal]

Me and my son were discussing this on Saturday and both my son's and me have been going together since the last year at The Goldstone when they were 8 and 9 years old
We miss the great away days such as Darlington and Rochdale as the fans up there were proper fans and not plastic like we are getting now.
I understand people coming along and jumping on the premiership bandwagon and it's brilliant to watch world class players against us but it's the fun days out we miss such as Rochdale and Preston, Bristol City and Burton.
They are the games which we had a great day out with proper fans home and away.
Now it seems everyone we see at away games we no longer recognise or they just sit there in their allocated seats and count it as a ground they have visited and don't join in the banter or abuse which is all part of the game

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I’m sorry but I just don’t get this “proper fans not plastic ones we get now” malarkey. What the hell does that mean? I’ve been watching the Albion for over fifty years. I took both my daughters to the Goldstone when we were struggling in the old Division 3, I’ve taken my grandchildren to the Amex to watch the Albion. If you pay to watch and support your club in whatever division you are in then surely you’re a genuine fan?

Just because now we are in Premier League and not playing away at some Northern shithole in the back of beyond does not make you any less of a fan. I have found, going to numerous away grounds following the Albion, that most football fans are genuinely loyal and committed - as you’ve described - “proper fans”.

The plastic ones are surely those that bang about how they support (fill in your glory hunting team here) , never go to a game and their supporting experience is watching on telly at home or down the pub.

 

[timbha]

The Albion board (let’s not wrongly point out PB) set out to maximise revenues from every possible avenue, including from consumers.

The Huddersfield board set out to maximise commercial, broadcasting and merchandise revenues, whilst setting s/t prices at an affordable level. This proves that this can be done.

There’s a lot of competition for bums on seats in Yorkshire and given Hudds relatively low “base” support compared to the stadium capacity it makes economic sense to entice new/reward loyal fans with lower ticket prices.

How would people feel if we reduced ST prices when we are in the PL but increased prices substantially if we got relegated and had minimal TV income?

 

[Simster]

I pay £515 for a season ticket, which works out as £27 a match, that includes the travel voucher worth a fiver, so £22 a match to see Premier League value 19 times a season is good value IMO.

So about the same as someone who wants to see about 12 games and doesn't have a season ticket.

It's not actually the good value you say it is anyway (compared to other European ticket prices):


https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/17/football-ticket-prices-premier-league-europe

(article from 2017)

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Agreed. But how many people go to the theatre every fortnight between August and May at £100 a time?

If you saw Rocky Horror Show every fortnight between August and May the entertainment would start to get very predictable. Actually, I’m starting to understand this analogy now.

 

[Tooting Gull]

But would they lower prices if we went down? They weren't much lower when we were in the Champ. More likely they will say they need to keep them high to make up for the loss of income.

And to be fair it is totally justifiable to charge higher prices when we weren't breaking even. But now we're getting the TV money. So my complaint is that now we have this fabulous income, given the tiny proportion of our income which comes from gates, even if we took 1% of the TV money (about £1m per year, please correct me if I'm wrong) and used it to lower ticket prices, you could knock approx £50 off from the 20,000 season tickets. Or better reduce some of the ridiculous single ticket prices which prevent us from expanding our fanbase. I'll say again. You'd only have to divert 1%!

But Barber won't do that. It's not in his DNA. Maximising revenue is his ideology. He's not a football man, he's a money man. I don't dislike the bloke, he's very good at what he does. I just think we need to look after the longer term health of the club more and making watching us more accessible is part of that

ST prices are reasonable, not cheap, but you get more at the Amex in terms of comfort and facilities than offered by other clubs. One off tickets are similar, if the club is relegated then ticket prices would have to reflect the lower demand.

Pretty fair. Have to say I was disgusted both by the lack of a proper challenge from our club to the Scudamore £5m, and also Barber's clueless attempt to justify both the award and the club's rubber stamping of it.

It is possible to believe Barber does a good job on the money side but also got this one horribly wrong. It exposed the gap between his lengthy PR epistles, and proper understanding of not only Albion fans but football fans nationwide.

I know he has his apologist fan boys and girls on here who forgive him anything, but like the single matchday prices especially for young kids, he was way off on this one.

 

[Creaky]

If Scudamore went to a competitor there could be far less in the central pot for clubs though, which is why they made that particular decision. From the clubs' point of view it was an insurance policy, and the £83,000 is their annual premium.

In dealings with PB he's not criticising the fans, it's more to do with the media for twisting a story that has led to outrage on the terraces (or more appropriately, Twitter, message boards and phone in shows).

From the fans point of view has the immense increase in revenue originating from television rights made the Premier League ‘better’?

Is it more entertaining and more competitive for most of them?

Has the ‘good job’ that Scudamore has done and could potentially undo ,without a payment most could only dream about, really benefitted the very people that the club’s supposedly exist for?

 

[Another Berkshire Seagull]

But would they lower prices if we went down? They weren't much lower when we were in the Champ. More likely they will say they need to keep them high to make up for the loss of income.

You get more games in the Championship. If prices froze then effectively their would be a price decrease, just as this represented the increase in price when we got promoted to the Premier League.

But Barber won't do that. It's not in his DNA. Maximising revenue is his ideology. He's not a football man, he's a money man.

This isn't a Barber thing. Tony Bloom hired Barber, Tony Bloom has kept him on for a number of years, Tony Bloom recently promoted Paul Barber. This strategy comes from Tony to minimise the amount he puts and has had to put into the club. I'm eternally grateful to Tony for covering the larger share of cost that we as fans would never be able to stomach to provide us this level of football.

 

[El Presidente]

Pretty fair. Have to say I was disgusted both by the lack of a proper challenge from our club to the Scudamore £5m, and also Barber's clueless attempt to justify both the award and the club's rubber stamping of it.

It is possible to believe Barber does a good job on the money side but also got this one horribly wrong. It exposed the gap between his lengthy PR epistles, and proper understanding of not only Albion fans but football fans nationwide.

I know he has his apologist fan boys and girls on here who forgive him anything, but like the single matchday prices especially for young kids, he was way off on this one.

The club has no say in relation to the pay package of Scudamore though as they don’t employ him, and consequently cannot rubber stamp it either.

 

[Weststander]

So about the same as someone who wants to see about 12 games and doesn't have a season ticket.

It's not actually the good value you say it is anyway (compared to other European ticket prices):


https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/17/football-ticket-prices-premier-league-europe

(article from 2017)

Perhaps continentals don’t keep churning out “you’d pay just as much to see to see a gig or show”.

 

[Weststander]

Ample references to “Barber”’, said through gritted teeth, with a tone normally reserved for Satan.

 

[El Presidente]

Whilst we were in the Championship Tony Bloom subsidised every ticket sold by £20 for six seasons to give the club a competitive budget to be in the frame for promotion.

He’s entitled now IMO to expect the club to be self sufficient now that we are in the Premier League.

If you don’t think he’s done enough then that’s fine, no one has to agree.

As for the Barber bashers, every decision is agreed at board level and TB had input, Pail Barber doesn’t make these decisions by himself.

 

[LlcoolJ]

As for the Barber bashers, every decision is agreed at board level and TB had input, Pail Barber doesn’t make these decisions by himself.

And he'd find himself in a bucket full of trouble if he tried to.

 

[Tooting Gull]

The club has no say in relation to the pay package of Scudamore though as they don’t employ him, and consequently cannot rubber stamp it either.

That is about as misleading as a Brexit campaign poster. 'We have no say'...but only if we as a club choose to stay silent. Of course we have a say, we have a seat at the table of the organisation who employs Scudamore. We can speak out at any time on anything we choose to.

We are not talking about Scudamore's previously agreed huge pay and TV deal bonuses (£26million in total). We are talking as you know about the additional £5million exit payment, which is seen as greedy and grubby by most fans.

In this context, rubber-stamping is not speaking out strongly against it. Which, from the contents and tone of Paul Barber's initial response, was the last thing on his or the club's mind at the meeting. We could have if not stopped it, at least registered our strong reservations. We did neither.

To pretend we have no influence or no say currently is ludicrous. We went along with the additional payment without a fuss so as not to rock the boat. But the boat was rotten, and at odds with the principles usually espoused by this club. A lot of fans are very surprised about that, as I'm sure you have read.