Sport as a spectator experience - Simon Barnes in The Times today

[Barrel of Fun]

Twickenham now is a complete corporate whorehouse. The best seats mere mortals can usually get are in line with the 22, but most are behind the posts.

The reason most are 1-a-year attendees is it's because it's nigh on impossible to get a ticket and even harder to get one that doesn't require a 2nd mortgage being taken out.

As for the article, I agree with him.

I'd agree with that. Same with international cricket (certainly at Lords). These matches are becoming the preserve of the corporate class.

I went to a friendly a few years ago, at Twickers, and parted with £78 for a ticket. They can charge that as they will always fill it. I love rugby and I would do my best to watch every England game live, but it is ridiculously expensive.

Even at those prices, ticket income is dwarfed by sponsorship/hospitality/broadcasting. Attending fans are not the important ones nowadays.

 

[somerset]

Listen, I am no corporate lackie, I am a rugby supporter, a member of a club at which I coached and played for twenty years,..... I get a ticket through our club applications, we apply well in advance, pay money up front, and to date I have seen England at Twickers eighteen times, the most recent last Saturday.

The vast majority of those in attendance are the same as me, tickets acquired through RFU affiliated rugby clubs or rugby playing schools.

Probably 10k of the consistently packed 82k in attendance are what you lot are calling the corporates. As for the 'once a year' jibe...utter crap....most like me are current or retired players and coaches, or relatives and friends accompanying them who every week support their local pro or amateur club. Tickets are stamped with the club that receive them, any ticket that gets found in the hands of touts results in that club getting no allocation indefinitely.

Its more of a supporters occasion than most international sport occasions, including football at Wembley, the national sport with huge swathes of corporate seats and a stadium that us rarely full.

Also, I get tickets in all parts of the ground, each year, each game is different, I have sat even just besides or behind the players and management.....one year Jason Robinson was sin binned against Scotland, he sat his ten minutes out two seats away from me.

 

[vegster]

Simon Barnes is spot on as usual. However, this is merely a metaphor for life in general, Kids have to have the most outlandish Halloween costume, Weddings now require Owls delivering rings and harpists at the reception, micro celebrities trundling around a dance floor for 16 weeks get screamed at like the Beatles in '64. Sports events have become theatre, sponsored by international companies and it's stars plastered in advertising. It's awful.

 

[Gwylan]

Listen, I am no corporate lackie, I am a rugby supporter, a member of a club at which I coached and played for twenty years,..... I get a ticket through our club applications, we apply well in advance, pay money up front, and to date I have seen England at Twickers eighteen times, the most recent last Saturday.

The vast majority of those in attendance are the same as me, tickets acquired through RFU affiliated rugby clubs or rugby playing schools.

Probably 10k of the consistently packed 82k in attendance are what you lot are calling the corporates. As for the 'once a year' jibe...utter crap....most like me are current or retired players and coaches, or relatives and friends accompanying them who every week support their local pro or amateur club. Tickets are stamped with the club that receive them, any ticket that gets found in the hands of touts results in that club getting no allocation indefinitely.

Its more of a supporters occasion than most international sport occasions, including football at Wembley, the national sport with huge swathes of corporate seats and a stadium that us rarely full.

Also, I get tickets in all parts of the ground, each year, each game is different, I have sat even just besides or behind the players and management.....one year Jason Robinson was sin binned against Scotland, he sat his ten minutes out two seats away from me.

Totally agree. Rugby is a much more of fans' event than many other sports - you get corporates there but most spectators are real hard core. Cricket used to be like that but the proper fans have been priced out now. rugby still holds on to its core values.

Yes, there are some corporate spectators at Twickenham (or any big rugby venue) but look outside the grounds there are always people desperate to buy tickets (on a few occasions I've had to dip into the pocket to pay over the odds for a ticket from some City wallah who wants to offload his unwanted freebies) and it's these people who make up the bulk of the crowd.

Simon Barnes is spot on: 90% of sports fans hate all that false emotion and fake excitement: look at what happens when we have a poll on here about goal music, rejected by about 95% of us. Father and Son might be part of the 5% that welcomes it but all that forced razzamataz has no part in sport

 

[crodonilson]

Totally agree. Rugby is a much more of fans' event than many other sports - you get corporates there but most spectators are real hard core. Cricket used to be like that but the proper fans have been priced out now. rugby still holds on to its core values.

Yes, there are some corporate spectators at Twickenham (or any big rugby venue) but look outside the grounds there are always people desperate to buy tickets (on a few occasions I've had to dip into the pocket to pay over the odds for a ticket from some City wallah who wants to offload his unwanted freebies) and it's these people who make up the bulk of the crowd.

Simon Barnes is spot on: 90% of sports fans hate all that false emotion and fake excitement: look at what happens when we have a poll on here about goal music, rejected by about 95% of us. Father and Son might be part of the 5% that welcomes it but all that forced razzamataz has no part in sport

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