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    West Ham Ticket Prices

    Just seen this BBC Sport article about the Hammers reducing prices ahead of their move into their new stadium.

    Apparently they are claiming that the reduction is to make it more affordable and is based on the extra TV revenue - rather than a more cold-headed issue of needing to attract new fans to fill the additional space the move will provide.

    Make of that what you will, but to me it supports my point that the one thing holding English football attendances back (and increasing prices) is a lack of capacity. West Ham have been the beneficiaries of a huge public subsidy in building/converting the stadium which alone the club would never have managed.

    #2
    West Ham Ticket Prices

    It's great news that West Ham are doing this, but what about the little clubs? They can't afford to subsidise ticket prices. Fans may well end up with the choice of watching a lower league club (like Orient) for £22 or watching West Ham in the top flight for £23.

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      #3
      West Ham Ticket Prices

      West Ham's policy on ticket prices is solely down to the fact that they need to grab all the people they can from East London to try and fill the Olympic Stadium.

      The timing of the press release from them was purely as a reaction to this recent story.

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        #4
        West Ham Ticket Prices

        Harry Truscott wrote: West Ham's policy on ticket prices is solely down to the fact that they need to grab all the people they can from East London to try and fill the Olympic Stadium.

        The timing of the press release from them was purely as a reaction to this recent story.
        Yes, my view is that it's a cynical move to present it as an act of good-will rather than a simple response to the supply/demand curve. The state-aid thing could well bite them in the rear as essentially that is what it is.

        My second point though is that this is a good illustration that if we want lower ticket prices we need clubs themselves to put more of their TV money into stadia development. The fact that we've been at 95% capacity for a while in the PL shows how whatever is being spent - it's not enough,

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          #5
          West Ham Ticket Prices

          I *think* I may have called the state aid implications over this for West Ham two or three years ago and received an amount of abuse from supporters over it - I can't remember whether it was Twitter, 200% or elsewhere. I think I may have to return to that subject later today.

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            #6
            West Ham Ticket Prices

            Interestingly (or not, depending on your position), impacting upon competition is one of the criteria for defining state aid, and if reducing ticket prices in the hope of luring supporters away from other clubs doesn't impact upon competition in the most obvious possible terms, I don't know what does. I'm not certain that it was wise for them to issue a statement over lowering prices as a reaction to it, when all it does, so far as I can see is, prove that it was state aid, though I would qualify this by saying that I'm a little rusty on this and might have interpreted it incorrectly.

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              #7
              West Ham Ticket Prices

              Here's some basics on State Aid. Seems there might be an issue. ticks the first 3 boxes and quite likely the fourth too.

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                #8
                West Ham Ticket Prices

                Paul S wrote: It's great news that West Ham are doing this, but what about the little clubs? They can't afford to subsidise ticket prices. Fans may well end up with the choice of watching a lower league club (like Orient) for £22 or watching West Ham in the top flight for £23.
                Orient, and other teams at the third and fourth level, should stop charging £22 then.

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                  #9
                  West Ham Ticket Prices

                  Little clubs absolutely can afford to drop ticket prices. They just choose not to.

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                    #10
                    West Ham Ticket Prices

                    My second point though is that this is a good illustration that if we want lower ticket prices we need clubs themselves to put more of their TV money into stadia development. The fact that we've been at 95% capacity for a while in the PL shows how whatever is being spent - it's not enough,

                    Well in fairness, Spurs are building a new stadium, liverpool have started work on expanding anfield, swansea have bought their stadium with a view to expanding it. Palace are pretty explicit about their desire to rebuild selhurst park, and a bunch of other clubs are looking at filling in the corners of their stadia and adding on an extra couple of thousand seats.

                    The thing is though that as you head down the league, the amount of money that smaller clubs make from gate money is actually pretty small. 13 of them take in less than £20 million a year, 10 of them take in less than £15 million a year. So upping the capacity by 10 or 20% is only going to make a marginal impact on their turn over, particularly compared to the expense involved. For instance, Villa only make £13 million a year on tickets, and they had an average league attendance of 36,000.

                    another factor to consider is that back when clubs were switching over to all seater stadia, a lot of them expanded to the limits allowed by the site, by planning laws, and by transport links. It's frequently quite tricky to expand further. Southampton were looking long and hard at expanding st Marys, but they seemed to conclude that the only feasible option was to build another new stadium.

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                      #11
                      West Ham Ticket Prices

                      The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: [i]Southampton were looking long and hard at expanding st Marys, but they seemed to conclude that the only feasible option was to build another new stadium.
                      That's the problem really. St. Mary's is built to be easily expanded by a few thousand, but beyond that you are in the territory of would it be cheaper to pursue an out of town development(So far though the club are also holding back from even the easy option).

                      Clubs do have the money - it's just that it goes on wages instead and the economics of it make it difficult for any one club to put a large amount of investment into stadia and downright risky for a mid-range club like Southampton.

                      The problem is that in the meantime it means higher and higher ticket prices.

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                        #12
                        West Ham Ticket Prices

                        It really does depend what you mean by "can afford to" though, Eric's. As things stand, as an individual club in the fourth division, if you drop prices, you just get less money and you get relegated.

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                          #13
                          West Ham Ticket Prices

                          How much do you charge at Wimbledon, and what's the division average?

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                            #14
                            West Ham Ticket Prices

                            Umm, I dunno, and we are pretty average.

                            I shall get some more data.

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                              #15
                              West Ham Ticket Prices

                              Cheapest adult standing is £16, cheapest adult sitting is £20.

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                                #16
                                West Ham Ticket Prices

                                We should certainly stop charging such high prices, but the pious PR prattling of West Ham this week - and its wilful swallowing by so many - is obviously irksome in the extreme. The stuff about the TV deal enabling them to cut prices is pure spin - they have an advantage viz a viz the size of their ground and the non-payment of most of the bill for its construction that others do not have.

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                                  #17
                                  West Ham Ticket Prices

                                  well enzee, it seems as though southampton are focusing on upgrading their training facilities and academy first, and given what their academy has given them, you can understand that. On the other hand, they are generating a huge amount of cash. they made a huge amount of profit last season, and I'd say there's a good chance they'll be cashing in on wanyama and schneiderlein in the summer, so they'll be raking in the cash again.

                                  They said that it would cost between £3,000 and £3500 quid a seat to upgrade the Ground, so there will come a point where they have £20 million in cash sitting in their bank account, and instead of spending it on another player who may or may not be any good, they will just take the ground up to 40,000, and throw the extra three or four million. If for no other reason than it will increase the value of the club when it comes to selling it.

                                  Certainly if they can establish themselves at the top of that group of clubs below the top six, with plans of pushing into it every now and again, a 40,000 seater stadium would seem to make sense.

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                                    #18
                                    West Ham Ticket Prices

                                    Have West Ham said how many tickets will be available at this price. Am I being cynical to think its a way of getting good PR at this point by not making it clear this price only applies for the half dozen or so seats in the back row of section XZ83.

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                                      #19
                                      West Ham Ticket Prices

                                      My understanding was that the club announced somewhere near the start of the season that if there was a succession of sell out games then they would look seriously at increasing the capacity.

                                      At the moment I don't think that's quite happened, but then in part that has to do with the high prices - I for one can't afford to go to a PL game there, but I have been to one of the cup games, where tickets were priced at £10 and it was sold out.

                                      Personally I think the PL should earmark a percentage of the TV revenue for infrastructure spending, even a small percentage would add up to quite a lot.

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                                        #20
                                        West Ham Ticket Prices

                                        The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: well enzee, it seems as though southampton are focusing on upgrading their training facilities and academy first, and given what their academy has given them, you can understand that. On the other hand, they are generating a huge amount of cash. they made a huge amount of profit last season, and I'd say there's a good chance they'll be cashing in on wanyama and schneiderlein in the summer, so they'll be raking in the cash again.

                                        They said that it would cost between £3,000 and £3500 quid a seat to upgrade the Ground, so there will come a point where they have £20 million in cash sitting in their bank account, and instead of spending it on another player who may or may not be any good, they will just take the ground up to 40,000, and throw the extra three or four million. If for no other reason than it will increase the value of the club when it comes to selling it.

                                        Certainly if they can establish themselves at the top of that group of clubs below the top six, with plans of pushing into it every now and again, a 40,000 seater stadium would seem to make sense.
                                        They should sell the naming rights to Dell.

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                                          #21
                                          West Ham Ticket Prices

                                          Genius! Does this line of thinking work for any other stadium?

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                                            #22
                                            West Ham Ticket Prices

                                            I can understand West Ham pursuing an aggressive pricing policy. In the Prem ticket sales are a relatively small portion of income compared to TV income in particular. Down the divisions it's a muc greater proportion of income, which makes it difficult for the likes of Orient to drop prices.

                                            IMO £20 is a huge price for fourth level football but it's hard to see any benefit in droppping the price to say £15 in the hope of dramatically increasing attendance. In most League of Ireland grounds €15 will give you the choice of standing or covered seating (for League 2/Conference standard football)

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                                              #23
                                              West Ham Ticket Prices

                                              Down the divisions it's a muc greater proportion of income, which makes it difficult for the likes of Orient to drop prices.
                                              Yeah, the hyperinflation at the top means clubs lower down have to spend more and more just to stay even minimally competitive, with a tiny fraction of the TV income. In fact, you could argue that 'aggressive' or even 'predatory' pricing, if it were adopted by premier league clubs (not much sign of it so far, this aside), could work to fuck over lower division clubs still further, a bit like supermarkets with loss-leaders.

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                                                #24
                                                West Ham Ticket Prices

                                                Palace are pretty explicit about their desire to rebuild selhurst park
                                                tbh I wouldn't include that on a list of stuff that's likely to get done anytime soon.

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                                                  #25
                                                  West Ham Ticket Prices

                                                  seand wrote: I can understand West Ham pursuing an aggressive pricing policy. In the Prem ticket sales are a relatively small portion of income compared to TV income in particular. Down the divisions it's a muc greater proportion of income, which makes it difficult for the likes of Orient to drop prices.

                                                  IMO £20 is a huge price for fourth level football but it's hard to see any benefit in droppping the price to say £15 in the hope of dramatically increasing attendance. In most League of Ireland grounds €15 will give you the choice of standing or covered seating (for League 2/Conference standard football)
                                                  The pricing policy is purely because they've got (or will be getting) the extra capacity so it makes sense to sell more tickets for slightly less and come up trumps overall.

                                                  It helps that West Ham haven't actually paid for the extra capacity, but that's by-the-by in the pricing model. What it does mean though is that for clubs considering spending on increased capacity the gains for them are marginal as to fill it they'd have to cut prices for a lot of games. they'd still get more overall, especially when you throw in hot dog and fizzy drink sales, but the bigger winners are the fans.

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