06 Feb 2016 10:14:59
In my opinion (and this is exactly what I'm expressing) NO football ticket should EVER cost £77, no matter what. Add that to the fact that the extra revenue will add basically nothing to the club as a whole, it just reeks of greed.
Not slating the owners as on a whole I think they have pumped money into the club and they have backed the manager, but this seems to me to be a sly move to slowly start raising all ticket prices.
I have NEVER agreed with any kind of walkout or strike but some times drastic actions need to be met with the same.
Our mid table performances and results are already alienating some fans, why would you chance alienating more just to make a few quid.
06 Feb 2016 11:15:27
If they're not earning a lot more from it how can it be greed?
Everyone is so focussed on these £77 tickets, which are going to be mainly for business men and corporate. The club is charging the wealthiest people attending the game more money. This is allowing them to freeze a lot of ticket prices, reduce many, allocat 1000 tickets for local schools and 20000 to local supporters. If anything this should be seen as positive. The club are ensuring that local supporters get to see the game, ensuring that it is real fans who come to the match.
As Liverpool fans we expect the club to buy the best players, build a great stadium and offer a lot to the fans. Without Champions League or the same Commercial power we once had other options need to be looked at.
We need to realise that the other top 4 clubs charge big money on tickets to receive a decent revenue in larger stadiums. We need extra revenue, even if it is just £2m.
Dont even bring up City having cheaper tickets, they are owned by mega rich owners for whom revenue is not as much of a problem.
06 Feb 2016 11:43:15
Anfield Andy, well done on not understanding 1 iota what this means for the fans in future. I give upðŸ˜.
06 Feb 2016 11:58:55
Sorry Waro, but I think Andy is spot on. The club know that some people will spend more to get a ticket, so they satisfy that demand to keep prices down for 80% of the ground.
It is no different to any of the other top clubs (that we all want to be able to compete with in the transfer market) .
However we do need to keep those tickets to a minimum to avoid the atmosphere being like it is at FA Cup games.
The club should do more to get young local lads to the game though. more schemes for schools local clubs, etc so that what we have all grown up loving about the club survives.
So for me, as with lots of things in life, it is all about balance! Some tickets for those willing to pay for them, but whilst doing all we can to keeping the majority of tickets affordable.
{Ed001's Note - again missing the whole point. Always the nonsense about how it enables the club to compete, when it doesn't.}
06 Feb 2016 13:10:26
The price increase has not meant we will compete financially no, but it has enabled the club to offer 1000 tickets to local schools to enthuse the fans of the future.
It has enabled the club to ensure 20000 local fans at every home game get a ticket. And has enabled many proce freezes or drops arpund the rest of the ground.
In the future we will all pay more for what we get, as every football fan will.
Yes, I wish I could take my sons to the game and not have to work overtime just to afford it, and yes I wish there was a cap on the maximum a club can charge, but in reality I know some things won't change.
I am all for the club remaining loyal to us and finding a way to make it more financially viable for us. I believe that increasing the ticket price to the wealthiest and corporate to reduce or freeze others is a decent way to do this.
06 Feb 2016 17:27:54
Hang on Ed, how can you say it doesn't help us compete?
We have been hamstrung by smaller attendances for the last 10 years. We need greater match day revenues so more capacity will generate more revenue and then we can create more revenue to compete. By having some of those tickets be more expensive allows us to hold some prices lower so that existing fans can still attend whilst still generating more revenues.
How can increased capacity with some at increased prices not help us compete?
{Ed001's Note - it makes very little difference, otherwise Man Utd would be miles ahead and Leicester would be bottom, as they make the least from their matchday attendance.}
06 Feb 2016 17:51:37
Come onEd. We can have differing views but this makes little sense. Utd with 20000 more capacity than us (albeit prawn sandwich eaters) have out performed us for the last 20 years! This year (after misspending £200m) they are trailing Leicester. So what! They will outperform Leicester over the next 10 years because they generate more revenue!
I have loved LFC for over 35 years, but today is not 30 years ago! Successful teams have to be successful businesses! We may not like it, but it is reality! The challenge for fsg is to grow revenues whilst not losing what makes us special (the fans) . That is not easy! But this move of increasing 2000 ticket prices and keeping over 30000 the same seems to be an attempt at balancing that issue!
{Ed001's Note - if that was so, why do Borussia Dortmund, with the biggest capacity by a country mile in the Bundesliga, not have much more money than Bayern? It is a tiny proportion of income, same in the Prem. Sorry but you are not talking reality because you fail to understand the business is to make money through online streaming rights and TV rights, which requires good atmosphere. I hate this 'it's a business' crap, the most successful clubs in the world are all fan owned and have cheap tickets. Barcelona and Real Madrid you can get tickets for next to nothing. This is just lies from rich owners, who should not even be allowed to be owners as they are meant to be clubs owned by the fans.}
06 Feb 2016 18:12:33
Ed, I don't have the in depth knowledge of the running of a club that you do, this is true. However I fully understand that revenues are derived from a varietyy of sources. Although ticket sales may not be the biggest source it is a source, and should be maximised. An additional 20000 capacity with an average ticket price of £60 would create £20m per season at a marginal additional weekly cost. So it would generate meaningful revenue for the club.
We absolutely have to maximise revenue from other sources and we are probably not doing well enough at that, but given we are increasing capacity I won't criticise the owners for doing it in a way that maximises revenue whilst assisting them for maintains prices for the hardcore fan that is the lifeblood of the club.
It is interesting that you highlight bayern, Dortmund and barca. All have capacities nearly doubling ours. So they have more freedom in pricing as they can generate revenue due to such capacities. If we had 80k capacity we could generate much larger revenues at a far lower cost per ticket. We don't! We have half their capacity and have to maximise the revenue we can generate or we will fall even further behind!
Please don't get me wrong. I want to compete! Really I want us to win! To do this we need to maximise revenue! However I want to maintain the beauty of what we are, which first and foremost is the fans, the atmosphere and Anfield! But this is avert difficult balancing act in the current climate! I would gladly pay £77 to watch my team if that enables the vast majority of prices to remain the same so that the lifeblood of the club continues!
{Ed001's Note - why does it have to be maximised? Explain that to me. Come on, tell me how having lots of money helps the club do better than it is, when we have spent ridiculous amounts and achieved nothing. We do not need to maximise revenue, we need to build a fanbase for the future, like the really big clubs do. Seriously you think it is numbers of seats that set the ticket prices, yet our price increase coincides with an increased number of seats and a monster new TV deal. Clearly I am wasting my time if you think like this now.
You believe Dortmund and Bayern have low prices because they have big stadiums! Bless you, it is not like you couldn't have found out for yourself that you are totally and utterly wrong on that front. Bayern don't fleece the fans because they know they are needed. Hell they even rescued 1860 Munich and let them share the stadium to stop them going out of business because it was the right thing to do, not because it made them money.
There is no balancing act needed, we do not need ticket money, as the clubs themselves admitted in the past. It is pure greed to keep hiking the prices, not necessity.}
06 Feb 2016 18:13:26
If we had a stadium the size of Alluanz or the Nou Camo things would be very different!
{Ed001's Note - no it wouldn't. The prices are going up as the capacity increases. This is pointless if you don't see that.}
06 Feb 2016 18:38:17
Ed, we have certainly not invested well in the last few years. But having 30k less capacity than the mancs for the last10 years has seriously impacted our ability to compete.
I am not saying that we couldn't have done other things better, and if we had then ticket price increases may not be justified. But if we are adding 12k capacity then having a couple of thousand at prices that people will pay is not the end of the world if the majority of prices stay the same.
We obviously have different views on this which is ok. I wish we had revenues to compete whilst lowering prices, but I don't see that as realistic. I am also not naive enough to think FsG don't want to make money. It is a different era and as much as we might wish for the past it won't come. If we had 80k capacity we could create similar revenue with reduced prices. But we have limited seats and any business in that scenario will try to maximise costs.
Listen, we don't agree and you have undoubtedly more insight than me do you are probably right, but from my view I do t object to increasing some prices if most stay the same.
Have good evening, and I will continue to live your work and the site :-)
{Ed001's Note - no it hasn't. It is nothing to do with the capacity that we have failed to compete. We already make the revenue to compete but we have wasted them for years. That is what should be fixed rather than fleecing fans.}
06 Feb 2016 18:47:22
I won't argue with you on that ed! When I look at what we have spent over the last few years it is shameful! And yes, if we had spent more wisely we probably wouldn't need to do anything because we would still be a perennial top 4 club.
So I will not argue that there are far more urgent things to fix than ticket prices!
Have a good night and I appreciate the discussion.
{Ed001's Note - exactly mate, and it proves that it is not going to change as they are doing it to coincide with increased capacity. Night mate and cheers.}