It always amazes me when people get thrown out or asked to do something "for no reason at all".
Why doesn't it happen to the other 20,000 people in the ground "doing nothing"?
Always pisses me off when I read comments like this, a good friend of mine who has never been in any trouble with police either football or otherwise was ejected & had his season taken away last year for asking why the security wanted to see his season ticket after he went through the turnstile He wasn't rude or aggresive he merely asked the question but they obviously thought their "authority" was being questioned & didn't like it. They then claimed that he had used foul & abusive language & tried to fight with 7 security men (This is a 57year old grandfather we are talking about with a medical condition !) When he asked them to produce cctv footage of this "attack" they claimed that there were no cameras in that part of the ground. He maintains that he was very careful not to use any aggressive or foul language.
Some of these security guards just seem to look for reasons to throw people out.
Just to put yesterday's attendance into a bit of context with where we are and those around us;
It was the biggest League One attendance of the season so far (by about 1,000);
It was a bigger attendance than 17 Championship and 3 Premiership clubs have managed so far this season;
It was 6,000 more than Millwall's best attendance so far this season and 7,000 more than Palace's best;
We had more through the gate for one game yesterday than 8 other League One clubs have had through in their 5 home games thus far combined.
Yes it was only a fiver and yes it's not where we were a few years back, but there's a fair few clubs who will be envious that we can run this sort of thing successfully, so once again a big pat on the back to all concerned.
Just to put yesterday's attendance into a bit of context with where we are and those around us;
It was the biggest League One attendance of the season so far (by about 1,000);
It was a bigger attendance than 17 Championship and 3 Premiership clubs have managed so far this season;
It was 6,000 more than Millwall's best attendance so far this season and 7,000 more than Palace's best;
We had more through the gate for one game yesterday than 8 other League One clubs have had through in their 5 home games thus far combined.
Yes it was only a fiver and yes it's not where we were a few years back, but there's a fair few clubs who will be envious that we can run this sort of thing successfully, so once again a big pat on the back to all concerned.
The really important thing is that Airman and his team, and a lot of people here and throughout the support, persuaded about 8,000 more people to turn up than would have been the case if there was no offer, and they all had a bloody good time. That means a lot of them will consider coming again, which would not have happened after the Exeter fiasco. That's why i'm sure we can call this a big success.
Spot on Prague. Now the trick is to entice them back again. We had a family of four in front of us in the East Stand, two parents and two children. Normally it would cost them around £80 to attend as opposed to yesterday's £20. That is a huge difference. Yes they could sit in cheaper seats elsewhere but it would still cost them around £60 I'd guess. Could we encourage them with a family ticket for around £40 a few times a season? I'm sure a lot of families would love to attend more regularly but can't afford to.
The really important thing is that Airman and his team, and a lot of people here and throughout the support, persuaded about 8,000 more people to turn up than would have been the case if there was no offer, and they all had a bloody good time. That means a lot of them will consider coming again, which would not have happened after the Exeter fiasco. That's why i'm sure we can call this a big success.
Spot on Prague. Now the trick is to entice them back again. We had a family of four in front of us in the East Stand, two parents and two children. Normally it would cost them around £80 to attend as opposed to yesterday's £20. That is a huge difference. Yes they could sit in cheaper seats elsewhere but it would still cost them around £60 I'd guess. Could we encourage them with a family ticket for around £40 a few times a season? I'm sure a lot of families would love to attend more regularly but can't afford to.
I think you need to be careful about protecting the value of a season ticket, but I think this is a priority. Once children reach a certain age they become attached to a team on the tele - typically one of the Champions League teams. This association is likely to be permanent (even if they ultimately become a second team), but more worryingly their experiencing of football will tend towards 100% television viewing. If these Man Utd (and others) fans come to The Valley with their parents they might just develop an interest in live football and may choose that over May Utd on the tele. Despite their massive appeal these top teams also have finite capacities and are normally sold out, so we are not really competing with Arsenal and Chelsea for attending fans, but to convert youngsters into fans that go to games not just watch it on Sky.
The attendance was a disappointment for me. I know 22k is a huge success and something we can be very proud of, but I was just hoping that as we were so very close to £25k last time we might just top it this time. We can always have another go at topping 25k. I know a family of six that came to Exeter, and they had a great day out, but they had a family commitment this weekend. For financial reasons they will not pay full price to go to a game and I suspect there are a lot like that, but some sort of 'family' deal might just get them coming a few times a year and who knows how that can end.
Charltons average crowd is 16400 which at even £20 a ticket means £328,000 matchday income. If they sold the ground out at £5, 27,000 capacity it means £135,000 matchday income. At the 22k they got this week it means £110,000 income.
So it's costing you at the least £200k every week you try this offer (and I've been generous with the figures) in the hope that people will come back during the following weeks.
Again at £20 a ticket, that means you need 10.000 extra ticket sales over the rest of the season, which at 20 games or so means 500 extra sales each week just to break even (simplifying the figures.) If they repeat the offer they need to raise average attendance by 1000 each week. I've heard Simon Jordan say these deals don't work financially, but it might be worth looking at what happens to Charlton's attendances this season. They need to be averaging 17000 for this to have worked financially. I can't see that happening on the back of one discounted game and if you repeat the discount you increase the amount you need to recoup.
There are business initiatives that you can try but I'm not sure a flat discount is the way to go.
If only Airman Brown was as smart as the Wednesday fans and things were that simple. Loads of factors have been missed from his calculations, such as additional match day sales (and I'm being generous).
And also such as the vast number of children / oap etc tickets that we would have on normal day that only cost, say £10, so its only a much smaller discount for those. Too many assumptions from them - I'm sure airman has stated on here that even with saturdays slightly lower than hoped turnout, we will have covered all the costs of the exercise and hopefully increased our support for the rest of the season.
And also, as I said before, the offer is more likely to bring people back if everybody enjoyed the 'product", which they did by all accounts. The Owl didnt take that into account either.
The next 2 or 3 home games will tell if yesterday's operation has worked. The club repeat it again before Christmas and I would suggest our game against Oldham, the last Saturday game before the 25th. This day always seems to give poor attendances, it might give some people a reason not to go shopping.
To add a bit of interest, why not make it a tenner in plain clothes or free if dressed up as Father Christmas.
Charltons average crowd is 16400 which at even £20 a ticket means £328,000 matchday income. If they sold the ground out at £5, 27,000 capacity it means £135,000 matchday income. At the 22k they got this week it means £110,000 income.
So it's costing you at the least £200k every week you try this offer (and I've been generous with the figures) in the hope that people will come back during the following weeks.
Again at £20 a ticket, that means you need 10.000 extra ticket sales over the rest of the season, which at 20 games or so means 500 extra sales each week just to break even (simplifying the figures.) If they repeat the offer they need to raise average attendance by 1000 each week. I've heard Simon Jordan say these deals don't work financially, but it might be worth looking at what happens to Charlton's attendances this season. They need to be averaging 17000 for this to have worked financially. I can't see that happening on the back of one discounted game and if you repeat the discount you increase the amount you need to recoup.
There are business initiatives that you can try but I'm not sure a flat discount is the way to go.
There's so much wrong with this I wouldn't even know where to begin!
Comments
Always pisses me off when I read comments like this, a good friend of mine who has never been in any trouble with police either football or otherwise was ejected & had his season taken away last year for asking why the security wanted to see his season ticket after he went through the turnstile He wasn't rude or aggresive he merely asked the question but they obviously thought their "authority" was being questioned & didn't like it. They then claimed that he had used foul & abusive language & tried to fight with 7 security men (This is a 57year old grandfather we are talking about with a medical condition !) When he asked them to produce cctv footage of this "attack" they claimed that there were no cameras in that part of the ground. He maintains that he was very careful not to use any aggressive or foul language.
Some of these security guards just seem to look for reasons to throw people out.
Spot on Prague. Now the trick is to entice them back again. We had a family of four in front of us in the East Stand, two parents and two children. Normally it would cost them around £80 to attend as opposed to yesterday's £20. That is a huge difference. Yes they could sit in cheaper seats elsewhere but it would still cost them around £60 I'd guess. Could we encourage them with a family ticket for around £40 a few times a season? I'm sure a lot of families would love to attend more regularly but can't afford to.
Our shandy drinking friends at Wednesday are more obsessed about it than us!
http://www.owlstalk.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/156182-attendances/page__st__40
Just to expand on this.Charltons average crowd is 16400 which at even £20 a ticket means £328,000 matchday income.
If they sold the ground out at £5, 27,000 capacity it means £135,000 matchday income.
At the 22k they got this week it means £110,000 income.
So it's costing you at the least £200k every week you try this offer (and I've been generous with the figures) in the hope that people will come back during the following weeks.
Again at £20 a ticket, that means you need 10.000 extra ticket sales over the rest of the season, which at 20 games or so means 500 extra sales each week just to break even (simplifying the figures.) If they repeat the offer they need to raise average attendance by 1000 each week.
I've heard Simon Jordan say these deals don't work financially, but it might be worth looking at what happens to Charlton's attendances this season. They need to be averaging 17000 for this to have worked financially.
I can't see that happening on the back of one discounted game and if you repeat the discount you increase the amount you need to recoup.
There are business initiatives that you can try but I'm not sure a flat discount is the way to go.
In working out why Saturday's gate was down from Exeter, the first step is to work out where it was down. We've now established as follows:
1) About 2,000 down on £5 match tickets
2) 500 down on season tickets (which for Exeter included all part-season ticket purchases) - we are currently at about 8,700
3) 300 fewer comps this time
4) 200 up in the away end