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Manchester United fans are frustrated by another significant rise in season ticket prices - so why are clubs charging so much?
The age of frozen season ticket prices in the Premier League is long gone – as Manchester United fans found out on Tuesday, when the club announced that prices for next year’s season tickets would increase by 5%.
Chief executive Omar Berrada described the increase as “fair and reasonable”, adding that “the club has decided that it would not be right to keep prices unchanged while costs rise and the club continues to face financial issues”. The Manchester United Supporters Trust, meanwhile, simply described it as “disappointing”.
This isn’t just about Manchester United’s parlous financial situation, however, nor about simple greed – this is a reflection of a direction of travel taking place across the Premier League as the financial landscape changes and clubs work to push season ticket holders out as far as humanly possible.
Stagnant broadcast revenue causing increases
For years, Premier League season ticket prices remained pretty stable – Berrada noted in the club statement announcing the changes (a statement which was rather desperately headlined with the news that tickets to watch the Under-16s would remain the same price) that United season tickets had been held at the same price for 11 years before consecutive 5% increases which will now extend to a third year.
It's likely hoped that this information would make United appear to have been historically munificent, but in truth season price tickets raised only occasionally for clubs across the league in the decade preceding the coronavirus pandemic – in no small part because broadcast revenue continued to rise to the extent that increasing prices would have seemed intensely greedy in an environment when negative publicity was to be avoided.
“Between 2010 and 2019, retail inflation was low and Premier League TV revenues were growing quickly,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire explained to The Guardian last April after Premier League clubs announced increases in season ticket prices almost across the board.
“In 2014 the league saw broadcast revenues rise by 70%. In 2017 they did the same again. To be seen to be targeting fans when money is tumbling from the sky would look bad. But since then domestic revenues have effectively flatlined, so how do clubs generate more money? The price of merchandise has gone up, and ticket prices are another lever they can pull.”
Furthermore, clubs across the top flight have been hit by rises in costs and interest rates, which hit a number of clubs whose finances were leveraged against substantial loans especially hard. Much like companies across a wide range of industries, football clubs passed the costs on to consumers.
Of course, United’s situation is rendered even worse by years of questionable financial management by the Glazers which have reportedly led to significant cash flow issues and questions about whether they club will have to sell home-grown players in order to comply with the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules, which will continue to be in force next year after top-flight clubs failed to agree on a replacement system.
Because the severity of United’s price ticket increases is being blamed in part on historical mismanagement of the club’s money, of course, it rankles all the more, especially with the club cutting costs in a savage fashion, including laying off large numbers of staff.
The truth is that there is a business case to be made for increasing season ticket prices, but it’s tough to take when the club is reportedly haemorrhaging money for a variety of reasons related to the owners’ misjudgements while the cost of living crisis continues to bite for many fans. Then again, this isn’t just about the reality of football’s financial landscape, but about big teams wanting to push traditional supporters out.
Why big clubs don’t want season ticket holders any more
For clubs up and down the English football pyramid, season ticket holders are an essential fiscal cornerstone. These are the people that pay up front to be there every other week, spending money on merchandise and at concession stalls. Without them, most clubs would go under – but it’s a different story for the very biggest teams.
The Premier League’s success has made it a tourist destination. There are an amazing number of fans, often from overseas, who will pay far more for a seat in Old Trafford than a local from Salford will (or can), and they are essentially an untapped source of revenue for football clubs because season ticket holders simply get in the way.
Thousands of seats which could be sold for top dollar are instead sold for a fraction of their ‘face value’ to someone with a season ticket. Clubs that sell out their stadiums on a routine basis are leaving money on the table with every ticket that goes to a dyed-in-the-wool local supporter rather than to someone making their ‘trip of a lifetime’ to see their favourite team – and the hard-nosed businesspeople who run Premier League clubs are only too aware of the fact.
Teams like Manchester United just don’t need season ticket holders any more. As much as Berrada may call them “the core of our match-going support base” – not “the lifeblood”, to trot out the old corporate cliché, just “the core”, a statement of fact rather than respect, really – the fact is that United (and many other teams) would make more money if there were fewer season ticket holders.
Of course, they can’t cull them completely, not without a monumental PR backlash and quite possibly even government intervention, especially in a political climate which has encouraged the creation of an independent football regulator. Instead, they hike the prices.
This both ameliorates the increased operating costs clubs are facing and allows them to make some of their money back from seats they wish were being sold to people who are either wealthier or just more willing to break the bank on a one-off trip. Season ticket price increases represent both financial necessities and the opportunity to claw some of what owners often see as lost ground back, and it’s the same fundamental logic that underpins the gradual introduction of much-criticised dynamic pricing systems to sporting events as well.
Rather underlining the fact that the most fiercely loyal and passionate fans are becoming a secondary priority for clubs is some of the small print in United’s statement. For starters, the seats immediately behind the dugouts will no longer be sold as regular tickets but as premium corporate seats – proximity to the stars becoming an exclusive perk for the biggest spenders.
Then there is the £10 fee set to be charged to any fan, unable to attend a game, who wants to use the club’s official resale platform, which is pretty much a straight price gouge on a rather petty scale in terms of the club’s wider financial position. It’s certainly in keeping with a strategy that saw a £50 bonus for one match day steward every game scrapped recently.
The long and short of it is that clubs like United do indeed have sensible business reasons for upping season ticket prices, but likely also want to price local fans out in favour of bigger spenders – and in United’s case, the entire equation has an added level of contempt sprinkled on top as Ineos dig fivers out here and there to try and fill a vast financial black hole.
United are the first to come under the microscope for increasing season ticket prices this year. They won’t be the last. Supporting football clubs is simply getting more and more expensive, and price increases which steeple above inflation are set to be the norm for most teams for the foreseeable future. It’s a pricey time to be alive.