As Coventry City close in on a sensational return to the Premier League after a 25 year absence the club can look forward to an increased demand from fans for season tickets to watch their team in the best league in the world.
But how much is that likely to cost? Those Sky Blues supporters who have already put their hand in their pockets to buy the £500 Premier League package can sit back and smile at the prospect of taking advantage of their free season ticket in 2026/27.
For everyone else, the likelihood is that there will be an increase on prices. How much, remains unclear, but owner Doug King insists that he will continue to be “honest” with the fans and stands by his belief that there has to be “sacrifice” to be successful.
Adult season ticket prices started at £440 for the current campaign and were available at £250 for under-18s, £125 for under-14s and £400 for over-65s and supporters aged from 18 to 21 in the standard zone of the stadium. There was a cap of 24,000 season tickets for 2025/26 in a stadium which has a capacity of 32,609.
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A quick look at current season ticket prices in the Premier League shows that they range from £345 – the cheapest in the division – for West Ham United fans to £1,127 at Arsenal, which is by far the most expensive.
Close behind the Hammers are one of the three promoted teams, Burnley, who charged £352 on their return to the top flight.
The other two promoted sides, Sunderland and Leeds United, kept prices low but applied some of the highest percentage increases with the Black Cats’ cheapest ticket jumping 11% to £440, while Leeds upped theirs by 14%, now ranging from £434 to £495.
Brentford matched Leeds’ top price, despite freezing their own, while Wolves also held steady at £525.
At the other end of the scale, Chelsea introduced a 9% price hike, but even their most expensive ticket, at £880, still comes in over £40 cheaper than Arsenal’s lowest-priced option.
Tottenham froze their prices at £856, offering flat rates regardless of seat location or supporter age, while Liverpool - fresh from winning the Premier League - also held prices steady at £713.
Manchester City also froze prices at £425, making them the most fan-friendly among the traditional big six, while Fulham raised their prices by 2.8%, bringing season tickets to between £473 and £486.
Asked if there will be a ceiling on pricing, King broke into a smile and told CoventryLive: “We’re assessing all those Premier League package tickets that I’m sort of looking at now and thinking, gee, there’s a lot of those out there.
“We’ll have a look at it. We’ll have a look at all of what we’re trying to achieve. There’s a lot of work going on and that’s where I spend a lot of time with Nicola (Ibbetson, chief business officer) and John Taylor (chief operating officer) who is back at the football club.”
He added with a chuckle: “He did leave and he’s now come back because he can’t stay away from all the glory and love of Coventry.”
Asked if the pricing structure will be as favourable or as reasonable as he can make it next season and whether he feels an obligation to the fans to do as much as you can to help them, given how much they’ve supported the club in recent years, the executive chairman said: “I think I’ve always been honest with the fans.
“When we first came in here we had to raise some pricing, certainly for the corporate side of it but also in season tickets to balance it.
“For me, it’s like the club and the fans have to work together. It isn’t just me and everybody else feeling great because I’ve been so generous, and it’s amazing. There is sacrifice everywhere, to be successful. And it has to come from both sides of the tree, and I think I’ve always been consistent on that.”
He added: “The goal last year was, for me, that we’ve never really filled this stadium until this year. So we got maybe one game to sell out here but we were maybe averaging 26,000/27,000 the previous year. For me that’s disappointing, so the goal, and obviously where we priced things last year, was to fill the stadium.”
Attendances at the CBS Arena in the 20 Championship home games to date have seen crowds of over 30,000 on 12 occasions, over 29,000 on six, one over 28,000 and the lowest, just over 27,000 against Preston on a Wednesday night.
“I just want people to come,” said King. “I want to encourage them in again, I want people to experience it and bring new people into the mix. And I think we’ve done a really good job pricing that with obviously a lot of season ticket holders and then filling the games and, at times, putting the ticket exchange out there, which is great to do, right? We get a bit of money and other people who want to experience live football can come and experience it. So that was the goal.”
He added: “Now, we’re obviously having the season of seasons and hopefully moving into the Premier League so the demand will be extremely high because we haven’t been there for 25 years. We’ve never hosted at this football stadium any Premier League opposition in a league.
“So look, I have to look at it all in all aspects and work out what’s the right thing to do. We have a good idea of what we’re trying to achieve and what we’re trying to do. I've been pretty open with the fans and done lots of stuff with them on Q&As and whatever, and they’ll go again.
“It’ll be what it’ll be and I understand the situation. I’ve been in this role for three and a half years so I sort of understand where we sit and how it’s worked and where we need to develop. But if we want to be successful and if we want to stay where we want to stay we have to maximise everything in a large way, right?
“But we do respect the fans, who are incredible. Just look at Swansea the other week, just incredible.”
There are a few fans in the Legends Lounge and corporate areas getting a bit twitchy about being priced out after increases in recent years. Asked about the pricing in those areas, King continued: “I’ll look at everything. Our season tickets have been extremely good value for the reasons I mentioned as we have a big stadium and also we want to re-engage with fans. Looking back for many years it didn’t have many here. So the issue is, we’ve done a good job doing that.”
He added: “The beauty of that and what I really like about it is there’s still a lot to do. When people come and I’ve got a box and I bring Yelo clients and customers, whatever, and people love coming here. You can’t believe how much they like it. They go, ‘I didn’t think it was like this,’ and I’m going, ‘yeah, you’ve never been here and you haven’t seen it.’
“Even people in the boardroom are loving the feel of it and it just feels like a good experience. People chat, we get on, it’s fun, we can have a few drinks. It’s serious.
“There’s good noise and energy in the stadium, all these things, so for me it’s like, this is an experience that is actually is great and hopefully we’ll get even better as we move it forward.
“So I think with all that people, at this time in life, want to experience stuff. They want to go and see what it feels like. You can watch most of our games on TV, live, and yet they’re not having that, they’ve got to be there.”
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