The Alloa Athletic Thread

[Skyline Drifter]

 

On 13/09/2024 at 09:52, BFTD said:

People weren't happy with £16 a decade ago either. I believe that was the start of folk seriously complaining about value for money, especially away fans.

The wisdom seems to be that dropping prices does nothing for attendances, and only lowers income - I can remember a few clubs (Hamilton?) trying it years ago, but supposedly it wasn't successful. At best, I think it would need to be done over a long period of time, with a lot of effort made to inform locals that the tickets are more affordable for casuals, as hundreds of extra people aren't going to show up overnight. You'd need deep pockets to absorb the losses in the meantime, though.

I don't know why we don't do a student rate though. Everyone else seems to, and we've got thousands of students in the catchment area. I suppose the uni has its own team playing Premiership reserves, but surely some of them might fancy watching some glamour League 1 ties against big clubs like Kelty or Cove?  

Dropping prices simply does not work for football clubs. It might work on a one off special occasion where you have an important game and want a big crowd and offer £5 entry or something but across any significant period (ie more than 2 or 3 games max) football crowds are notoriously inelastic, especially in the lower reaches of the SPFL. At the end of the day, home fans tend to go regardless of price because they are invested in their club. Away fans will make a decision based on how bothered they are about spending an entire day away watching their team and relatively speaking, whether the entry fee away from home is £15 or £20 isn't that relevant to their total costs including travel and food. Basically price drops usually result in a short term crowd increase with most likely a minor income reduction, followed by crowds settling back to the norm and a much bigger income reduction. Casual fans will come based on whether the game is interesting, meaningful, what else is on locally, weather, etc. All of these are far more important than whether it's £20 or £18. Unless you're going to play for less than a tenner, price will never be the factor that brings in new fans. Not as adults anyway. Promoting it to kids however has long term benefits.

We don't technically do a Student walk up price, though in offering 16-21 year olds a Concession entry price, we're effectively doing that largely I suppose. The number of students older than that and interested in going to the football is comparatively few I expect. We do a Student Season Ticket for some reason though which is cheaper than the Concession season ticket price. Personally I think we shouldn't offer that. It's too easy for people to buy one then drop out of further education and get more discount than they should. I know people who have abused that in the past. Students probably aren't a massive market for us anyway, given that there are few further education facilities in the immediate area.

On 13/09/2024 at 10:40, Rory said:

I like what Falkirk do with the kid for a quid with any adult ticket for under 12s. The club needs to be doing things to encourage younger fans into the ground and hopefully keep them as lifelong supporters.

Could even offer something like buy one get one half price to encourage people to bring friends/family along.

We do a season ticket for kids at £18 which amounts to £1 per game (we also give a couple of hundred of those out to attendees at the club's summer Soccer Camp coaching weeks and a couple of fundraising drives in the summer saw about 175 given away to underprivileged kids too). We do charge £5 for walk up kids though.

@AlloaAdam I think fans often fail to appreciate how much lower division clubs particularly work on a shoestring with volunteer labour and systems that maybe don't cope easily with complications like for instance "early bird "offers or "buy one get one free / half price". Or how much stewarding costs and the rules with respect to the number of stewards required by area available. I don't know Alloa's stewarding arrangements but I'd imagine if they pay commercial stewards then opening up an unnecessary part of the ground is likely to need at least 4 extra stewards, possibly an extra supervisor, for at least 4 hours and probably at costs of approaching £20 per hour each. So yes, it's probably at least £300 a game to open up behind the goals without obtaining an extra penny from it. We've had fans (both ours and away ones) moan a few times that we don't open the away terrace unless we absolutely have to but it does literally cost hundreds a game to do it for absolutely no benefit. In our case we also have to bring in portaloos and extra catering if we open it so the costs are worse.

Half time draws are another one fans tend to think make a lot more than they do. We do run a half time draw every week and it maybe takes £300 - £500 a game in total  depending on weather and how busy hospitality is so makes a profit of half that. But something like 80% of the income from them comes from the Boardroom and Hospitality areas. Actually the amount taken from punters in the crowd is fairly low and your attendances are a little lower than ours generally. We have our programme sellers sell HT draw tickets too but it still needs someone to organise and count it all back in who probably needs to miss a part of the game to do it. Are you sure you don't do a half time draw at all? I've certainly bought tickets for one at Alloa but may not have been in the last year. Perhaps they only do it in the hospitality and boardroom areas as it's where the money is and a lot less hassle to do that? Perhaps it simply wasn't making enough profit to be worth the effort.

Edited yesterday at 09:28 by Skyline Drifter

[BFTD]

8 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Are you sure you don't do a half time draw at all? I've certainly bought tickets for one at Alloa but may not have been in the last year. Perhaps they only do it in the hospitality and boardroom areas as it's where the money is and a lot less hassle to do that? Perhaps it simply wasn't making enough profit to be worth the effort.

I'm watching online these days, but last time I was at the Recs in person we'd stopped the 50/50 draw. Think it disappeared during the pandemic.

[printer]

Do we still run Wasps Community Club teams? Any kids taking part in that got free entry to games (although they did have to, effectively, shell out for a strip).

I always thought that was a good way to get kids along to games, but the £1 with an adult thing also sounds good.

I agree with @Skyline Drifter 's post and he clearly knows from experience what he's talking about. 

[The Moonster]

4 hours ago, BFTD said:

People weren't happy with £16 a decade ago either. I believe that was the start of folk seriously complaining about value for money, especially away fans.

The wisdom seems to be that dropping prices does nothing for attendances, and only lowers income - I can remember a few clubs (Hamilton?) trying it years ago, but supposedly it wasn't successful. At best, I think it would need to be done over a long period of time, with a lot of effort made to inform locals that the tickets are more affordable for casuals, as hundreds of extra people aren't going to show up overnight. You'd need deep pockets to absorb the losses in the meantime, though.

I don't know why we don't do a student rate though. Everyone else seems to, and we've got thousands of students in the catchment area. I suppose the uni has its own team playing Premiership reserves, but surely some of them might fancy watching some glamour League 1 ties against big clubs like Kelty or Cove?  

Albion Rovers let fans pay whatever they liked for a season ticket the year after their great cup run, saw virtually no impact on attendances (slight rise short term, f**k all long term) and are now in the Lowland League. I do tend to think that £20 is too much for this level of football but at the same time, putting the price down to a tenner will just see clubs go out of business rather than scores of lost fans returning to the games. 

[LeodhasXD]

3 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Are you sure you don't do a half time draw at all? I've certainly bought tickets for one at Alloa but may not have been in the last year. Perhaps they only do it in the hospitality and boardroom areas as it's where the money is and a lot less hassle to do that? Perhaps it simply wasn't making enough profit to be worth the effort.

You will have but it stopped after covid because there wasn't hospitality/boardroom where most of the money was coming from and never got going again.

[BFTD]

3 minutes ago, LeodhasXD said:

You will have but it stopped after covid because there wasn't hospitality/boardroom where most of the money was coming from and never got going again.

Is it fair to say that it wasn't a big earner for the club? It usually seemed like the winner got at least a couple of hundred quid.

Edit: I was once a single number away two games in a row. Seething.

Edited Friday at 16:07 by BFTD

[Skyline Drifter]

3 minutes ago, LeodhasXD said:

You will have but it stopped after covid because there wasn't hospitality/boardroom where most of the money was coming from and never got going again.

Fair enough, longer ago than I thought since I did so.

Again the point is worth repeating though, fans exaggerate the benefit of a half time draw, outside of hospitality and the Boardroom. Running one in those two areas is worth the effort because you'll tend to get probably a fiver a head from hospitality guest, perhaps more, and potentially £10 - £20 from Boardroom ones. You'll be lucky to get £50 total from the rest of the ground. And you're giving half of that back in prizes (and potentially some as commission to sellers). Lot of effort to go to for someone for very little benefit.

[Skyline Drifter]

4 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Is it fair to say that it wasn't a big earner for the club? It usually seemed like the winner got at least a couple of hundred quid.

Edit: I was once a single number away two games in a row. Seething.

Of course the cleverer clubs are the ones who peg the prize and don't call it a 50/50 draw. We give out half the takings in ours. I don't buy tickets because I'm involved and often there when it's drawn and I wouldn't like the look of it but I buy them in Boardrooms at away games. If you're getting into grounds for free it's not unreasonable to put your hand in your pocket and take £10 - £20 of HT draw tickets.

I won the half time draw at Kilmarnock about 10 years ago, crowd of over 3,000, though I'd struck gold. Should have seen my face when they gave me an envelope with £100 1st prize in it!  Same thing happened at Hamilton a couple of seasons ago. although to be fair that might have actually been about half of what they took. There was a ground we went to last season which shall remain nameless. One of our Boardroom party won the half time draw and got £60 or something like that. We worked out between us we'd put over £100 in it! We'd have been better having a draw in the car!

[printer]

3 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Of course the cleverer clubs are the ones who peg the prize and don't call it a 50/50 draw. We give out half the takings in ours. I don't buy tickets because I'm involved and often there when it's drawn and I wouldn't like the look of it but I buy them in Boardrooms at away games. If you're getting into grounds for free it's not unreasonable to put your hand in your pocket and take £10 - £20 of HT draw tickets.

I won the half time draw at Kilmarnock about 10 years ago, crowd of over 3,000, though I'd struck gold. Should have seen my face when they gave me an envelope with £100 1st prize in it!  Same thing happened at Hamilton a couple of seasons ago. although to be fair that might have actually been about half of what they took. There was a ground we went to last season which shall remain nameless. One of our Boardroom party won the half time draw and got £60 or something like that. We worked out between us we'd put over £100 in it! We'd have been better having a draw in the car!

 

 

[WeeWelshy007]

17 hours ago, Rory said:

I like what Falkirk do with the kid for a quid with any adult ticket for under 12s. The club needs to be doing things to encourage younger fans into the ground and hopefully keep them as lifelong supporters.

Could even offer something like buy one get one half price to encourage people to bring friends/family along.

difference with falkirk and alloa is that falkirk have over 4000 home supporters most games and can afford this due to the clubs many other sources of income meanwhile we are lucky if we get over 700 fans a game and our main income is from ticket sales 

[Rory]

15 hours ago, WeeWelshy007 said:

difference with falkirk and alloa is that falkirk have over 4000 home supporters most games and can afford this due to the clubs many other sources of income meanwhile we are lucky if we get over 700 fans a game and our main income is from ticket sales 

We should be looking at other clubs to see how else they're making money. Hopefully we'll get a hot tub set up in one of the corners! Falkirk maybe not the best example given their fan base but we should be looking at other clubs our size to see if there's anything they are doing that we aren't. Even some of the advertising boards are clearly out of date, there's still one up for the leisure bowl.

As the guys said on the pod, it'd be a lot of work and probably too much to expect of volunteers but not sure if the club has extra money sitting around to hire someone.

Could try and do something like having players go into primary schools and do a little training session with the kids. Harder for us to do given our players are all part time and will have other jobs.

[WeeWelshy007]

On 14/09/2024 at 19:11, Rory said:

We should be looking at other clubs to see how else they're making money. Hopefully we'll get a hot tub set up in one of the corners! Falkirk maybe not the best example given their fan base but we should be looking at other clubs our size to see if there's anything they are doing that we aren't. Even some of the advertising boards are clearly out of date, there's still one up for the leisure bowl.

As the guys said on the pod, it'd be a lot of work and probably too much to expect of volunteers but not sure if the club has extra money sitting around to hire someone.

Could try and do something like having players go into primary schools and do a little training session with the kids. Harder for us to do given our players are all part time and will have other jobs.

ik stenhousemuir have community coaches who get paid to work with kids at primary schools around larbert

[BB_Bino]

On 14/09/2024 at 03:44, WeeWelshy007 said:

difference with falkirk and alloa is that falkirk have over 4000 home supporters most games and can afford this due to the clubs many other sources of income meanwhile we are lucky if we get over 700 fans a game and our main income is from ticket sales 

Surely not.....would have though your main income would have been rental of the pitch? If it's not, then you'd have to ask why, especially when you consider that 3 or 4 years ago, the Stenhousemuir Chairman said that the Ochilview pitch was worth around £300,000 to them, just on community lets alone, or words to that effect.

If you look at a lot of clubs of our size, and even Falkirk themselves, the community work they do is funded through Foundations. The Foundations are set up by the clubs, as they can tap into funding pots that a PLC would never be able to access. It's sounds like it's something that Alloa might be behind the curve on.

Something you may also be, behind the curve on, is your community or grassroots playing academy. Alloa used to have a big footprint in Junior Academy football, but that has dwindled away over the past 5-10 years....so much so that a lot of age groups no longer have an Alloa or Wasp team and Sauchie Juniors are now the biggest grassroots academy in Clackmannanshire. That was probably no more noticeable than last month, when your Alloa Tesco blue coin funding had both academies in it and the Alloa box was empty in comparison to the Sauchie Junior Academy box. People might laugh at that, but that's funding which was available which went to Sauchie over you.

What does "kids football" have to do with Alloa Athletic at First Team level, you're probably thinking. Well a lot of these clubs, like Stirling Albion, Falkirk and Sauchie, have financial tie in's with the academy. The actually affiliated academy may have to pay a set fee to for the affiliation every year, or it might be that a certain amount of monthly subs.....say £2 for argument sake.....from each player is sent to Club Accounts, so if you have 10 ages groups...all with a squad of 18 and £2 a month from every player is sent to club accounts, that's £36 an age group a month, which is an extra £360 a month, £4,320 a year and the club have done absolutely nothing to get it. Then take in kit supplier reductions, match day benefits etc ete, done right, it's a good money earner that a lot of clubs are doing...... including ourselves, Stenhousemuir, Sauchie....oh, and Falkirk.

[Skyline Drifter]

57 minutes ago, BB_Bino said:

Surely not.....would have though your main income would have been rental of the pitch? If it's not, then you'd have to ask why, especially when you consider that 3 or 4 years ago, the Stenhousemuir Chairman said that the Ochilview pitch was worth around £300,000 to them, just on community lets alone, or words to that effect.

If you look at a lot of clubs of our size, and even Falkirk themselves, the community work they do is funded through Foundations. The Foundations are set up by the clubs, as they can tap into funding pots that a PLC would never be able to access. It's sounds like it's something that Alloa might be behind the curve on.

Something you may also be, behind the curve on, is your community or grassroots playing academy. Alloa used to have a big footprint in Junior Academy football, but that has dwindled away over the past 5-10 years....so much so that a lot of age groups no longer have an Alloa or Wasp team and Sauchie Juniors are now the biggest grassroots academy in Clackmannanshire. That was probably no more noticeable than last month, when your Alloa Tesco blue coin funding had both academies in it and the Alloa box was empty in comparison to the Sauchie Junior Academy box. People might laugh at that, but that's funding which was available which went to Sauchie over you.

What does "kids football" have to do with Alloa Athletic at First Team level, you're probably thinking. Well a lot of these clubs, like Stirling Albion, Falkirk and Sauchie, have financial tie in's with the academy. The actually affiliated academy may have to pay a set fee to for the affiliation every year, or it might be that a certain amount of monthly subs.....say £2 for argument sake.....from each player is sent to Club Accounts, so if you have 10 ages groups...all with a squad of 18 and £2 a month from every player is sent to club accounts, that's £36 an age group a month, which is an extra £360 a month, £4,320 a year and the club have done absolutely nothing to get it. Then take in kit supplier reductions, match day benefits etc ete, done right, it's a good money earner that a lot of clubs are doing...... including ourselves, Stenhousemuir, Sauchie....oh, and Falkirk.

I don't know anything about who Alloa hire their pitch to (if anyone) but I wouldn't have thought it's likely to be their biggest income or even close to it. I doubt that ticket sales are either for that matter. Given their attendances it's likely to be the prize money from the SPFL that is their biggest income source. I would imagine tickets sales are probably bigger than pitch hires though. Are Stenhousemuir really claiming that they get about £300k a year from their pitch? When you say "3 or 4 years ago" was it actually 3 or 4 years ago or was it more like 13 or 14 years ago when they were one of the few 3G pitches around. Even then I'd be fairly sceptical of that number. 3G pitches are ten a penny now across the country. There are loads of them (there are 4 in Dumfries alone and another half dozen throughout the region). There is far too much availability of pitches now for anyone to make all that much from them.

I've just had a look at Stenhousemuir's booking facility. They charge £22.50 for one third of the pitch, £45 for 2/3rds and and £35 for the whole pitch (bizarrely). It's available 8:30am to 10:30pm 7 days a week though obviously some time slots are unavailable for commercial hire as they have matches and training. Looks like it's pretty much available all day today, tomorrow and Thursday up to 4pm. It's not available from 5:30pm to 10pm Tuesday to Thursday (I presume at least two of those are because the first team are training?). It's not available much on Friday. They have a home game (against us) on Saturday but it's available from 6pm. Not available Sunday until 9pm though I imagine that's because it's fully booked already.

So they are potentially getting as much as £67 per hour for the pitch and it's available in theory 14 hours a day. That's an absolute maximum on full bookings of 1/3 pitches of £340k per annum. A lot of the bookings will be full pitches though (@ £35 ph) and it's clearly nowhere near full if there are 63 different hours available to me to book right now for this week. And then you have to factor back any usage for their own team which must average at say 10 hours a week for the first team alone. I'm not sure whether they have a women's side, youth levels? I'd be pretty sceptical that Stenhousemuir are getting any more than £100k to £150k a year maximum out of their main pitch. They do also have a couple of five a side pods they rent on top of that and probably make plenty from but Alloa don't so that part isn't comparable.

The idea that there's any significant money to be made in 'kids football' is relatively unlikely for a commercial club too. At our levels the funding from the SFA to run a Club Academy is miniscule (about £12k a year). I don't think you're allowed to charge Academy players to play either, though they can be asked to pay for their training gear, etc. You can run a Community programme and charge kids to train of course but the funding available for that kind of thing is mostly grant funding and more readily available to charities and community clubs than it is to commercial trading companies (which Alloa Athletic are). Which is why most clubs running that kind of thing do it through a Community Trust instead.

[BB_Bino]

39 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Are Stenhousemuir really claiming that they get about £300k a year from their pitch? When you say "3 or 4 years ago" was it actually 3 or 4 years ago or was it more like 13 or 14 years ago when they were one of the few 3G pitches around.

I'm at work just now, but I'm sure someone could dig it up. It was definitely said in about 2021ish when the topic of plastic pitches in the SPFL...or the Premiership, were a hot topic and the clubs were voting on the issue.

[LeodhasXD]

40 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

 

tldr I think that's maybe too pessimistic. I mean 300k is a figure that you could probably easily account for in the alternative venue bookings you 'save'. It's certainly a figure we'd have surpassed when Dunfermline and BSC were regular tenants.

[Skyline Drifter]

8 minutes ago, LeodhasXD said:

tldr I think that's maybe too pessimistic. I mean 300k is a figure that you could probably easily account for in the alternative venue bookings you 'save'. It's certainly a figure we'd have surpassed when Dunfermline and BSC were regular tenants.

It really isn't. I've no idea how much you fleeced Dunfermline and BSC for but there's no chance you're training twice a week for what, 2 - 3 hours a night, 48 weeks a year (little extra in pre-season maybe) and it would cost a six figure sum. You could hire Ochilview for £150 a night! That's £15k a year.

 

[BFTD]

This is genuinely interesting and hopefully it remains civil.

Shame we don't have the actual figures.

[LeodhasXD]

7 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

It really isn't. I've no idea how much you fleeced Dunfermline and BSC for but there's no chance you're training twice a week for what, 2 - 3 hours a night, 48 weeks a year (little extra in pre-season maybe) and it would cost a six figure sum. You could hire Ochilview for £150 a night! That's £15k a year.

I'll do a fag packet calculation in a bit when I've got time. Ours is still used heavily during the day and at night.

[LeodhasXD]

I'll concede @Skyline Drifter300k is optimistic after sitting down but prize money isn't. Alloa Ath - £116k SPFL prize money as estimated by @SPFLmediawatch on twitter. Stenhousemuir is estimated as just £89k after winning the fourth tier last year.

I'll keep it as simple as possible through timeslots its used. Obviously for Alloa Athletic you're not going to get any income but you'd pay to have the same facility elsewhere. 4 days its fully booked from 6-9. £40 a third would give you over 48 weeks £69120. Dunfermline would have been in 4 days a week for 4 hours.  They'd have got a healthy discount however I'd wager.

I don't massively keep up with the youths and women due to time involved but estimate they're at home 24 times a year on Fridays - Sundays. Throw the use our changing facilities in it might be £300 instead of just £200 for the pitch. For the 4 teams - £28,800. 

There's kids youth teams in most Saturday mornings even before our first team games. We've got some welfare cup final on next Saturday while we are away, we had three girl's/womens cup finals last month. There's walking football on during the day three times a week and there's also some free football programme - I forget its name but I had a conversation with the guy the other week. I did weekly play on the Sunday nights before I started playing in a Sunday afternoon league. I'm not sure on the 5-a-sides because they used to be community club income. So what I've accounted for isn't necessarily exhaustive.

I don't think ticket sales go that far even if you have you have 4x Dunfermline and Falkirk bringing 800 or so fans. 

Edited yesterday at 11:12 by LeodhasXD