Your Limits.

[VincentGuerin]

2 minutes ago, Pens_Dark said:

What people are willing to pay should not be a barometer for how expensive things are. Prices for concerts, technology and fuel (all be it fuel is more of a necessity) 

If we don't tackle the problem head on then prices just keep driving up. 

I think if you're running a business then what people are willing to pay is exactly the barometer for what you charge.

If fans keep buying the tickets, then they're not too expensive.

[Pens_Dark]

Just now, VincentGuerin said:

I think if you're running a business then what people are willing to pay is exactly the barometer for what you charge.

If fans keep buying the tickets, then they're not too expensive.

Well, clearly, yes if you run a business you will continue to test the mettle of your customers as to what they will pay. 

As I said before, football fans don't spend their money to go and see their team play football with a sensible head on. They do it from emotion and following their team. A lot of people will be paying the price of a ticket at a sacrifice of something else that month. It sounds pretty cliche but in many cases it is true. 

Are we supposed to just keep letting prices keep go up because a number of people continue to 'afford' it? 

Germany have it right for their pricing structures,. I'm not saying we could replicate that - that's too idealistic...but something has got to give.

[eindhovendee]

Just now, VincentGuerin said:

I think if you're running a business then what people are willing to pay is exactly the barometer for what you charge.

If fans keep buying the tickets, then they're not too expensive.

They are too expensive. 

If a tin of beans is to expensive in one shop you go to the next shop.

In this scenario the customer's only other option is to not go to see their team, there is no other choice, and when it's a family going, as others have said previously, it gets to silly numbers. 

 

[Pizzo]

1 hour ago, paul wright scores said:

I expect so.  Perhaps there will be a lot more 'Concession' tickets sold this season. 

I'm tempted to do likewise where QR codes are used 

I think Kilmarnock have scored a massive own goal here, especially now there is a lot of positivity and momentum around the club. 

I'll be eligible for a concession ticket in 2 years time but by then I'll most likely be paying what I have been paying for an adult ticket in recent years.   

Others have made reference to the price of gigs - likewise here I probably now go to about half the number of concerts I went to up  pre covid because of this. 

I'm going to see Paul Heaton in December and it is costing about £40, which is much less than others are charging.  Funnily enough it's almost sold out . 

Aye £30 is scandalous. I've paid in every game the last 2 seasons due to the state of VAR. 

I'm either going to have to commit to a season ticket or just go to the juniors more often. Definitely be cutting back on aways too.

[VincentGuerin]

Just now, Pens_Dark said:

Are we supposed to just keep letting prices keep go up because a number of people continue to 'afford' it?

Ideally, no. Obviously.

But why would a club charge £25 when they know fans will pay £28 and they want to have a good transfer budget?

If it sells, then it's right. The clubs are businesses. We just don't like to think of it that way.

Just now, eindhovendee said:

They are too expensive. 

If a tin of beans is to expensive in one shop you go to the next shop.

In this scenario the customer's only other option is to not go to see their team, there is no other choice, and when it's a family going, as others have said previously, it gets to silly numbers. 

 

We're just looking at it differently. I'd like it to be a tenner adults and a fiver for kids. But the clubs don't have a big tv deal, don't have huge commercial revenue, and we want them to improve, grow, compete in Europe etc.

They need to charge what people will pay. No way to say this without sounding like a c**t, but if you can't afford to pay, they're under no obligation to give a f**k, as long as others can. The loyalty in fitba all goes one way.

[Pens_Dark]

4 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

Ideally, no. Obviously.

But why would a club charge £25 when they know fans will pay £28 and they want to have a good transfer budget?

If it sells, then it's right. The clubs are businesses. We just don't like to think of it that way.

We're just looking at it differently. I'd like it to be a tenner adults and a fiver for kids. But the clubs don't have a big tv deal, don't have huge commercial revenue, and we want them to improve, grow, compete in Europe etc.

They need to charge what people will pay. No way to say this without sounding like a c**t, but if you can't afford to pay, they're under no obligation to give a f**k, as long as others can. The loyalty in fitba all goes one way.

The pessimist in me says they charge more to cover the costs of things like the introduction of VAR in to our league, which in turn has made the product on the park even more shite.

You're not wrong in anything you say, clearly. Football is business at the end of the day. 

I don't think people are looking for unrealistic expectations, most posters in this thread have said about the same price. 

 

[johnnydun]

I don't think big concerts are comparable to this.

I could be wrong but, do most people attend 18 to 36 big concerts over a 7 month period? Some would possibly look upon some of the big concerts as a once in a lifetime experience, that they would be willing to fork out for, not £32 for Kilmarnock v St Johnstone that's pretty much guaranteed to happen 4 times a year. (Obviously some caveats in that, but my point still stands)

@VincentGuerin I said in my OP that the Directors have priced this correctly (not fairly imo) because it will sell out, Derby, first game of the season, they could've probably set it £40, folk would've still payed. I just think it's setting a dangerous precedent for pricing going forward. Plus, I might sound like a total 'Yer Da' here but, football in Scotland has always been a traditionally working class sport, when you start to price the working class out of it, where will that leave clubs in the long term?

I have said in the past on the Dundee thread that I am starting to feel a real disconnect with Dundee FC, I'm not saying pricing is at fault but it has certainly contributed to the feeling.

 

[Mr Heliums]

45 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

I think if you're running a business then what people are willing to pay is exactly the barometer for what you charge.

If fans keep buying the tickets, then they're not too expensive.

Not too expensive to a core support willing to forego other things. Meanwhile the proportion of occasional supporters – or the hard core of the future – will continue to decline.

Eventually the fan base that clubs are gouging will shrivel.

Besides just because clubs can charge to breaking point doesn't mean they should. For a club to claim to be rooted in the community, as most do, they really shouldn't be exploiting it quite as openly as they do.

[craigkillie]

4 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Kilmarnock taking the absolute piss for a Kilmarnock v St Johnstone match

£84 for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 12 year olds) is wild.

Very unusually for our forum, which has its fair share of club lickspittles, there is complete universal negativity about this decision. It is scandalous - we were only £25 last season so it's a 20% increase. The concession and kids prices are in many ways actually worse than the adult ones though.

[Ludo*1]

1 minute ago, craigkillie said:

Very unusually for our forum, which has its fair share of club lickspittles, there is complete universal negativity about this decision. It is scandalous - we were only £25 last season so it's a 20% increase. The concession and kids prices are in many ways actually worse than the adult ones though.

We're all just howling at the moon until collectively Scottish fans decide to do something.

We all say - season after season - that the latest price increase is ridiculous and it'll stop people going and then the furore dies down after a while until the next increase. Eventually, the people that no longer can afford to keep going will eventually find other things to do and stop voicing their frustrations, the clubs will continue to make around the same amount as they were before since it balances out with the increase and people will prattle on that it's not a problem because percentage of population wise we still have an overall excellent support. And round and round we go until the next increase.

It's shite, but that's the way it has become and I see no way to reverse the trend.

[craigkillie]

The problem with home admission prices is that most of the core support aren't actually paying them, so the people who are most affected are a handful of people who go occasionally plus an away support for whom it isn't their club and who don't therefore have much voice.

I would have said away support boycotts are the way to go, but clubs like Hearts are basically forcing those anyway by only selling about 45 away tickets or whatever.

[Pizzo]

When it went from £20 to £25 I just stopped buying food to even it out.

Very surprised Killie have chosen this road. In fairness, it isn't like them to take advantage of fans.

Pretty sure the kit is also up a tenner this year.

[Fletchers Saucy Manbun]

Some form of entertainment too expensive for your liking? Don't buy it.

There are hundreds of other ways to spend your time and money, us fans are weird with this obsession around football.

[RandomGuy.]

I find it bizarre how many shills appear to defend clubs charging a fortune for games. 

Football clubs aren't a traditional business, they rely heavily on repeat customers and generational customers. They can't put special offers on attract fans from other clubs like shops etc., can do. 

Once you lose fans that's generally it.

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

Very unusually for our forum, which has its fair share of club lickspittles, there is complete universal negativity about this decision. It is scandalous - we were only £25 last season so it's a 20% increase. The concession and kids prices are in many ways actually worse than the adult ones though.

Is it even correct to just have the one stand with that family deal anyway? It's about a £25 difference for the same family to watch the game from two seats directly opposite each other.

[VincentGuerin]

1 hour ago, johnnydun said:

I don't think big concerts are comparable to this.

I could be wrong but, do most people attend 18 to 36 big concerts over a 7 month period? Some would possibly look upon some of the big concerts as a once in a lifetime experience, that they would be willing to fork out for, not £32 for Kilmarnock v St Johnstone that's pretty much guaranteed to happen 4 times a year. (Obviously some caveats in that, but my point still stands)

@VincentGuerin I said in my OP that the Directors have priced this correctly (not fairly imo) because it will sell out, Derby, first game of the season, they could've probably set it £40, folk would've still payed. I just think it's setting a dangerous precedent for pricing going forward. Plus, I might sound like a total 'Yer Da' here but, football in Scotland has always been a traditionally working class sport, when you start to price the working class out of it, where will that leave clubs in the long term?

I have said in the past on the Dundee thread that I am starting to feel a real disconnect with Dundee FC, I'm not saying pricing is at fault but it has certainly contributed to the feeling.

 

I'm not sure football really is working class anymore. Whatever 'working class' means in the modern Scottish context of everyone working in call centres, for the civil service, or in finance.

What we're discovering in the modern era is that there is a big enough willing cohort for Scottish clubs to charge twenty five quid and up for Premiership fitba (often far more) and folk will pay it. Enough folk to fill the stadiums.

I'm not sure what this all means on a deep level, but I think the market for football is fundamentally different to when I was a kid in the early 90s.

[VincentGuerin]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

The problem with home admission prices is that most of the core support aren't actually paying them, so the people who are most affected are a handful of people who go occasionally plus an away support for whom it isn't their club and who don't therefore have much voice.

I would have said away support boycotts are the way to go, but clubs like Hearts are basically forcing those anyway by only selling about 45 away tickets or whatever.

Away boycotts absolutely are the way to go, but it's a questiom of "you go first".

For a club like Hearts this is difficult and involves significant sacrifice, as Loyalty Points concerns mean that competition for tickets is often quite fierce. I can't imagine any of my mates going for it. I'd imagine the other bigger clubs have similar issues. But if it's only smaller clubs doing the boycotting, nobody will give a f**k.

And that's the issue. People will pay it, so clubs will charge it. It's like the discussion around scandalous cup semi-final and final tickets each season. But people go to the games.

[invergowrie arab]

1 minute ago, VincentGuerin said:

I'm not sure football really is working class anymore. Whatever 'working class' means in the modern Scottish context of everyone working in call centres, for the civil service, or in finance.

What we're discovering in the modern era is that there is a big enough willing cohort for Scottish clubs to charge twenty five quid and up for Premiership fitba (often far more) and folk will pay it. Enough folk to fill the stadiums.

I'm not sure what this all means on a deep level, but I think the market for football is fundamentally different to when I was a kid in the early 90s.

 

You don't need to do twenty posts an hour stating how things are.

We all know how they are. We don't like it and are moaning about it.

[Widge]

Given I’ve just bought tickets to watch Inter at the San Siro for less than what Killie are charging, it’s mental. I know what the superior product will be as well. This is no disrespect to Killie, as others have alluded to it’s the collective greed of the clubs in Scotland and until we all take a stand together it’ll never change. I get things cost more now, but a 20% jump is mental and it’s only pricing local fans out of going to the games and stadiums they love. 

[VincentGuerin]

Just now, Widge said:

Given I’ve just bought tickets to watch Inter at the San Siro for less than what Killie are charging, it’s mental. I know what the superior product will be as well. This is no disrespect to Killie, as others have alluded to it’s the collective greed of the clubs in Scotland and until we all take a stand together it’ll never change. I get things cost more now, but a 20% jump is mental and it’s only pricing local fans out of going to the games and stadiums they love. 

If it's greed, then the clubs must all be making a fortune in profits every year?