Faced with an economic downturn and stagnation on the pitch, home attendances have been much lower than in recent years when the club was qualifying for Europe and was a credible Champions League contender. The club has been aggressive in discounting tickets and offering deals in an attempt to fill the ground.
There are several obvious reasons why any club, in any sport, wants to sell out as many home games as they can. The more people who come to the park the more souvenirs, beers, pies, hamburgers, etc. the club will sell. Every professional club has a per capita or “per cap” that they use to gauge how much added revenue each person who attends a game brings. Hypothetically lets say the per cap at Villa Park is £10. Now lets assume the club sells out Villa Park, and has an additional 10,000 fans at the next home fixture as opposed to what the club have been drawing as of late. That is an additional £100,000 without factoring in the price these additional fans paid for their ticket.
A full stadium also creates a much better matchday atmosphere than having large swathes of empty seats. As fans we are keenly aware of this, but the club like any sporting organization is as well. The better the atmosphere at the ground, the more likely it is for a casual fan who is at a game for the first time to want to come back, or for a casual supporter to want to come more often. It also looks awful on TV to see large swathes of empty seats at a match.
Empty Seats My Lord?
Villa fans love pointing out how many empty blue seats are at St Andrews on a regular basis as any person reading the views of Villa fans catching a Blues match on TV will attest. The reality is that empty seats are a poor reflection on the club, both domestically, and to fans all over the world who watch the Premier League. A fan sitting at home watching a match in a packed ground with a raucous crowd is going to be more excited about wanting to attend a match in person.
This is an issue that MLS has confronted in the United States. When the league was founded in 1996, most of the clubs played in large NFL or college football stadiums. The league was faced with having crowds of 15,000-20,000 in stadiums that seated 60,000 fans and beyond. The fans that were there found their cheering and singing echoing throughout the cavernous stadiums.
Trying to make the product look successful with huge amounts of empty seats combined with the occasional presence of NFL lines on the pitch made Major League Soccer look anything but. The league has since rectified this with most of the clubs building smaller “Soccer specific stadiums” which had improved the match-day experience immeasurably and given the league increased credibility.
Cheaper Isn’t Always Perceived As Better
Of course, there are issues with dropping prices for tickets. The downside to aggressively discounting your tickets as a club is that it can irk season ticket holders who have already paid for their tickets, sometimes up front in a large lump sum, and may even end up having paid more than someone buying tickets game to gaem.
In this situation, if the club were to credit the difference in price to the season ticket holder’s account and apply that toward their renewal for next season it would be a solid gesture and an enticement to renew. In the long term, if fans do not renew their seats and just wait for a deal on tickets, the club could be facing an even bigger problem.
The larger issue is that the club is potentially devaluing its own product. I am sure all of you have been at a store or shopping online and have been turned off or made suspicious when the price offered has been too low. When any company, whether it’s a football club, or a manufacturer producing widgets, if you price your product too low, it loses prestige with the marketplace. The club is mired in mid-table at the moment, but in terms of support, resources, and history Aston Villa is one of the biggest and most prestigious clubs in England and is also one of the twenty biggest clubs in the world. What is and should be a marquee brand can’t sell itself like a Sham Wow.
The club really does have to strike a delicate balance between doing everything they can to fill the ground without tarnishing their brand, and alienating fans who have already bought tickets. Perhaps more importantly though, a change in fortune on the pitch wouldn’t hurt either.
Competition
Remember, there is still a competition open where you can win a copy of “Graduation”, the latest book by Richard Lee, a friend of Matt Turvey, who is a professional goalkeeper for Brentford. To be in with a chance, please visit the following link, and follow the details at the bottom of the article.
Competition Link – http://www.astonvillalife.com/blog/the-importance-of-confidence-a-book-all-about-it
All entrants will be included in a prize draw, and a winner will be picked at random in order to ensure fairness. All entrant may only post one entry. Multiple entries will only mean that your prize is voided, so please only enter once. Comments will also only count on the article mentioned in the link above or via tweets in the format requested in that article. Competition closes 11:59am GMT on Wednesday 25th January.
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