In the BBC Price of Football survey released earlier this year
West Ham have the 4th most expensive ‘cheapest season ticket’ in the Premier League at £640 behind Arsenal £985 Spurs £795 and Liverpool £710. Chelsea £595 Man United £532 and Man City £275 have cheaper season tickets available than West Ham. *West ham Renewal price was £620 & with 5% Loyalty Discount price £589
In the most expensive season ticket table West ham rank in sixth most expensive at £910 with only Arsenal £1955, Spurs £1895, Chelsea £1250, Fulham £999 and Manchester United £950 being more expensive.
West Ham’s cheapest league match ticket is £37 which is the second most expensive ticket behind Liverpool at £38. Chelsea’s cheapest League Match day ticket is £36 Man Utd £31 and Man City’s is just £20.
West Ham’s most Expensive Match ticket is £67 which the fifth most expensive in the Premier league. Only Arsenal £126, Chelsea £87 Spurs £81 and Fulham £75 are more expensive. Man City’s most expensive ticket is £58 & Manchester United £53.
However all of this pales into insignificant compared with what German fans pay. A season ticket in Bayern Munich’s standing section at the Allianz Arena costs just £104. Disabled fans, meanwhile, can watch their team all season at the Allianz Arena for just £67.
Bayern Munich is run as a private company it is 82%-owned by its fans, with the sports goods firm Adidas and car company Audi holding just over 9% each.
Bayern Munich president Uli Hoenes said: ‘We could charge more than £104. Let’s say we charged £300. We’d get £2m more in income but what’s £2m to us?
‘In a transfer discussion you argue about that sum for five minutes. But the difference between £104 and £300 is huge for the fan.
’We do not think the fans are like cows, who you milk. Football has got to be for everybody.
’That’s the biggest difference between us and England.’
The FSF claim every Premier League clubs could cut the cost of every ticket by £32 due to the new income from TV rights deal.
They calculated the potential £32 decrease in ticket prices by taking the aggregate Premier League attendance for 2011-12, which was 13,148,465. They then multiplied it by three, which is the number of seasons of the new TV deal,giving 39,445,395.
FSF chair Malcolm Clarke said earlier this year “This figure shows what could potentially be done with this money,Yet we’ve just had new cost control measures, but no mention at all about how to tackle high ticket prices.”
However this is Karren Brady’s view on the subject of West Ham’s ticket pricing in August this year
“Last season, we were extremely proud to have recorded the club’s highest ever average attendance in its 118-year history – 34,720 across the 19 league fixtures. Achieving this was no mean feat, as any club working hard to drive attendance will know – it is not a simple case of introducing an attractive pricing strategy. This is key, but it must be supported by the product and work in tandem with the need to retain and reward seasonal supporters. The 17 consecutive sell-outs we enjoyed from October were a powerful endorsement of the innovative marketing and ticketing strategy we offered throughout the campaign. “
Since we became involved in football, David Sullivan, David Gold and I have been committed to offering affordable football to all. At Birmingham City, we pioneered the popular “Kids for a Quid” promotion now widely recognised throughout the game as a successful way to engender support at grassroots level. We feel passionately that people from all walks of life should have access to elite sport to enjoy, to inspire them and to encourage sports participation.
At West Ham I have developed this further to encourage lifelong support through a fully integrated fan-engagement strategy. Supporters coming to the Boleyn Ground for the first time receive a full information pack to enrich their experience. We follow up post-visit to find out how that experience was enjoyed and offer a range of targeted promotions to encourage repeat visits.
This has been a hugely successful initiative with a 40% increase in the number of first-time fans buying match tickets from the 2011/12 season. More than 25% have returned for at least one further game during the course of the season".
Obviously the pricing strategy has been successful in putting bums on seats for the last 20 matches but is it affordable football?
