Jump to content
oneBoro Forum

Middlesbrough Supporters Forum


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 446
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  •  

    118

  •  

    51

  •  

    31

  •  

    27

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Posts

I see Mark is stepping down as chair citing that he's had abuse online and on the street about the ticket prices. Any Boro fan who is involved in that should be well and truly ashamed of yourself. If

Hello All Just to provide a bit of context, the Supporters Forum has received an influx of emails and messages over the last few weeks from Boro fans that are concerned about the behaviour of some

Totals from the Foodbank collection pre-Ipswich. Luckily the rain stayed away, so we didn't get wet!   £1587.49 cash donations,  529.45kg Food

Posted Images

So, in advance of tonight in case it comes up, I did a bit of research on season tickets in the Championship.

It doesn't make for good reading though I must add the caveat that some of these ticket prices were hard to judge. Some clubs have executive seating and detail it as such (or at least it's clear when Adults pay the same as Children that it's the extortionate executive seats). Not sure whether that makes it better or worse for us as we don't seem to have any kind of executive seating listed in our ticket prices, the only thing that really stands out is the Family Zone and I can't really put that into something as simple as this and judge it against other clubs easily. It's generally hard to judge Young Adults, Teens, Children as different clubs structure these things differently, not just with family zones but also some clubs judge ages into groups differently. But anyway, from the prices I pulled out, this is what I found.

Firstly, this is what I have our prices down as from the season ticket pricing table here, so these aren't early-bird prices. Though if you dispute these through direct knowledge, please let me know.

First for most expensive offerings:

image.png.f979cc9cece33f76ad6bde9408a55eff.png

Then for cheapest:

image.png.92acc138413213c71a8431b0e5adc341.png

So you can see generally what I'm comparing against other clubs. So where do we rank in each of these 10 things?

Firstly, most expensive. Take from this what you will, I think most expensive probably isn't what we're most concerned with when it comes to accessibility but this is what I got:

Most expensive Adult - 3rd
Most expensive Senior - 5th
Most expensive Young Adult - 10th
Most expensive Teens - 11th
Most expensive Children - 5th

What I gathered from this is that we offer pretty high expensive tickets so you'd hope we're matching up what we're offering to what other clubs do. Well whilst running through this I found some of the clubs offered heated seating in some cases and not just a decent view of the chairman's head. I also think going by the fact from our price listing, our child tickets being the same for most expensive as they are cheapest either isn't true (or effectively isn't true due to the Family Zone) or we are really bad at kids tickets.

But onto the highest cheap prices, so I'm taking the cheapest tickets on offer for each and ranking each club highest to lowest:

Highest cheapest Adult - 2nd
Highest cheapest Senior - 1st
Highest cheapest Young Adult - 7th
Highest cheapest Teens - 3rd
Highest cheapest Child - 2nd

This makes for dreadful reading, to me. Even acknowledging the caveats, we are £20 off being the most expensive way to watch Championship football for the full season as an Adult. We are the most expensive way to watch football as a senior. Note how we're 2nd in the Child table? I'm not entirely convinced by the numbers for this but if it is true, we are likely the most expensive by some margin... y'see Stoke are 1st likely only by virtue of the fact I couldn't find their pricing table (it seems to have been removed) so I had to grab it from an unofficial news article from earlier in the summer that tried to do something similar to this. This is what it looks like in the top 4 for Kids.

image.thumb.png.d870e798eb6a71db768ff0156220f9cc.png

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
28 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

So, in advance of tonight in case it comes up, I did a bit of research on season tickets in the Championship.

It doesn't make for good reading though I must add the caveat that some of these ticket prices were hard to judge. Some clubs have executive seating and detail it as such (or at least it's clear when Adults pay the same as Children that it's the extortionate executive seats). Not sure whether that makes it better or worse for us as we don't seem to have any kind of executive seating listed in our ticket prices, the only thing that really stands out is the Family Zone and I can't really put that into something as simple as this and judge it against other clubs easily. It's generally hard to judge Young Adults, Teens, Children as different clubs structure these things differently, not just with family zones but also some clubs judge ages into groups differently. But anyway, from the prices I pulled out, this is what I found.

Firstly, this is what I have our prices down as from the season ticket pricing table here, so these aren't early-bird prices. Though if you dispute these through direct knowledge, please let me know.

First for most expensive offerings:

image.png.f979cc9cece33f76ad6bde9408a55eff.png

Then for cheapest:

image.png.92acc138413213c71a8431b0e5adc341.png

So you can see generally what I'm comparing against other clubs. So where do we rank in each of these 10 things?

Firstly, most expensive. Take from this what you will, I think most expensive probably isn't what we're most concerned with when it comes to accessibility but this is what I got:

Most expensive Adult - 3rd
Most expensive Senior - 5th
Most expensive Young Adult - 10th
Most expensive Teens - 11th
Most expensive Children - 5th

What I gathered from this is that we offer pretty high expensive tickets so you'd hope we're matching up what we're offering to what other clubs do. Well whilst running through this I found some of the clubs offered heated seating in some cases and not just a decent view of the chairman's head. I also think going by the fact from our price listing, our child tickets being the same for most expensive as they are cheapest either isn't true (or effectively isn't true due to the Family Zone) or we are really bad at kids tickets.

But onto the highest cheap prices, so I'm taking the cheapest tickets on offer for each and ranking each club highest to lowest:

Highest cheapest Adult - 2nd
Highest cheapest Senior - 1st
Highest cheapest Young Adult - 7th
Highest cheapest Teens - 3rd
Highest cheapest Child - 2nd

This makes for dreadful reading, to me. Even acknowledging the caveats, we are £20 off being the most expensive way to watch Championship football for the full season as an Adult. We are the most expensive way to watch football as a senior. Note how we're 2nd in the Child table? I'm not entirely convinced by the numbers for this but if it is true, we are likely the most expensive by some margin... y'see Stoke are 1st likely only by virtue of the fact I couldn't find their pricing table (it seems to have been removed) so I had to grab it from an unofficial news article from earlier in the summer that tried to do something similar to this. This is what it looks like in the top 4 for Kids.

image.thumb.png.d870e798eb6a71db768ff0156220f9cc.png

I'm not wanting to dismiss your point or anything, but how much time have you spent researching the significantly more important Yorkshire pudding wraps?

Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, Will said:

I'm not wanting to dismiss your point or anything, but how much time have you spent researching the significantly more important Yorkshire pudding wraps?

I can't do any research on that! I can only ask the question tonight.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Just now, Will said:

I am eagerly awaiting a response. Thank you Wilson.

Where were they actually done in the ground? Was it in a specific area? Because I never noticed them on the menu in the North Stand at any point unless it was before 2019. 😅

Link to post
Share on other sites
3 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

Where were they actually done in the ground? Was it in a specific area? Because I never noticed them on the menu in the North Stand at any point unless it was before 2019. 😅

It was maybe 2013/2014 kind of time, and they were available at all the food kiosks.

Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, Will said:

It was maybe 2013/2014 kind of time, and they were available at all the food kiosks.

I'm glad I asked, I thought it was a recent removal haha. I'll note it down. It looks like each of the groups get a small allocation of time to bring up anything towards the end of the meeting so I'm gonna go back through the thread and see what I can fit in.

Link to post
Share on other sites

So further to the above, I've gone into Matchday Pricing. Again, this is where we lie with ours most expensive:

image.png.c2f6dfcd279832d99bded86f71aee46d.png

And our cheapest:

image.png.bb078a70d367e8b318168cb4665b101c.png

Again I've not included the Family Zone prices. Another caveat for these, further to the ones above regarding season tickets, is that not all clubs have a matchday pricing table so I've had to sort of click around in their next matchday. And both Cardiff and Swansea force you to create an account to log in, which I've decided against doing. So this is out of 22 clubs as opposed to 24. Same organisation as before, this is where we come out.

First with most expensive:

Most expensive Adult - 9th
Most expensive Senior - 7th
Most expensive Young Adult - 6th
Most expensive Teens - 7th
Most expensive Children - 3rd

Then with cheapest:

Highest cheapest Adult - 3rd
Highest cheapest Senior - 3rd
Highest cheapest Young Adult - 2nd
Highest cheapest Teens - 1st
Highest cheapest Child - 1st

As with before, I'm not so fussed on the expensive tickets as different clubs offer different things to get the most out of their highest paying customers, or they don't offer anything different. But it doesn't mean much for accessibility. Again though, where we find ourselves in a sticky situation is with our cheapest tickets. I'm not even fussed about Swansea or Cardiff being missing because their adult season tickets are the cheapest available in the Championship at their actual cheapest and Swansea's are the cheapest even at their most expensive.

After looking at these, I am very interested in hearing more about the membership schemes though. Even if we can look past the cost of a single adult being £3 off the joint most expensive way to view football at this level on a one-off, the cost for young people to get into the ground is ridiculous. And I'm not convinced after going through our ticketing site that we do actually price kids any different anywhere but the Family Zone. So if you're a parent going with a couple of kids in the North Stand, your price could more than double from you just taking yourself.

Sheffield United are close by us in this respect but just as an example, anywhere but the family zone, it would cost an Adult + 2 kids £63 to get into our ground. Even with the Family Zone, that's £53 which is a whole £8 further ahead of Bristol City and Huddersfield's joint 3rd place £45. Truly shocking stuff.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just wanted to share this last one too. Not much changes in terms of order as you add extra kids but this is how the table looks ordered from most expensive to cheapest possible in the first column with the Family Zone pricing in place for us. We're still always in 2nd place, we are the 2nd most expensive day out in the Championship for a family even if they can get tickets 6 tickets together in our dedicated family zone.

image.thumb.png.285e27d3232406468f48554443f2e35c.png

Link to post
Share on other sites

First meeting done, I've written up some notes that I'll try to get across before the minutes come out but what I'll say so far is that the people I've been chatting to all seem like really good people. Great fans who've undoubtedly followed us through thick and thin and want the best for one another and plenty of experience of speaking to the club over the years.

And the lads we've talked to on the MFC side seem quite open to chat and listen too. For example, I put some of this above stuff to the ticketing lad Lee and he's said he'll have a look at it. Which to be fair to him is more than I could have expected, I think that's good commitment to communication because this undoubtedly misses out context and stuff between the lines. It's an afternoon's worth of work from someone who has never worked in that field, he has a team of people who he says has looked at stuff like this, it's their actual job but he said he'll still have a look at it, that kind of open communication can only be appreciated. Great stuff.

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Some great work there Wilson.  However, I'm sure the club know exactly where they are with regards to ticket prices in comparison to the rest of the division, and indeed the rest of the country.  They just aren't all that bothered.

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Changing Times said:

Some great work there Wilson.  However, I'm sure the club know exactly where they are with regards to ticket prices in comparison to the rest of the division, and indeed the rest of the country.  They just aren't all that bothered.

That was the view of a lot of the others in the group too, to be honest. Nobody is convinced this 5 year plan is going to amount to anything, it's up to those at the club to prove otherwise and we want to keep pushing the issue in the right way. It sounds to me this is very much a problem from the top, from Bausor, not from those who actually put forwards the solutions like the lads we spoke to.

I think they are going to be on board with what we put forward so long as we approach it in the right way. What we want is to really get involved with that process and keep plugging away. This conversation with the Head of Ticketing is a good start, let's just hope it goes somewhere and that we can support them in their push for something better as much as helping them shape it into something fans want.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • boro-unger changed the title to Middlesbrough Supporters Forum

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...