Wooden Stand wrote:
Could the directors be brave and change the matchday entrance pricing to £5 for everybody?
Then work your socks off to get the crowd up to 2,000 to start with. Of the two options in the subject, I know which fans and players would prefer and there would be 3 times the chance to generate income from add-on sales - food & drinks etc. I'd also have a 'happy hour' so that on first team matchdays, all drinks inc beer are half price (and advertise the fact in advance!).
German soccer gets average crowds higher than the English Premier League based on low ticket prices and cheap beer.
Season tickets could then be scrapped from next season (except for those who want them for the stand). This would save the cost of producing and distributing the proposed 40,000 free under 16 season tickets. People don't really value anything that is free. Even a very low cost means that those who really want it will buy.
If the entrance was £5, tickets could be printed for each match and sold at outlets for a small commission eg all those outlets that sell national lottery tickets.
It wouldn't preclude small target promotions at schools and workplaces for each match at even less than £5.
Something is needed to start building momentum now with the opportunity that the proposed re-structure of the game will provide.
Could the directors trial the £5 entrance fee for everybody for the say the last two home league games this season?
In answer to the bigger question:
There are possibly 2 ideologies here. One ideology is to "stack them high and sell them cheap" and the other ideology is for a fair market price to be paid for the product (Keighley Cougars match day ticket pricing is aligned with all the other Championship clubs). In order to justify setting the price at £5 we would have to have roughly 3 times the number of paying fans coming through the gate on that particular match day. The reason for this is because significant resources would have to be expended to promote the offer in the fear that 3 times as many fans don't turn up. As a result the club could lose around £4k to £5k on that day. Further, there is no guarantee that the people who attend the cheap match would re-attend on another occasion. Also, getting other outlets to sell £5 tickets would take an immense amount of effort to set up and the club doesn't have the resources to do this at the moment.
Having said this we do have a Ladies Day (where ladies are allowed in for free and get a glass of sparkling wine and we had a Bloke's day whereby a man would get a half price drink up to an hour before the game and a half price drink if they stayed after 5pm. Both offers were taken up but were fairly lukewarm .
My contention would be the crowds would be bigger if we were winning significantly more matches than we are at the moment AND if there was something to play for, i.e. promotion to a higher league. In Cougarmania days there were significant and revolutionary things done BUT the silver bullet was promotion and the drive to Super League. If it wasn't what else would have accounted for the drop off in crowds rapidly when promotion wasn't achieved?
In addition to this, Bradford Bulls, when they weren't doing so well instituted a very cheap season ticket to boost crowds and it ultimately led to administration. This is something the current Cougars Board would seek to avoid at all costs. Financial stability is the critical issue.
It would be very revolutionary to scrap season tickets. The Cougars tried a membership scheme last year but very few took it up. Some, not all, fans like season tickets so it would be potentially suicidal to scrap them. In terms of the junior season tickets our trial this year has proven we can print and distribute 40,000 for around £1,500 as we distribute through the schools. We estimate that it would cost about the same amount to promote 1 match at a £5 ticket price. Given that the strategy would be to get more children, and ultimately parents and grandparents, down to match days we feel that is a good use of the club's finite resources.
In summary, we will do promotions but we will be careful about it.
