Attendances

[chaddyrovers]

2 hours ago, Paul said:

Dozens of good ideas and opinions on here but read the above post and especially:

"Sky makes it too easy to follow my club without giving up my spare time and I suppose money"

I would, but I'm not going to, take issue with the spare time sentiment. The point is this "Sky makes it too easy" I've been banging this drum for 20 years - Sky has killed the game. English football hardly exists. Rovers can put every incentive you can imagine in front of fans and it won't make a jot of difference.

The only way this will change is when Sky leaves. If you want to influence this then do not watch Sky - anywhere.

cesus had an ST for 22 years and no longer has to give up anything to follow Rovers. Hammer Waggott and the club all you want but you can't beat this.

Sky wont be going anywhere for many years. 

I'm watching England right now on Sky. 

Without Sky I wouldn't get to watch all the football I can watch plus my cricket which I will be up at 4.30am to watch it. 

[roversfan99]

2 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

I have read the Waggott's article a couple of times now plus today articles about fans opinions who go and don't go. 

Price is a problem but so is that fact that people who haven't been for a few years and now have other interest, the dates and times of games plus Sky having games that are non 3 pm kick-offs and quite detail highlights. 

It was mention by one fan who mention having a season ticket for weekend games cos he couldn't get to midweek games due to work commitments. Some fans will be working shift work so unable to get to get midweek games. 

I can understand Waggott's point about the price. I think its a combination of number of factors and I feel now we need to start targeting families with Kids under 11 and Primary schools. Get Children involved and at games regular. I remember back when I was in Primary School that we went the Blackburn Rovers indoor football school before the game for a few games and then go game. We did this a couple of times and I really enjoyed it. Maybe its time we did cheap Kids tickets with an adult price. 

Waggott missed a big chance when season ticket should have been on sale before the Oxford game. But they weren't. I would love to see the figures for ticket sales after the 12pm deadline where there is a surchange in place. It was dead busy before the Forest game when I walk past at 2pm. 

I feel we shouldn't be comparing to the 2000/01 season as it 17 years ago. I would look at the figures when Bowyer was here and his second season. And compare those figures instead

The problem is you are focusing on uncontrollables, work, logistics, TV choices, and pinning everything on that.

Obviously the attendances only have the potential to go up so much, but there are so many things that we can control, all repeatedly mentioned, price, surcharges, when season tickets are released, aggravating fans by moving them, moving kick offs etc, all of which you seem reluctant to accept that they may, to varying degrees, have an impact on attendances.

You are asking Waggott to be proactive with some of your suggestions regarding younger fans, something he is yet to prove he is capable of.

34 minutes ago, blueboy3333 said:

There seems to be an acceptance from some that gates will never improve no matter what the club do. I think that is nonsense. The same things were said before Williams slashed the prices way back when. 

What the club has to do is make Ewood Park on a match day an attractive proposition. They won't do that through surcharges, closing stands to home fans and moving families round. They'll only do it by making it affordable to EVERYONE and making EVERYONE feel valued. There isn't enough goodwill knocking about after the last 8 years to make pissing people off acceptable to anyone. 

The club needs to start by attracting young adults, the ones who actually sing and make the ground a vibrant and enjoyable place to be. This takes us back to the Oxford game. It was full of young people and they were Rovers fans. Fact. They won't all come back but the really sad thing is NONE of them have come back. That failure can be laid firmly at the feet of the club.

 

Absolutely correct. Otherwise there wouldnt be a ticket sales target in the first place! There are so many things that can be controlled and manipulated to increase attendances, that in my opinion simply havent. To then pin the blame onto the fans is very poor of Waggott.

[chaddyrovers]

6 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

The problem is you are focusing on uncontrollables, work, logistics, TV choices, and pinning everything on that.

Obviously the attendances only have the potential to go up so much, but there are so many things that we can control, all repeatedly mentioned, price, surcharges, when season tickets are released, aggravating fans by moving them, moving kick offs etc, all of which you seem reluctant to accept that they may, to varying degrees, have an impact on attendances.

You are asking Waggott to be proactive with some of your suggestions regarding younger fans, something he is yet to prove he is capable of.

 

I think the ticket prices are reasonable and standard for the area in terms of championship clubs in our local area. Teams are Bolton, Wigan and Preston. 

I think a surcharge doesn't affect much tbh. but we need figures to sort this out. 

2 kick off times have been change and that's it. hardly a big thing. 

I would say your biggest gripe is you being moved from the Darwen end for away fans. 

I will email over my suggestions to him tonight. 

[gumboots]

You're right about moving fans without consultation being a big thing. I'd say it was definitely the tipping point for me and I said at the time it was the thin end of the wedge. You've admitted you like sitting where you sit. So did I and Cheston took it away just like that. I told him what I thought when I wrote to him to explain why I didn't renew my season ticket. Upset about it? Damned right I was

[Mattyblue]

Don’t talk tripe chaddy, match day prices are anything but reasonable.

£27 in the Blackburn End (£30 with surcharge), £31 in the Jack Walker centre (£34) for one game of Championship football is absolutely insane.

Bolton’s prices are bloody stupid too and all EFL Lancs clubs have thousands upon thousands of empty seats, so obviously local fans don’t think they are reasonable either.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Mattyblue

[roversfan99]

16 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I think the ticket prices are reasonable and standard for the area in terms of championship clubs in our local area. Teams are Bolton, Wigan and Preston. 

I think a surcharge doesn't affect much tbh. but we need figures to sort this out. 

2 kick off times have been change and that's it. hardly a big thing. 

I would say your biggest gripe is you being moved from the Darwen end for away fans. 

I will email over my suggestions to him tonight. 

My point is not necessarily the amount, but the fact that they increased prices at the best possible time to try and boost attendances. Waggott had the perfect chance following promotion, with a price freeze/price reduction and some clever marketing to get more season ticket holders in, ergo regular supporters. Instead he chose to squeeze more pennies out of the current season ticket holders who would have renewed (in the main) regardless, surely not as naive/idiotic as he has tried to come across today as to how that would stunt any prospect of maximising attendances.

Surcharges might not affect "much" but even if its a slight impact, its still one that was unavoidable.

Dont put words into my mouth. I was personally most aggravated by the Darwen End closure, without consultation or solid reasoning, but not in relation to what we are discussing. I think the main problem is the pricing followed by the surcharges.

[Gav]

16 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Don’t talk tripe chaddy, match day prices are anything but reasonable.

£27 in the Blackburn End (£30 with surcharge), £31 in the Jack Walker centre (£34) for one game of Championship football is absolutely insane.

Bolton’s prices are bloody stupid too and all EFL Lancs clubs have thousands upon thousands of empty seats, so obviously local fans don’t think they are reasonable either.

Even If you charged £20 for every game, the gates wouldn't increase significantly, those thousands of seats would still remain unsold. 

The only way to fill those seats is to keep improving on the pitch.

[Stuart]

I think Waggott is undermining the good work that Mowbray has done.

Pushing the blame on fans for low gates while doing EVERYTHING to discourage them is about as low as it gets.

We put up with crap like this for no other reason than out of fear that we could get worse.

You got it wrong, Steve, and now you have attendances at the level you instigated. And you went after the loyal fans too. Man up and admit you got it wrong - then do something about it.

[Mattyblue]

Of course Gav, but £30 is not in any way reasonable for lower league football.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Mattyblue

[Stuart]

3 minutes ago, MCMC1875 said:

They are all half-empty or more. They've killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

That’s exactly what’s happening.

Milk the faithful and wonder why the floating fans won’t join them.

Oxford + a great early bird offer + imaginative match day prices = reasons to complain about the fanbase 

Price increases + surcharges + withdrawal of unreserved seating + average-to-poor home form + complaining about fans (+ implied threat of budget cuts due to attendances being below planned level) = bringing it on oneself 

 

[Paul]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Sky wont be going anywhere for many years. 

I'm watching England right now on Sky. 

Without Sky I wouldn't get to watch all the football I can watch plus my cricket which I will be up at 4.30am to watch it. 

And you're paying through the nose for it.

Do you think it's right that the only way to watch major sport is through Amazon, Sky and BT? If one can't pay the subscription one can't watch.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Paul

[tomphil]

There's no way they can justify sales of players because of low crowds after spending 7 million on a kid who's not ready to play regularly even they aren't that hard faced.....are they ?

[47er]

6 hours ago, JHRover said:

We need to stop making comparisons to what we were getting in the Premier League. We aint ever going to get to those sort of numbers in the Championship. Mowbray is deluded if he seriously believes we'll get 20,000+ home fans on in this league on a regular basis. Maybe for one off huge games or celebrations but not for your bread and butter mid=table clashes with Brentford and Millwall.

The comparisons we should be making are to what we were getting in 2000-2001 when at this level and also what we were getting in 2012-14 when we came out of the Premier League and were getting more home fans on than we are currently. Where have those people gone?

We know there is an element of 5000-10000 fans who will only turn up for the Premier League. That applies to every club in the land although proportionally probably higher for Rovers than most. Forget those people, focus on the 2000 or so who were coming in 2012-13 but who might have stopped. Focus on trying to indoctrinate youngsters who won't see the Premier League as the be all and end all in life.

We really only got around 20000 fans when we were in the Premier League, sometimes rather less. The 25000 average was made up from away supporters.

And, prices were cheaper then! Have to recognise reality I'm afraid. We have a relatively small pool of fans to draw on and it will take years to undo the damage Venkys have caused. Additionally the area is one of the poorest in the country.

Income is increasingly dependent on sponsorship and broadcast rights and our club executives have to pull out all the stops there.

In particular they should be agitating for a better rate and share of TV money. 

[blueboy3333]

1 hour ago, Gav said:

Even If you charged £20 for every game, the gates wouldn't increase significantly, those thousands of seats would still remain unsold. 

The only way to fill those seats is to keep improving on the pitch.

Straw man alert. Thousands of seats remained unsold in the Prem. That's not really the point though. 

[chaddyrovers]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Don’t talk tripe chaddy, match day prices are anything but reasonable.

£27 in the Blackburn End (£30 with surcharge), £31 in the Jack Walker centre (£34) for one game of Championship football is absolutely insane.

Bolton’s prices are bloody stupid too and all EFL Lancs clubs have thousands upon thousands of empty seats, so obviously local fans don’t think they are reasonable either.

That's your opinion. But the prices are reasonable and standard for the region we all live in

2 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

My point is not necessarily the amount, but the fact that they increased prices at the best possible time to try and boost attendances. Waggott had the perfect chance following promotion, with a price freeze/price reduction and some clever marketing to get more season ticket holders in, ergo regular supporters. Instead he chose to squeeze more pennies out of the current season ticket holders who would have renewed (in the main) regardless, surely not as naive/idiotic as he has tried to come across today as to how that would stunt any prospect of maximising attendances.

Surcharges might not affect "much" but even if its a slight impact, its still one that was unavoidable.

Dont put words into my mouth. I was personally most aggravated by the Darwen End closure, without consultation or solid reasoning, but not in relation to what we are discussing. I think the main problem is the pricing followed by the surcharges.

I agree on your 1st point. 

The surcharges have little affect on anybody IMO but we need know the figures for tickets after 12pm on match days.  They were plenty of people queue for the Forest game.  

46 minutes ago, Paul said:

And you're paying through the nose for it.

Do you think it's right that the only way to watch major sport is through Amazon, Sky and BT? If one can't pay the subscription one can't watch.

Its the way it is. I'm very happy with what I paid for Sky, Amazon and Netflix considering how much I watched them and the family does. 

I want to watch as much football as I can. same with Cricket. Plus lots of films and TV series. 

Edited October 12, 2018 by chaddyrovers

[blueboy3333]

Just now, chaddyrovers said:

But the prices are reasonable and standard for the region we all live in

That's your opinion. It isn't a fact.

[Darwenview]

2 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

There seems to be an acceptance from some that gates will never improve no matter what the club do. I think that is nonsense. The same things were said before Williams slashed the prices way back when. 

What the club has to do is make Ewood Park on a match day an attractive proposition. They won't do that through surcharges, closing stands to home fans and moving families round. They'll only do it by making it affordable to EVERYONE and making EVERYONE feel valued. There isn't enough goodwill knocking about after the last 8 years to make pissing people off acceptable to anyone. 

The club needs to start by attracting young adults, the ones who actually sing and make the ground a vibrant and enjoyable place to be. This takes us back to the Oxford game. It was full of young people and they were Rovers fans. Fact. They won't all come back but the really sad thing is NONE of them have come back. That failure can be laid firmly at the feet of the club.

I have been a site viewer for years but just signed up, because I think roversfan99 has hit the nail on the head. We need to attract the younger fans with attractive ticket pricing, and when I say younger I mean under 25. scale the pricing from 16 -25 but keep it low.

The club also need to attract more older fans by providing low cost transport from the surrounding areas by putting at cost buses on from ie. Accy, Darwen,Train station, Wilpshire and other areas, with buses going back.

I know buses go from Darwen but only a few pubs. This in the overall scheme would be cost neutral for the club as the extra income from more supporters spending at the ground on anything would pay for this.

[HowieFive0]

Just a random thought ..but ..why do people think we should have higher attendances than we re getting now ?

Take away tv ..early 80s and we were looking at gates of 6000 in the the Second Division. What was different then than now ?

[47er]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

That's your opinion. But the prices are reasonable and standard for the region we all live in

I agree on your 1st point. 

The surcharges have little affect on anybody IMO but we need know the figures for tickets after 12pm on match days.  They were plenty of people queue for the Forest game.  

Its the way it is. I'm very happy with what I paid for Sky, Amazon and Netflix considering how much I watched them and the family does. 

I want to watch as much football as I can. same with Cricket. Plus lots of films and TV series. 

It would be nice if you could empathise with people who cannot afford to pay for Sky, Amazon and Netflix and stop being one of Thatcher's children for once.

 For decades, live cricket, for example, was free on the BBC. Poorer people are now deprived of it.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

’Does the club have a historical big support? I dont know'

 

What a truly incredulous statement to come out with.If you were in any doubt as to Mr Waggot being nothing more than a Bean counter then refer to said comment.

Out of touch with the fans and area.

 

[blueboy3333]

55 minutes ago, HowieFive0 said:

Just a random thought ..but ..why do people think we should have higher attendances than we re getting now ?

Take away tv ..early 80s and we were looking at gates of 6000 in the the Second Division. What was different then than now ?

Our fanbase, because of the success we had for two decades, is bigger than it was then. Or at least it was pre-Venkies.

Our core support is now 10k-12k, it was 6k back then as you yourself state.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Our average home gate hit its lowest ever point mid 80's at around 5,000.

That aside,Ewood was probably a better atmosphere back then!

[tomphil]

9 hours ago, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

Our average home gate hit its lowest ever point mid 80's at around 5,000.

That aside,Ewood was probably a better atmosphere back then!

Too right and when the likes of Leeds brought a full allocation it went up several notches people didn't go into their shells and the kick offs weren't moved. Leeds and one or two others support was truly fearsome but so were the OB so they could handle it.

What the hell will this lot do if we ever somehow got back to the Prem insist every big game kicks off at 12 ?

Pathetic !

Edited October 13, 2018 by tomphil

[philipl]

4 hours ago, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

Our average home gate hit its lowest ever point mid 80's at around 5,000.

That aside,Ewood was probably a better atmosphere back then!

It was a morgue, even for good games.

Stop kidding yourself. 

[DeeCee]

4 hours ago, tomphil said:

Too right and when the likes of Leeds brought a full allocation it went up several notches people didn't go into their shells and the kick offs weren't moved. Leeds and one or two others support was truly fearsome but so were the OB so they could handle it.

What the hell will this lot do if we ever someone got back to the Prem insist every big game kicks off at 12 ?

Pathetic !

Sunderland and Forest,  ouch!