Season tickets 2023-24 - what could/should be offered ?

[Mattyblue]

That’s the rub, if you make them cheaper plenty of folk will bite the bullet and buy one even if they know they’ll miss a few. That’s certainly what PNE and Bolton will be finding.

However, when you are being asked to pay up to £500 you need to think hard if you believe you’ll miss a load of night games etc.

[superniko]

14 minutes ago, ElTwis said:

I honestly don't think this needs to be complicated, just make season tickets cheaper. If they were £200 I'd buy one despite being able to make only maybe half the games. If I get one so do 2 kids, so does my aunt. 

Yep, I'd get one and I don't even live in the country. Try and get to 8+ games (obviously more if I lived in Lancashire), have priority on aways / big cup matches. At the least I'd get one to share with family members.

Like you say, doesn't need to be complicated. It's basically what happened under the John Williams campaign (was it £199 and £149 for young adult or something?)

EDIT: It's irrelevant as they're in the Prem, have TV money and owned by the richest people in the world where 'financial fair play' doesn't seem to be a thing, but you can get a City season ticket in the upper tier of the South Stand as an adult for £205. Imagine, you can watch De Bruyne, Haaland, Grealish, Foden for half the price of Gallagher, Hedges, Dolan, Diaz

Edited April 27, 2023 by superniko

[JHRover]

There's zero presence around. I live in Hyndburn and work in Rossendale, two areas a handful of miles from Ewood and heavily populated with Rovers/potential Rovers fans. Other than the Lancashire Telegraph being on sale in the paper shops you'd never see or hear about Rovers in those areas.

I'm not expecting massive billboards all over the place but they make zero effort. Unforgivable.

[Mattyblue]

The club needs root and branch reform on the commercial side. It’s lazy, amateurish and full of folk with no feeling for the fanbase and how to engage them - a reflection of its chief.

They’ve finally cottoned on on the football side, we can only hope the commercial side eventually follows. But we need a new broom first.
 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Mattyblue

[Hasta]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

The club won’t countenance a ‘day’ ticket, ‘18 game ticket’ etc because they know it’s only having c9k ST holders that is ensuring we have any kind of crowd /sales for midweek games (and that’s with a load of holders swerving it, but they still count towards the ‘crowd’ and revenue regardless).

If it was offered I’d imagine we’d sell an embarrassingly low number of 23 game STs.

I commented on how against Coventry City last week there were clearly a large number of Season Ticket holders absent. It seems a lot of people either can't or don't make mid week games. Indeed, a often have to rush back from wherever I've been working, get home and go straight down to Ewood to make midweek games.If I didn't have a season ticket for all season I image some of them I'd just sack off.

If we had "weekend only" season tickets, then midweek games would need to be priced incredibly low else we would have about 6k or 7k home fans actually attending.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Hasta

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Bolton have shifted nearly 15,000...we can only dream of those sales.

[DeeCee]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

The club needs root and branch reform on the commercial side. It’s lazy, amateurish and full of folk with no feeling for the fanbase and how to engage them - a reflection of its chief.

They’ve finally cottoned on on the football side, we can only hope the commercial side eventually follows. But we need a new broom first.
 

Nail on the head 💯

[only2garners]

7 hours ago, Herbie6590 said:

Inspired by a pre-match conversation on Tuesday night…we were discussing all the possible innovative ways a modern season ticket offering could be designed.

I’d like to do a “Wisdom of the Crowd” type thing on here which may inspire an article.

The sorts of things we discussed included :

• Weekend only season tickets- especially including children in the package
• Midweek only season tickets
• Gym style monthly membership options with different tiers each offering different benefits but spreading the cost over 12 months
• Unreserved seating (first come first seated) areas where you could meet mates for ad hoc games

 

What ideas would you like to see Rovers offer to bring the fans back to Ewood ?

Please add below & I’ll try to collate them into some sort of a proposition for the new Head of Commercial when appointed ! 🙂

 

[I know there will be replies along the lines of “win promotion”, “sack Waggott” & so on but try & resist the urge please & let’s try to understand our fanbase, our demographic & what might resonate with different fans….thanks all 👍🏻]

I think the Fans Forum has spoken more about season tickets and pricing more than any other subject in the time I've been on it. A few of us had a separate meeting with Paul Fielder and Fraser Read in January to give our opinions on what changes could be made. The one point that we emphasised more than anything else was the need to reduce prices, at least in early bird offers. It looks like we helped in a small way to do a little on that from this year.

We have talked a few times about packages with a smaller number of games to encourage those who know that they can't make all home games in a season. There clearly would be a lot of interest in these and no doubt some of those who only come occasionally now would take them. But the overriding issue, and that I'm sure means it won't happen any time soon, is that a lot of current season ticket holders would also be very interested and would downsize their purchase as well.

I always miss a number of home games each season as I'm retired and lucky enough to be able to do some travel each winter. This season I've missed 5 home games and that's pretty typical for me. Say a 15 game ticket would make financial sense for me but not for the club.

We talked about the gym membership type plan in January and I got the impression that there was some interest from the club - it may well be that there was not enough time to get that set up for 23/24. I will be following it up over the Summer. Our idea was to offer a monthly fee option by direct debit, with people committing to a 12 month membership each year and being advised on the new annual rate and given a window to stop each year. I can't help feeing a £32 per month fee would be very attractive to a lot of fans. It sounds a lot less than a one-off £379 even though it's actually £5 more.

We didn't talk about an unreserved seating area this time but it's another idea that is worth a revisit. I remember that we tried for a while to get one in the Darwen End of the Riverside in John Williams' and then he gazumped us by doing it in the Darwen End at the time he radically dropped ST prices. I can see our original idea being an attractive one for a number of fans - in fact on Tuesday night a number of Roverrs fans did it themselves.

[TheRovers1994]

I applied for finance on mine but got rejected cause of that v12 being stingy when my score is decent 

why can’t they club operate their own fiance system ? A dingle I work with said they have their own, if you mis payment your ticket gets frozen until you sort it out, the amount of money the club misses out on cause of finance companies is ridiculous I bet 

[only2garners]

Just now, TheRovers1994 said:

I applied for finance on mine but got rejected cause of that v12 being stingy when my score is decent 

why can’t they club operate their own fiance system ? A dingle I work with said they have their own, if you mis payment your ticket gets frozen until you sort it out, the amount of money the club misses out on cause of finance companies is ridiculous I bet 

Blimey, that is radical.

[TheRovers1994]

On 24/02/2023 at 22:52, BRFC_Polky said:

The club should really make an effort to reduce the season ticket prices in the Riverside next season.

I sit in the JW lower and it was pretty empty the other night.

The reason riverside is same price is ti try temp riversiders out into JW to make it look better on tv, I’ve always thought riverside should be cheaper especially behind pillars, maybe a way of making football more affordable for those why can’t afford it otherwise

[TheRovers1994]

On 24/02/2023 at 23:52, rigger said:

Totally agree. But I will hate it when it inevitably happens. In my opinion, the Riverside is more a part of the Rovers history, than the Nuttal street. 

Riverside is an eyesore, it was only done in the 80s it annoys me tbh the back of it is a dump especially it’s away from the pitch that makes it worse and when the red and blue colour annoys the fuck out of me 

[Mattyblue]

Hearing a lot re DD rejections. Seems far more than usual.

Is the club aware of this? As it is yet another barrier to any kind of decent numbers being sold.

[Herbie6590]

52 minutes ago, TheRovers1994 said:why can’t they club operate their own fiance system ? A dingle I work with said they have their own, if you mis payment your ticket gets frozen until you sort it out, the amount of money the club misses out on cause of finance companies is ridiculous I bet 

There’s a LOAD of regulation & licensing around offering instalment finance…not a core competency for a football club. 

[wilsdenrover]

3 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

There’s a LOAD of regulation & licensing around offering instalment finance…not a core competency for a football club. 

I’m impressed you’ve managed to get the word competency into a conversation about Rovers 😁

[Miller11]

To add to what @only2garners has posted above, The Supporters Trust have also had similar conversations. Some ideas we’ve put forward include:

Entry level pricing - we don’t have a “cheap” season ticket, and some fans are priced out. It’s a big commitment for fans who have never had one before. The front 6 rows of the Riverside are uncovered, they should be cheaper. We proposed £150 for a season ticket there. 

Obviously that’s a limited number of cheap tickets. I doubt you’d see many regulars giving up their seats elsewhere to sit in the worst seats. You’d literally just attract people who wouldn’t buy one otherwise. There was an argument that “people will just move back into other seats”. My answer was in a 1/3 full ground, so what?

 

Flexibility - massive issue. I think there will be a larger than anticipated number not renewing this season off the back of the number of games we’ve had moved to evenings that people (especially those who generally take their kids) can’t make. Loads of suggestions around this.

 

Tied into this and the significant number of fans I’ve spoken to who’ve had a DD knock back, we suggested a “pay as you go” season ticket.

Currently you pay £40 to a finance company for the privilege of spreading your payments. We suggested a £50 membership/initial cost (money to the club) that then allows you to buy a ticket to any league game at a pro-rata price equivalent to the season ticket price per game, so around £18. If you want to go to all of them, you pay about the same as someone on a direct debit. If you can’t make half you aren’t wasting hundreds of pounds. You’d also get the other fringe season ticket benefits like access to away tickets etc.

This is from my own working knowledge of consumer credit rather than any discussion with the club… Regarding the direct debit function, the club can’t offer finance. They aren’t licensed to, and it’s a non-starter. I do wonder what criteria v12 are going by, as I know homeowners who have been rejected and people with CCJ’s who have been accepted… I’d guess they are looking more at current work/income status than credit history to make their lending decisions.

We’ve also had massive discussions around catchment areas and the marketing of season tickets the club do. I have to say the insight Fraser Reed has into this is brilliant from a digital point of view - very illuminating. There was an acknowledgement they needed to do more in more traditional/non-digital channels, as well as an acknowledgement they don’t have our strength of local knowledge and that was identified as an area they’d like some help. One comment was “the majority of our database has a BB postcode” which resulted in me literally getting a map out and showing them that that meant they could be coming from Rossendale, Ribble Valley, Hyndburn or even Burnley.

We asked for tickets to be on sale sooner. That box was ticked, but the issue of only having a window of one or maybe two paydays before a price hike remains, frustratingly. Personally I’m sick of deadlines and cut off points. Season tickets should be available at any point during the season on a pro-raga’s price basis. What happens if someone who has been out of work finds a job in September? They have to wait til half season tickets go on sale at Christmas.

We’ve also discussed a membership scheme on very similar lines to the fans forum, as an additional product and not a replacement for the traditional season ticket.

There’s a lot more I could go into and the Trust will be putting out Comms regarding this in the near future. We do appreciate any input though, so feel free to reach out. We’re also looking to expand our membership (always) and our board, so please keep an eye open.

 

edit - I should’ve added that there wasn’t any great expectation from our side that there’d be anything much this season. We see this as a longer term project, but id be disappointed if there isn’t something a bit more radical in 12 months time.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Miller11

[only2garners]

2 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

To add to what @only2garners has posted above, The Supporters Trust have also had similar conversations. Some ideas we’ve put forward include:

Entry level pricing - we don’t have a “cheap” season ticket, and some fans are priced out. It’s a big commitment for fans who have never had one before. The front 6 rows of the Riverside are uncovered, they should be cheaper. We proposed £150 for a season ticket there. 

Obviously that’s a limited number of cheap tickets. I doubt you’d see many regulars giving up their seats elsewhere to sit in the worst seats. You’d literally just attract people who wouldn’t buy one otherwise. There was an argument that “people will just move back into other seats”. My answer was in a 1/3 full ground, so what?

 

Flexibility - massive issue. I think there will be a larger than anticipated number not renewing this season off the back of the number of games we’ve had moved to evenings that people (especially those who generally take their kids) can’t make. Loads of suggestions around this.

 

Tied into this and the significant number of fans I’ve spoken to who’ve had a DD knock back, we suggested a “pay as you go” season ticket.

Currently you pay £40 to a finance company for the privilege of spreading your payments. We suggested a £50 membership/initial cost (money to the club) that then allows you to buy a ticket to any league game at a pro-rata price equivalent to the season ticket price per game, so around £18. If you want to go to all of them, you pay about the same as someone on a direct debit. If you can’t make half you aren’t wasting hundreds of pounds. You’d also get the other fringe season ticket benefits like access to away tickets etc.

This is from my own working knowledge of consumer credit rather than any discussion with the club… Regarding the direct debit function, the club can’t offer finance. They aren’t licensed to, and it’s a non-starter. I do wonder what criteria v12 are going by, as I know homeowners who have been rejected and people with CCJ’s who have been accepted… I’d guess they are looking more at current work/income status than credit history to make their lending decisions.

We’ve also had massive discussions around catchment areas and the marketing of season tickets the club do. I have to say the insight Fraser Reed has into this is brilliant from a digital point of view - very illuminating. There was an acknowledgement they needed to do more in more traditional/non-digital channels, as well as an acknowledgement they don’t have our strength of local knowledge and that was identified as an area they’d like some help. One comment was “the majority of our database has a BB postcode” which resulted in me literally getting a map out and showing them that that meant they could be coming from Rossendale, Hyndburn or even Burnley.

We asked for tickets to be on sale sooner. That box was ticked, but the issue of only having a window of one or maybe two paydays before a price hike remains, frustratingly. Personally I’m sick of deadlines and cut off points. Season tickets should be available at any point during the season on a pro-raga’s price basis. What happens if someone who has been out of work finds a job in September? They have to wait til half season tickets go on sale at Christmas.

We’ve also discussed a membership scheme on very similar lines to the fans forum, as an additional product and not a replacement for the traditional season ticket.

There’s a lot more I could go into and the Trust will be putting out Comms regarding this in the near future. We do appreciate any input though, so feel free to reach out. We’re also looking to expand our membership (always) and our board, so please keep an eye open.

I forgot the point about the Riverside, which we also made, although on the more general one of having the whole stand as an entry level ST.

Fraser does seem to have a handle on a lot of good data and it's pretty understandable that he won't have much local knowledge, being a Spurs fan from Bournemouth!

I like the idea of a membership and discounted tickets. I might make the same point at the next FF in May.

[Miller11]

Another point I forgot to add…

The club introduced an international flexi season ticket this year apparently off the back of loads of requests from fans. They thought there was heavy demand based on what supporters were asking for, but they sold 2. I get the sense this has added to their reluctance to try more novel approaches.

[only2garners]

7 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

Another point I forgot to add…

The club introduced an international flexi season ticket this year apparently off the back of loads of requests from fans. They thought there was heavy demand based on what supporters were asking for, but they sold 2. I get the sense this has added to their reluctance to try more novel approaches.

I think the International ticket also suffered from the number of games on Sky. If the game is also being shown live on a local channel in another country you can't use Rovers TV. I was caught in Mallorca for the Hull game. I would have paid £10 to watch it on RoversTV but it was only a radio broadcast as Bein Sports (I think) have the rights to Championship games in Spain. My son found me another route to watch it (nudge, nudge).

[J*B]

9 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

Another point I forgot to add…

The club introduced an international flexi season ticket this year apparently off the back of loads of requests from fans. They thought there was heavy demand based on what supporters were asking for, but they sold 2. I get the sense this has added to their reluctance to try more novel approaches.

See, when BRFCS decided to start making retro blue and white football shirts of no link to the Blackburn Rovers Football Club brand, we took pre-orders first to make sure there was enough demand to commit to the minimum order needed for it to be worth our while. Because we actually thought about it, rather than spending resource, money and time creating something that would have little uptake. 

[superniko]

48 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

To add to what @only2garners has posted above, The Supporters Trust have also had similar conversations. Some ideas we’ve put forward include:

Entry level pricing - we don’t have a “cheap” season ticket, and some fans are priced out. It’s a big commitment for fans who have never had one before. The front 6 rows of the Riverside are uncovered, they should be cheaper. We proposed £150 for a season ticket there. 

Obviously that’s a limited number of cheap tickets. I doubt you’d see many regulars giving up their seats elsewhere to sit in the worst seats. You’d literally just attract people who wouldn’t buy one otherwise. There was an argument that “people will just move back into other seats”. My answer was in a 1/3 full ground, so what?

 

Flexibility - massive issue. I think there will be a larger than anticipated number not renewing this season off the back of the number of games we’ve had moved to evenings that people (especially those who generally take their kids) can’t make. Loads of suggestions around this.

 

Tied into this and the significant number of fans I’ve spoken to who’ve had a DD knock back, we suggested a “pay as you go” season ticket.

Currently you pay £40 to a finance company for the privilege of spreading your payments. We suggested a £50 membership/initial cost (money to the club) that then allows you to buy a ticket to any league game at a pro-rata price equivalent to the season ticket price per game, so around £18. If you want to go to all of them, you pay about the same as someone on a direct debit. If you can’t make half you aren’t wasting hundreds of pounds. You’d also get the other fringe season ticket benefits like access to away tickets etc.

This is from my own working knowledge of consumer credit rather than any discussion with the club… Regarding the direct debit function, the club can’t offer finance. They aren’t licensed to, and it’s a non-starter. I do wonder what criteria v12 are going by, as I know homeowners who have been rejected and people with CCJ’s who have been accepted… I’d guess they are looking more at current work/income status than credit history to make their lending decisions.

We’ve also had massive discussions around catchment areas and the marketing of season tickets the club do. I have to say the insight Fraser Reed has into this is brilliant from a digital point of view - very illuminating. There was an acknowledgement they needed to do more in more traditional/non-digital channels, as well as an acknowledgement they don’t have our strength of local knowledge and that was identified as an area they’d like some help. One comment was “the majority of our database has a BB postcode” which resulted in me literally getting a map out and showing them that that meant they could be coming from Rossendale, Ribble Valley, Hyndburn or even Burnley.

We asked for tickets to be on sale sooner. That box was ticked, but the issue of only having a window of one or maybe two paydays before a price hike remains, frustratingly. Personally I’m sick of deadlines and cut off points. Season tickets should be available at any point during the season on a pro-raga’s price basis. What happens if someone who has been out of work finds a job in September? They have to wait til half season tickets go on sale at Christmas.

We’ve also discussed a membership scheme on very similar lines to the fans forum, as an additional product and not a replacement for the traditional season ticket.

There’s a lot more I could go into and the Trust will be putting out Comms regarding this in the near future. We do appreciate any input though, so feel free to reach out. We’re also looking to expand our membership (always) and our board, so please keep an eye open.

 

edit - I should’ve added that there wasn’t any great expectation from our side that there’d be anything much this season. We see this as a longer term project, but id be disappointed if there isn’t something a bit more radical in 12 months time.

Keep fighting the good fight mate!

 

29 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

Another point I forgot to add…

The club introduced an international flexi season ticket this year apparently off the back of loads of requests from fans. They thought there was heavy demand based on what supporters were asking for, but they sold 2. I get the sense this has added to their reluctance to try more novel approaches.

From memory there was no actual saving for it. 6 matches for £150. Of course no fucker took it up. £25 a match when that’s the going rate anyway. 
It’s actually more expensive than the average price per ticket before you even acknowledge match by match offers.
They’re just absolutely clueless, as always with Rovers these days, a novel idea, but awful execution. 
 

Edited April 27, 2023 by superniko

[only2garners]

20 minutes ago, only2garners said:

I think the International ticket also suffered from the number of games on Sky. If the game is also being shown live on a local channel in another country you can't use Rovers TV. I was caught in Mallorca for the Hull game. I would have paid £10 to watch it on RoversTV but it was only a radio broadcast as Bein Sports (I think) have the rights to Championship games in Spain. My son found me another route to watch it (nudge, nudge).

Actually that comment was about something else offered. superniko's post is about the International ticket.

[chaddyrovers]

7 hours ago, Mellor Rover said:

With 5k walk ons? Come on...

I said 3 to 5k walk on fans if you read the post properly depending who we are playing

[Ozz]

How about this? Free entrance.

 

Free Entry to matches

[Mattybrfc02]

This isn't relevant to the season ticket debate but, pick out a few games a season no more than 5 no less than 3 that look like dead rubber fixtures that don't look like they'll sell to well and price them at £10 adults £7.50 young adult/seniors u18 £5 u12 £2 and we'll get a good gate on especially if they pick out say 2/5 on a weekend. Surley it's doable? COYB🔵⚪️🌹