Half of top clubs see ticket sales drop

[Salem6]

Half of top clubs see ticket sales drop

Denis Campbell
Sunday October 2, 2005
The Observer

football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1582892,00.html

Ten of the Premiership's 20 clubs have suffered a
slump in season ticket sales amid growing resentment
among fans at high prices, lack of Saturday 3pm
kick-offs and the league's predictability.

Middlesbrough have suffered the biggest drop, down
3,100, despite playing in the Uefa Cup and signing
players such as Mark Viduka, Yakubu Aiyegbeni and
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. All 10 are clubs that are not
title contenders or whose priority is avoiding
relegation, such as Fulham (down 500), Blackburn (down
1,000) and Birmingham (down 1,500).

Significantly, many of the 10 are among the nine clubs
that the Premier League say have also experienced a
fall in their match-day attendances this season, such
as Portsmouth and Aston Villa. The trends may show
that fans of these clubs are unprepared to pay to
watch their team struggle.

Club officials said that the increased number of
matches being switched to 12.45pm or 5.15pm kickoffs
on a Saturday, or Sunday lunchtime slots, so they can
be shown live on Sky, was a big factor. As many as
two-thirds of fans who did not renew their season
ticket after last season cited irritation at the
fragmented fixture list. Resentment has grown since,
last year, Sky began showing 138 games every season,
instead of the previous 106, after the European
Commission pressured the league to make more of their
380 games available for live broadcast.

The fall in season-ticket sales comes after a drop in
away fans going to matches, last year recording a
second successive fall in the average attendances.
Richard Scudamore, the league's chief executive, told
the annual conference of Supporters Direct on Friday
that 'football is at a crossroads' in terms of
popularity.

'Attendances cannot continue to grow at the same
inflated rate [as they have since the league's
creation in 1992]', he said, while emphasising that
'the attendance of fans is still the number-one
priority for clubs'. He also hinted that the league's
earnings - £580million last year - have probably
peaked.

The three promoted clubs have recorded higher
season-ticket sales - Wigan have almost trebled
theirs, to 12,124 - as have Manchester United, Everton
and Tottenham.

There is further evidence of the Premiership's waning
appeal in the viewing figures for live matches on Sky.
The average for the first 10 Sunday and Monday games
of the season was 1.095m, down from last season's
average of 1.224m, according to official statistics
from the British Audience Research Bureau.

Only 393,000 tuned in to Middlesbrough versus
Charlton, which kicked off at 1.30pm on a Sunday - the
lowest audience for a live screening in the league's
13-year history. Audiences for big games, such as
Chelsea versus Arsenal and Liverpool versus Manchester
United, are also considerably down.

'Airing 138 games per season, it is unlikely that you
will be able to attract the same TV audience figures,'
said Scudamore, who is embroiled in tense negotiations
with the EC over the league's post-2007 TV contract.

Martin Endemann, of Germany's Confederation of Active
Football Fans, said that English football is vastly
overpriced compared with Bundesliga games. 'The
atmosphere at matches in England is rubbish. The only
fans singing are the away fans, so it's more fun to go
as an away fan,' he said.

Up (6 clubs)

Wigan: +7,361 (promoted)
Sunderland: +6,500 (promoted)
West Ham: + 4,000 (promoted)
Man United: +2,500
Everton: +2,430
Tottenham: +2,000

Down (10 clubs)

Middlesbrough: -3,100
Charlton: -1,500
Birmingham: -1,350
Man City: -1,140
Blackburn: -1,000
Aston Villa: -950
Portsmouth: -800
West Brom: -400
Fulham: -500
Bolton: -100


Unchanged: (4 clubs)

Arsenal (21,200)
Chelsea (24,000)
Liverpool (27,000)
Newcastle (40,000)