The club's relationship with the fans

[VillaChris]

2 hours ago, sidcow said:

I wonder how empty Villa Park has to be to cross the line.  is a 70% full Villa Park still making more money at CL prices than a full VP as standard Premier League prices for example?

I imagine the full houses for Bayern, Juve and Celtic will offset a reduction in the Bologna attendance which looks very likely to sell out. It's just the optics of it, the press will be all over the story if we're only hitting 35-36k v Bologna so it's more negativity the club will have to respond to with more FFP excuses.

Wonder what we'd have charged if the draw had flipped and we'd got Young Boys, Monaco, Leipzig and Club Brugge as the four home games? Probably would've been 40-50 quid at the very most.

[peterw]

22 minutes ago, delboy54 said:

Good point. I was in my normal standing rail seat in K5 Upper Holte for the Everton game and when our third went in, it was just wild unbridled joy, not just the winning goal but to witness one of the best goals I have ever seen at VP.

This type of emotion is alien to those whom have never experienced it. I have tried explaining this to typical plastic sky scum supporters that I know, that have never seen their team play live, they don't "get" it.

Witnessing Villa win the play off final was better than sex, mind you I am now 66 years old, Villa winning stuff seems to happen more frequently these days!

and its probably been so long ago that you'll have forgotten what sex was like anyhow...

[calcifer]

2 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah real talk same with me. Some people seem to think everyone moaning is just moaning because they can't afford it.

I'm going to the Bologna game. I'll probably go to all the CL games if I can get tickets.

 

Thousands of people won't be able to, purely because they can't afford it. And that's not right

Nail on head, i would love to watch us in the CL but i cant afford the prices adding transport to and from Villa Park etc. I went for a few season between 2007 - 2010 when i could get a ticket (Highest scoring game i saw was when we beat Burnley 5-2  ) but life and kids  eventually came along.

But i just get called a   fan by some people (actually had an argument with some spunk trumpet on FB over it because i said about the prices preventing me going, told me i was a fan and to go support Blues with that attitude   )

[El Segundo]

45 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Wonder what we'd have charged if the draw had flipped and we'd got Young Boys, Monaco, Leipzig and Club Brugge as the four home games? Probably would've been 40-50 quid at the very most.

Great point - I can't imagine the pricing would have been anything like the same.  

[MrBlack]

4 hours ago, turvontour said:

It feels to me, on average, attending all Villa home games will cost double this season compared to the 2022/23 season. Last season was a bridging season to the sky high costs. Obviously depends how deep we go in the champions league, but 5 game plus is probably the tipping point for double the costs of the season before last. 

Surely this is the maths that should be put to the club. This is crippling the majority of the fanbase. It isnt a minority anymore at this point. 

 

And the problem is this is exactly what they want.  They'd be happier to have 60k attend 50% of games, rather than 30k attending 100%. Make that figure whatever you want, but essentially while demand out strips supply they'll continue to stretch the fan base to increase the different number attending games, and reduce the regular attendees.

As well as making more from the more expensive tickets, they make more from the day tripper fans that buy a programme and a scarf because it's the only game they'll go to this season. They need to recognise that doing so will leave us with a quiet fanbase like City, Arsenal, or increasingly Liverpool

[TDR V2]

1 hour ago, VillaChris said:

I imagine the full houses for Bayern, Juve and Celtic will offset a reduction in the Bologna attendance which looks very likely to sell out. It's just the optics of it, the press will be all over the story if we're only hitting 35-36k v Bologna so it's more negativity the club will have to respond to with more FFP excuses.

Wonder what we'd have charged if the draw had flipped and we'd got Young Boys, Monaco, Leipzig and Club Brugge as the four home games? Probably would've been 40-50 quid at the very most.

Nah, they said pre draw it was gonna be more than Cat A, we just didn't know how much more. Different games wouldn't have made much of a difference... they could have brought every single fan with them on this journey but they chose to alienate a large section of them by being greedy

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

On 29/09/2024 at 17:00, andycv said:

But what if it is?

Undoubtedly will be some of the same

" It's not my money so I don't care how much we paid "

" Why are we haggling over 5 million "

" I can't believe the club have failed to sign a right back or forward " squad.

I've said it already, but I genuinely hope none of these are in charge of businesses or finances.

" It's only 5 million " ( Just for the arguments sake ).

As if that " 5 million " is not an addition to multiple other increased forms of income to make up for a greater number.

As if the club would be " squeezing " for that 5 million if they didn't believe it would help towards a larger goal.

Say 5 million + 2 million + 3 million + 500k + 1000,000 etc as an example across different and new revenue streams.

It's why I can't even be assed responding to the ones who are going out of their way to play idiotic in the face of the difference in income levels of the " Biggest " clubs dwarfing ours being common sense reasoning as to why they can " afford " to have things like cheaper tickets.

Absolutely none of this is rocket science or requires any sort of expert thinking or opinion.

It's hilarious.

Again, not saying I don't feel for fans or they don't have a right to voice their opinion but the total ignoring of facts, in large part due to dislike for Villas new antichrist is mind-blowing. ( I'm not saying that is the ONLY reason either obviously, as there are multiple valid reasons )

Another one I'm going to try to stay off of because if folks are coming from a starting point of fact and logic denial there is nowhere to go.

I appreciate all the valid arguments but can't and won't agree with people forcing voluntary " stupidity" just for the sake of sticking to guns.

* I'm not calling anyone any names either... Before someone tries to pivot with that one.

 

Edited 43 minutes ago by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[OutByEaster?]

On 29/09/2024 at 13:44, sidcow said:

Like I said earlier. Is an extra £5m rinsed out of the everyday fans really going to be the difference between Unai Emery making us a successful club or not? I don't think so. 

 

And there's a line somewhere in there - a price tag on the relationship between the supporters and the club, between the club and its relationship with the media and its pubic appearance and the potential effect that has on sponsors and performance on the pitch. There's a line somewhere that says someone is comfortable in believing that the extra money is more helpful to the club than any effect on morale or momentum

I think in the case of the Champions league tickets, if the whole thing had been priced at Cat A - then the dearest tickets would have been the £79.00 ones and the season ticket holders would have squeaked about it before the members reminded them that this is how it is for them on any Cat A. It may have been a bit of an eye opener for the season ticket holders (it was for me) and it would have caused a few grumbles and a couple of internal arguments between different groups of fans within the fanbase and ticket buying hierarchy. It wouldn't have got us two articles on the BBC, loads of radio and print coverage and a reputation as one of the clubs most likely to rinse its own fans. It wouldn't have made us football's bad guys, no one would have printed red cards.

We didn't go with a flat Cat A approach, instead charging members an extra fifteen quid each and generating that headline £94.00 ticket that gave the whole world something to latch onto, shout about and use as a banner for all that's wrong in football. 

Now in terms of the price of that and the cost of it's impact - we're talking about what is only around 5,000 tickets for members per game for the CL - or £75,000 a match even before we start figuring in concessions - in total, for the four CL games we've announced, the decision to add £15.00 over and above the Cat A price for members will make us less than £250,000 - it's not an extra £5m.

For me, on this one, the club got the line wrong - I don't think there is enough value in the noise, chaos and anger that the extra £15.00 per member created to justify the effect it's had on the feel around the football club and our reputation, or on the relationship with supporters who now have one eye open all the time looking for fault, the club may or may not agree on that, but for me I don't think we've got anything like the right amount of value out of that £250,000, nor do I think it'll make a huge amount of difference to a business that makes £300m a year, and I don't think it makes much of an impact on Unai Emery's ability to make us a more successful club.

It's a poor decision - but it's only one decision - this isn't a relationship that ever really breaks, but I'd hope we're learning lessons.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

22 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Now in terms of the price of that and the cost of it's impact - we're talking about what is only around 5,000 tickets for members per game for the CL - or £75,000 a match even before we start figuring in concessions - in total, for the four CL games we've announced, the decision to add £15.00 over and above the Cat A price for members will make us less than £250,000 - it's not an extra £5m.

 

Good overall post and as usual well reasoned.

Now here's my thing, unless I'm missing something, if what you've said is correct, it would almost make the widespread " outrage " more bizarre to me?

Are you saying that this price only affects 5,000 people out of the stadium ( Or category ), and not the full fanbase? Meaning everyone else has more moderate prices?

I might be getting this totally wrong and obviously don't know much about the stadium structures.

I've simply been going off the figures bandied about here and online.

If what you say is indeed correct, and it's not actually 5 million, but closer to 250,000, then yeah, it makes less sense, but I feel there must be more to it?