Manchester City's 9% increase is an exception as many top sides reward their fans' loyalty with a freeze
Premier League clubs can be accused of many things but colluding over ticket prices is not one of them. If the Guardian's research into the cost of going to watch Premier League football next season tells anything, it is that clubs have little regard for what the rest of the division is doing when it comes to working out how much to charge their own supporters. "You can't report us to the Monopolies Commission," Peter Coates, the Stoke City chairman, says with a chuckle.
In many ways it should come as no surprise that clubs are operating in a bubble. There are, after all, so many individual factors that can influence the price of a ticket, ranging from how the team performed the previous season and the size of their stadium to the demand for seats and state of the local economy. Greed can also come into the equation, as Queens Park Rangers' supporters discovered last season when the club's previous owners hiked season‑ticket prices by up to 40%.
Although there is nothing quite as outrageous this year, there remains a huge disparity in prices across the Premier League and it is interesting to see the contrasting ways in which clubs are dealing with the recession. If the 9% rise at Manchester City raises eyebrows, even in light of the club winning the Premier League, then so does West Bromwich Albion's decision to make sweeping cuts, reducing all adult season tickets by £50 and knocking up to £70 off the cost of seats for youngsters.
It is a noble move, not least because Albion's 23,622 home allocation was 96% fully subscribed last season, meaning that the club were under little pressure to drop prices. The Albion chief executive, Mark Jenkins, says the club wanted to do more to help people in an area that has been particularly hard hit economically. He also explains that they are mindful of mistakes made in the past, when a generation of supporters was lost.
"I think our season-ticket prices for this season were already very competitive given our location and the size of the stadium, particularly when you look at our rivals, but we felt that we could still do more in the current climate," Jenkins says. "There's no doubt that youth unemployment is a very big issue at present. I'm a parent and I know full well that for teenagers and those in their early twenties even finding part-time employment is tough, never mind a full-time job. As a result we've really tried to focus on them and to focus on juniors too. In many ways that is the single biggest motivation behind our pricing strategy – to secure the next generation of fans.
"Having talked with the consultation group, to season-ticket holders and supporters, it's clear we lost a large number of a whole generation of fans between 1986 and 2002, primarily because we were out of the top division and struggling in that period but also because there were very harsh economic times in this area. If you look at the make-up of our crowd, there is definitely a weighting towards people from around 40 and older, and that reflects that period in time when we failed to attract as many new fans as we should have."
Nine clubs – Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Sunderland, Aston Villa, Stoke, Newcastle United and QPR – have frozen the cost of season tickets for the 2012-13 campaign. West Ham United have put prices back to the level they were when the club were last in the top flight, in 2010-11.
Reading, another of the promoted clubs, have introduced significant hikes for new applicants. But those that renewed during the "early bird" period – operated by many clubs to entice supporters to commit to a seat before the end of the season by offering reduced rates – will be watching Premier League football at the Madejski Stadium at Championship prices.
Norwich City and Swansea City claim that is what many of their supporters were doing last season, given that season‑ticket prices for 2011-12 were set when both were Championship clubs and yet to win promotion to the top flight.
The financial landscape, however, looks a little different at Carrow Road and the Liberty Stadium after impressive returns to the top flight. The cheapest adult tickets at Norwich and Swansea are up more than 10% and, at £471 and £429, are more expensive than the equivalent seats at half the Premier League clubs. Youngsters at both clubs will also have to dig deeper, under‑16s paying up to 30.9% more at Norwich and an average 36% more at Swansea.
On the face of it there would appear to be little justification for established Premier League clubs to ask their fans to hand over more money in this economic climate, although City may argue that a first championship in 44 years, on the back of Sheikh Mansour's billion-pound spending spree, is a fair reason for their hike, especially as their tickets remain considerably cheaper than their rivals'.
Of the other clubs that have been in the Premier League for some time Fulham have introduced the next highest rise, asking fans to pay an average 5% more to go to Craven Cottage next season. There are winners and losers at Fulham, where some adults buying the £399 entry-level seats in 2012-13 will be paying £20 less than the previous year while 295 others will be paying 21% more. Some concession prices have also climbed.
Tottenham Hotspur say their average 3.6% increase is in line with inflation, although those supporters in the cheapest seats could be forgiven for feeling that they have got the rough end of the deal. Entry-level season tickets at White Hart Lane are up from £690 to £730, which is 5.7% more. Only Arsenal have entry-level seats at a higher price, although those paying £985 at the Emirates Stadium also get seven cup matches thrown in, which works out a marginally better deal than the one at Spurs if calculated on an average cost per game.
If demand way exceeds supply at Tottenham, where there is a 30,000-strong waiting list for season tickets, the same cannot be said for Everton, where gates dropped 7.8% in 2011-12. Yet season ticket prices are up an average 3% at Goodison Park for 2012-13. Everton have, though, introduced a £95 ticket for under-11s, which represents a £50 saving for those of that age and has proved a hit.
Age categories for young adults and juniors have become increasingly popular in recent years. There are 11 categories from under-22 down to under-fives across the 19 Premier League clubs featured in this survey. Wigan, which remains by far the cheapest Premier League ground to watch football, have proved particularly successful at enticing younger fans and reaped the benefits last season in an average attendance that went up more than 10%, a greater increase than any other top-flight club with the exception of the newly promoted Swansea.
"We're very pleased with our percentage rise this year," Jonathan Jackson, the Wigan chief executive, says. "Our attendances had been falling from a high of 20,800 in our first year in the Premier League, and they gradually eroded to about 16,000‑17,000, and that is very much under capacity here, so we looked at how we best addressed that. Clearly the most important thing is to get your prices right. It's a competitive market and we feel that we have fantastic value for money in the Premier League. Our most expensive season ticket for a renewal is £300.
"We've also targeted our junior fans, who make up quite a large proportion of our season-ticket holders, just over 20%, because my aim is to ensure that every child growing up in Wigan is a Wigan Athletic fan.
"So we do an awful lot of work in schools, doing free coaching and engaging through our community trust. Once you have got them as a fan, the general rule is that they'll stay as a fan. Under-11s are £50, under fives are free and this year we have reduced our under-16s from £160 in the centre of our main stand to £105, which is quite a significant drop."
While it is easier for Wigan to be creative with their ticketing because their ground often has at least 5,000 empty seats, it does not necessarily follow that a full stadium means prices are more likely to go up. At Stoke, where season-ticket numbers are capped at 22,000, prices have not moved for five years.
"I'm sure we could have put them up and I don't think we would have any comeback," Coates says. "But we want to avoid [pricing supporters out]. This has always been the sport for everyman and we want to keep it that way." Read More
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