Season Ticket Prices in League One 12-13

(Written also for Pompey Pages)

Season Ticket Prices in League One 2012/13

With the promising news that Pompey fans will soon be able to purchase their season tickets for the upcoming season in League One and the news that the supporters will be consulted about the pricing is great. It made me wonder what is the average price of season tickets in League One?

I knew going into this that the pricing structure was not going to be cheap, in fact the cheapest price I was expecting for adults was £250-275 and the most expensive being near £500.

This article is conducted by collecting all the known season ticket prices that have been announced on 25^th May 2012. The clubs missing from this survey are; Sheffield United, Huddersfield, Shrewsbury Town, Notts County, and the winner of League Two Play-off Final (Cheltenham/Crewe)

The way I've conducted the survey was to collate the 19 clubs season ticket prices into three categories which are Adult, Concession and Child (Under 18). These are the normal three ticket categories at most grounds. There were some good deals at individual clubs, but I will discuss that later in the article. Also these are the full price season tickets, not early bird deals.

The prices are a combination of all the prices for each ticket, for instance some of the clubs have different pricing structures in each stand or parts of one particular stand. Some were cheaper with a lot of grounds having terraced stands, these were totalled up and divided by the number of pricing structures, for example Yeovil Town's Adult Season Ticket;

Augusta Westland Centre	Augusta Westland Wing	Screwfix Stand Centre	Screwfix Stand Wing	Thatchers Gold
£380.00	£342.00	£361.00	£323.00	£307.00

So the math would be;

380+342+361+323+307= 1713 /5 = £342 (rounded down)

This was used for each of the categories and then accumulated into a line graph, they will be presented on the same graph to show the varying differences in prices across the league and categories in each club.

 Red= Adult

Green= Concession

Blue= Child

This is the data entry with each individual price if you unable to read on the line graph;

What is interesting about the data is that it isn't what I was expecting in my initial prediction. There is a consistent element in a lot of the clubs around the £330-380 price area for adults, Hartlepool are the cheapest with £155 which works out as an impressive £6.73 per game and the most expensive club are Colchester at £437 per adult season ticket which is exactly £19 per game. This is closely followed by MK Dons at £408 and £17.74 per game, but they are only more expensive by around £30 more than other League One clubs.

If we break this down even further with the price per game model then it highlights the price difference more clearly between clubs;

Key

Red= Adult

Green= Concession

Blue= Child

This new graph shows an encouraging outlook to the League One season ticket prices, with many clubs sticking to astute price structuring, particularly in the children season ticket sector. For example children ticket at Carlisle is £10 for the entire season which is unrivalled in the league, the nearest competitor is Hartlepool and Tranmere which offers children season tickets for £50.

Bury do a great season ticket deal which is called Dad and a Lad ticket which for £310 a dad can take his son (under 11's) to the football which is great, saves £73 then buying individual tickets!

If Portsmouth want to viably attract crowds then they will need to do similar research into pricing structures across League One, and look at ways of attracting people into the lesser used stands i.e. North Stand Upper and South Stand Upper. The club should also do a season ticket similar to Bury and attract dads and sons to games to let them experience football for a season or even the first time.

I don't think we need to be as drastic as Hartlepool, a recent poll had a 'majority' vote calling for Portsmouth season tickets being under £250, which is totally unrealistic. The realistic figure I feel we are looking for is around £15-17 a game for adults, this would put our season tickets around £345-380. It would be a fair reflection of the high maintenance our club has become with high-wages still hanging over the club without any hope of it leaving us quickly.

Pricing structure wise I think Children season tickets should be around £100-125, or around £4 a game, with most the cheaper children seating in South Upper and North Upper to attract more adults and children in to these stands which are often dotted with empty seats, these stands are more family friendly then the more verbally hostile North Lower and Fratton End. The Dad and a Lad deal would work well in these stands also, attracting more family interaction with the club and hopefully blooding another Pompey supporter for years to come.

Similarly the same should be for Seniors/Young Persons/Students, the pricing structure should be cheaper in the South Upper and North Upper. Once more to attract more fans of varying ages to enjoy the club. Even if these stands do have visual obstructions in some parts of the stands but then that's why there is a cheaper ticket price. If they price it reasonably at around £12 a game then it would be around £275 for a season ticket and then structure it to £300 for a seat in North Lower/Fratton End.

For a lot of this article I've always looked at season ticket prices from a full price viewpoint, I feel Portsmouth will either bypass the early bird process because it's so close to the next season or will offer a small reduction to next season ticket for renewals. It would be nice to have a reduction of around 10-20% perhaps, but that's in a perfect world.

My ideal pricing structure for Portsmouth would be like so;

	Adult	Concession (Young Person/ Senior/Student)	Child (U16)	Child (U12)
Fratton End/North Lower	£380.00	£300.00	£125.00	£65.00
North Upper/South Upper	£345.00	£275.00	£100.00	£50.00

So in conclusion I've been pleasantly surprised by a lot of the pricing of season tickets across the football league, the figures may seem quite large when they are collated in a graph, but after breaking them down they do represent good value for money across the season. Some clubs are offering some great deals, whether they are the cheapest prices or offering a great deal for father and son to go the football, it shows how clubs in League One are finding clever ways of attracting more people to football in a time of recession. I for one hope Portsmouth can structure a new season ticket pricing structure as fairly as they can in this league, and it would be harshly unfair to punish us by having the most expensive prices in the league after some paid £500 to watch us fall into financial oblivion and relegation all in one season, not sure if it was worth the £22 a game, do you?