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?

My niggling optimism of late..

Quick short blog this time, as I've not much to say in the closed season. Playing cards close to my chest about our expectations next season, I'd like us to just enjoy the ride and not push for promotion. Enjoy the Johnstone Paint Trophy and get through at least ONE season without mishaps. Just to see a smile back on the fans faces after so long being lied to.

Appy's dream of a youthful and hungry team looks like it could well be possible, the amount of young talent being let go from clubs of late has been interesting to follow, I'm intrigued as to who is going to be signed, as I've said before we need a good mixture of old and wise professionals with youthful prospects who will blossom over time and won't cost the club a lot of money.
Same with transfer dealings, the club need to be clinical and prudent in their sales, I feel we should offer a player to Derby and part exchange Maguire to come back to Fratton Park after his very impressive loan spell at the club. His passion and hunger to play is the exact sort of player we would need to lead us to a successful season next year.

Sad to see Ricardo Rocha and Jamie Ashdown leave the club, but they can find clubs again and play once again I feel, and it would be unfair to stop them doing so, all the best in the future lads!
With Matthew Gledhill leaving the club as well it leaves the club without any goalkeepers for now. We shall see how the overhaul of the club will shape up. But one thing I do hope is the rapid fire sale of the high-earners, as so far only the lower earners have gone i.e. Henderson and Pearce (fetching around £900k in sales) and Ward could soon follow for £450k.

Might look up a few players I think could fit into the squad well next season, one I did get excited about was Izale McLeod who is a free agent now, after a great season with Barnet scoring 23 goals in 72 appearances would be a good addition I feel!

Transfer Spending in the entire Football League

After my last blog looking into the transfer spending across the nPower Championship I thought I'd look at the spending across the Football League, and whether it has a similar or different patter. What I found was surprising and encouraging for Portsmouth whom I support going down into the third tier of the league pyramid.

From the findings you could almost call the Championship the 'mini Premier-League' as they spend more money on transfers then League One, League Two and the Blue Square Premier combined!

So first up is the Championship which I did last time, here is the graph;

 

Click to enlarge

It may not been that expensive in this day and age of high spending Premier League clubs, but it shows how fiercely competitive the Championship is, in that investment is the only way of surviving, whether that may be beyond the financial means of the club or not.

Middlesbrough are the frugal club of the division by spending nothing on players, choosing to stick with the squad they already have, which saw them finish just out of the play-offs in 7th.

Portsmouth were one of the highest spenders and finished 22nd and were relegated due to a 10 points deduction after going into relegation in February 2012.

Leicester were the biggest spenders in the league with a whopping £15.78m almost 3 times more than 2nd place Southampton and 10 times more than title winners Reading. The Foxes finished the season top mid-table and hoping for a better season next year, after beginning as title favourites.

Transfer Spend;

Barnsley- £1.14m

Birmingham City- £500k

Blackpool- £660k

Brighton & Hove Albion- £5.32m

Bristol City- £350k

Burnley- £1.65m

Cardiff- £1.94m

Coventry- £0.48m

Crystal Palace- £590k

Derby- £3.02m

Doncaster Rovers- £120k

Hull- £1.42m

Ipswich Town- £2.89m

Leeds United- £810k

Leicester City- £15.78m

Middlesbrough- £0

Millwall- £1.21m

Nottingham Forest- £1.08m

Peterborough- £1.75m

Portsmouth- £4.23m

Reading- £1.75m

Southampton- £4.5m

Watford- £1.04m

West Ham- £10.85m

League One

Onto League One which this year has been crammed full of some big clubs that have fallen from grace, such as Charlton, Sheffield United/Wednesday and Preston North End, all vying to try get promoted back to the Championship. Surely then they are the biggest spenders? Not necessarily, it's actually surprising which teams ended up more eager to splash the cash and those being frugal. With some clubs being relegated they sold more than they spent. 

The chart is a bit different because the place where I make my graphs wouldn't accept the data, so had to change;

 

 

 

Click to enlarge

 

It is very different to the Championship graph, the maximum data number entry has gone from £20m to only £2m, the fact that the transfer spend is ten times less than the Championship shows how the financial spending is far smaller in the third tier.

There are some big spenders though, only two teams have gone over the £1m mark which is Huddersfield and Bournemouth, the latter was taken over by a Russian businessman in mid-season and purchased expensive players to strengthen the squad and avoid relegation.

It is surprising the amount of teams who have spent nothing, they still brought in players, but on free transfers and loans. I was excited to hear this as well, as Portsmouth is relegated to this league it shows promise that we could assemble a squad without having to break the bank at the same rate as a Championship squad, it could be done for a frugal price.

League One Transfer Spend:

AFC Bournemouth- £1.35m

Brentford- £0

Bury £50k

Carlisle- £0

Charlton Athletic- £800k

Exeter- £0

Hartlepool- £0

Huddersfield- £1.84m

Leyton Orient- £0

Milton Keynes Dons- £0

Notts County- £0

Oldham- £0

Preston North End- £150k

Rochdale- £0

Scunthorpe- £0

Sheffield United- £150k

Sheffield Wednesday- £560k

Stevenage- £0

Tranmere- £0

Walsall- £0

Wycombe- £0

Yeovil- £0

League Two

League Two is similar to League One in the respect of a lot of clubs utilising the free transfer market to bolster their squads over the transfer markets. There were a few clubs that did spend money but it wasn't much, but that is the smaller financial side of the fourth tier of the Football League. A lot of clubs that fall into this league find it hard to move out of it, or usually yo-yo between league's one and two.

Click to enlarge

Again the data entry is slightly different with the highest transfer spend being £1m, half of what League One was and twenty times less than the Championship graph. The spending is more prevalent in this league but is much smaller in value. There are big spenders in this league, with Gillingham being the most prevalent, looking for promotion, same as Swindon Town. Crawley Town were big-spenders in their first season in the Football League as they were in the non-league, spending £220k on players, but they did make a large earning on Tyrone Barnett (£1.1m from Peterborough)

Transfer Spend:

Accrington Stanely- £0

AFC Wimbledon- £70k

Aldershot- £0

Barnet- £0

Bradford- £0

Bristol City- £0

Burton- £20k

Cheltenham- £80k

Crawley- £220k

Crewe- £0

Dagenham & Redbridge- £0

Gillingham £490k

Hereford- £0

Macclesfield-  £60k

Morecambe- £30k

Northampton- £0

Oxford- £0

Plymouth- £40k

Port Vale- £0

Rotherham- £140k

Shrewsbury- £0

Southend- £240k

Swindon Town- £280k

Torquay- £50k

Looking at the graphs collectively it shows how financially different the leagues are, especially the void between League One and the Championship. The TV money is different in that you get a bigger share of it, but apart from that there are no other financial benefits. The nPower Championship overall spent a whopping £63.08m on transfers during the 11/12 season, if you then compare this to League One which is £4.75m is thirteen times less than the Championship spending. League Two spent £1.72m on transfers in 11/12 season which is almost equivalent to one player that a club paid for in the Championship!

Overall League Two spent 37 times less than the Championship, a massive difference, the Premier League is vastly different, it's an eye watering number, £563m was spent (that is known) on players in the 11/12 transfer windows, here is a graph showing retrospectively the spending across the leagues:

Click to enlarge

Overall Transfer Spending:

Premier League- £562m

Championship- £63.08m

League One- £4.75m

League Two- £1.72m

The Championship spent nine times less than the Premier League. 

League One spent 118 times less than the Premier League

League Two an eye watering spent 326 times less than the Premier League

It shows how much the leagues are getting further and further financially smaller than the Premier League, many clubs have left the league and fallen from grace, going through administration, once such team Bradford is an example. The club has been recently looking into leaving their ground because it's too big for their current attendance which is a remnant from their Premier League days.

Hope you've enjoyed this review, sorry if I haven't gone into too much detail, but didn't want to waffle on too much about this subject. Felt it needed touching upon and explained simply.

Dave