Sir Kevin Sinfield Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 I see Huddersfield Giants have started selling season tickets at £65 for Adults! This is far too cheap, sadly they seem to have no ideas to draw in home fans other than rock bottom prices. No doubt they’ll still ask away fans to pay £24, over a third of the price of a season ticket and not far of half the price. Scandalous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spidey Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 1 minute ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said: I see Huddersfield Giants have started selling season tickets at £65 for Adults! This is far too cheap, sadly they seem to have no ideas to draw in home fans other than rock bottom prices. No doubt they’ll still ask away fans to pay £24, over a third of the price of a season ticket and not far of half the price. Scandalous. With loop fixtures as an away fan you may as well get a season ticket Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Dockhouse Host Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 The risk is you devalue your product. Makes it difficult to ever increase as you've set the value. Often lower prices is the suggested method to increase sales but it isn't quite that simple, some ticket prices are extortionate, football can have boring games yet people pay lots of money as it's perceived value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris22 Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 7 minutes ago, Spidey said: With loop fixtures as an away fan you may as well get a season ticket Incredibly, that's not too far off being accurate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 In a word yes. Ignoring the financial ramifications of this approach it sends out a poor message. How can a club that doesn't even value its own offering expect people and prospective fans to think its an offering really worth going to? Rightly or wrongly price is an indicator of worth and £65 certainly doesn't sell a Huddersfield match as a premium product. Even more worrying is Ken Davy is the interim Super League chairman at a time when we need to make Super League bigger and better and more valuable to Sky. £65 is real desperation stuff and having to resort to this shows a real failing when it comes to selling his own club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voteronniegibbs Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Kevin Sinfield Posted September 16, 2021 Author Share Posted September 16, 2021 4 minutes ago, Chris22 said: Incredibly, that's not too far off being accurate! If you factor in other discounts that come with a season ticket such as half price magic weekend tickets. It may well be beneficial for a non season ticketed fan of another club to become a Huddersfield Giants season ticket holder just to watch their own club play away at Huddersfield twice and get a discounted magic weekend ticket. The £65 season ticket is just so lazy. At least do something like a set of 6 for £65 where fans can pick 6 games at the start of the season and attend those matches, that may actually entice people who don’t/can’t commit to attending every other week but like to go a few times a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris22 Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 Huddersfield have flung the doors open a couple of times and for crowds of 12,000 and I think about 9,000. So that is your ceiling. I think you can go too cheap. For example, if I has a rugby union team on my doorstep, I wouldn't go even with cheap tickets because I don't follow the sport or have an interest in it. The worry, from a business perspective, is you simply charge people who would go anyway a cheaper price and don't attract many new fans. Cheaper prices alone is not the answer to low crowds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tms Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 11 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said: I see Huddersfield Giants have started selling season tickets at £65 for Adults! This is far too cheap, sadly they seem to have no ideas to draw in home fans other than rock bottom prices. No doubt they’ll still ask away fans to pay £24, over a third of the price of a season ticket and not far of half the price. Scandalous. But your only telling half the story It's £65 for under 30's including juniors They are selling others at £125 for over 30's including concessions They are also selling some season tickets for £90 and £220 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whatmichaelsays Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 Huddersfield have been on a treadmill of discounting for years. It's nothing new. But that doesn't make it right. I seem to recall Richard Thewlis defending their cheap season tickets last season by arguing that "once people are in, we know we can keep them", which hasn't historically been the case and really shows that Huddersfield can't get their pricing right. (Edit: it's here) The club have got an issue with over-supply, but it really does come down to who they are actually targeting when they look to grow their supporter base. If it's "anyone with a pulse" then yeah, stacking it high and selling it cheap like some RL answer to B&M Bargains or Poundland might work, but accept that you'll never be able to get those people to spend closer to what you, in all honesty, think the product is really worth because it sets an expectation. The game already has an issue amongst even the most ardent supporters that sees it struggle to sell advance tickets because, deep down, we all know that the discount codes and GROUPON deals are just around the corner. The other problem with that sort of pricing is that, as others have said, it really doesn't send the right message to the sort of people who the game really struggles to attract - audiences with higher spending power, willing to pay for a premium experience. £65 a year doesn't sound particularly premium or quality - you can pay more than that per head on a decent meal, a theatre ticket or just a night in town. If you want to generate more profit in a business, the best way is to raise prices, not to sell more for less. Interestingly, there was a Twitter thread doing the rounds yesterday comparing RL prices to Bristol Bears, who charge £70 for an adult ticket in some parts of the ground. Bristol will, I've no doubt, sell out their first game of the season, so the price is clearly attractive to someone. Someone tried to argue that there's simply more money in Bristol than in RL land, but the average FT earnings in Bristol is on a par with Leeds and actually less than in Manchester, so it's not that there isn't money in the north of England. RL just doesn't know how to appeal to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whatmichaelsays Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, Chris22 said: The worry, from a business perspective, is you simply charge people who would go anyway a cheaper price and don't attract many new fans. Cheaper prices alone is not the answer to low crowds. This was where Bradford went wrong with their 'The Pledge' campaign. They simply gave discounts to people who would have happily paid full price, gave away their margin and then found it nearly impossible to go back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 12 minutes ago, voteronniegibbs said: I've never been to an offering. Is it similar to a sacrifice? That's a Leigh match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whatmichaelsays Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 6 minutes ago, POR said: But your only telling half the story It's £65 for under 30's including juniors They are selling others at £125 for over 30's including concessions They are also selling some season tickets for £90 and £220 Whilst that might be true, is the reason that people under 30 aren't watching the Giants down to price? Or is it down to other factors? The worry I would have is how much research the club has done on that front because if the reason that under 30s don't watch the Giants is nothing to do with price, you don't really solve the problem and you end up giving discounts to the U30s you do have (not to mention creating a price jump when supporters do turn 30 that may result in a drop-off in renewals). If the reason that people under the age of 30 aren't watching the Giants is simply because the Giants don't offer what they want, then reducing the price for that segment of your audience really doesn't solve that problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zylya Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 You can definitely go too low. I generally don't think discounts are a good way to drum up new business at the best of times - except as very specific, time-limited offers (e.g. have a very cheap game at the start of a season to get people interested, or have an early-bird price). A discounted season ticket doesn't leave you lots of opportunities to make that money back. With that said, I think things like "U16s go free" are a good idea because you're hopefully creating future supporters for your product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 31 minutes ago, POR said: But your only telling half the story It's £65 for under 30's including juniors They are selling others at £125 for over 30's including concessions They are also selling some season tickets for £90 and £220 Don’t let facts get in the way of an uninformed rant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Kevin Sinfield Posted September 16, 2021 Author Share Posted September 16, 2021 26 minutes ago, POR said: But your only telling half the story It's £65 for under 30's including juniors They are selling others at £125 for over 30's including concessions They are also selling some season tickets for £90 and £220 News for you, 29 year olds are adults Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ant Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 You can tell it's season ticket time, the Giants are getting a kicking for doing anything and everything for trying to get new fans, casual fans, fans who got out of the habit of going to a game, etc all into the ground We get slated for our crowds, slated when fans are rewarded for loyalty and slated for charging £25 a ticket Can't win Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 5 minutes ago, Ant said: You can tell it's season ticket time, the Giants are getting a kicking for doing anything and everything for trying to get new fans, casual fans, fans who got out of the habit of going to a game, etc all into the ground We get slated for our crowds, slated when fans are rewarded for loyalty and slated for charging £25 a ticket Can't win Is cutting prices doing anything and everything? What is the anything and everything they have done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerjon Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 59 minutes ago, POR said: It's £65 for under 30's including juniors So, just to clarify, Huddersfield are selling adult season tickets for £65. Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerjon Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, Damien said: Is cutting prices doing anything and everything? What is the anything and everything they have done? Any excuse Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunbar Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 The commercial model for season tickets is interesting. Firstly, they are very good for clubs because they provide guaranteed income for the year which is good for financial planning and also they are a 'pre-payment' which is very good for cash flow and so welcome in that regard. A high number of season ticket sales would also be a powerful tool in negotiation with or attracting new sponsors or partners as you can use the 'reach' that you have to these people to sell the story. All things being equal, high season ticket sales for any club is a good thing. From a commercial planning perspective, purely for income (taking away the less tangible benefits described above) then there is always a balance between the price of the season ticket and how many games a fan would attend with or without the season ticket and you would expect clubs to model this with a lot of sensitivity as it is a key commercial decision. A back of a fag packet calculation: If you sell 5,000 season tickets at £125 each then that is £625k cash in the bank. If you were trying to attract those same 5,000 fans on a game by game basis then attendance at 4 games a year paying £30 for a ticket would be £600k and so the season ticket provides better cash flow and more revenue. But as soon as you get to 7 games attended then you are at £1.05M and for 10 games attended it is £1.5M. So the question is, can a club commit to the efforts required to sell those tickets on a game by game basis - or indeed raise the price of the season ticket - to see that extra revenue. I would say yes as the differences we are talking about here are significant - an extra £875k for fans attending 10 games a year at 'normal' ticket prices. You could buy some decent talent into a business to 'sell' the game day experience for that. And then you would be managing a growing business with all of the benefits that brings. (p.s. this is reply just on the commercial model of season tickets, not a critique of the Giants) "The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby. "If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davet Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 15 minutes ago, gingerjon said: So, just to clarify, Huddersfield are selling adult season tickets for £65. So, just to clarify, Huddersfield are selling SOME adult season tickets for £65. Lets be correct here!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerjon Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 Just now, davet said: So, just to clarify, Huddersfield are selling SOME adult season tickets for £65. Lets be correct here!! Indeed. I agree with the comment made earlier: if there's any evidence that the reason under 30s are attending is because the Giants are too pricey for them then maybe it's a good idea. My personal view is that under 30s may not have much money but they do have fewer commitments than those immediately older than them and so are likely to have a bit more disposal cash, and also not want to be setting up for a full season of attendance. Targeting them, if that's a priority, could be done in better ways than just a cheap season ticket. Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ant Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 News flash, most under 30s are skint. Over the years the Giants have tried all manner of things, changing the main kick off times, what day they play games, freebies, bulk advertising etc It must also be noted that this pricing structure is just in line with the ticket costs for the Covid curtailed season, and season ticket holders who didn't have their money back were promised their ticket prices would be fixed at the same amount. But yeah, let's not actual facts get in the way of talking @#$% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerjon Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 17 minutes ago, Ant said: News flash, most under 30s are skint. Over the years the Giants have tried all manner of things, changing the main kick off times, what day they play games, freebies, bulk advertising etc It must also be noted that this pricing structure is just in line with the ticket costs for the Covid curtailed season, and season ticket holders who didn't have their money back were promised their ticket prices would be fixed at the same amount. But yeah, let's not actual facts get in the way of talking @#$% Are they more or less skint than over 30s? Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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