Under achieving

Agree with this. I don’t think we can just assume that fans returned because it was cheap. They returned because there was a much more uplifting message that went out.

 

Hasn’t most of that been the same for the past decade? If not longer

 

I believe there is only one answer to what you're suggesting @Faithful Bantam and that is an owner prepared to back his investment.
I'm not sure that it matters wether it's 20 years ago or not, in those days we paid the going rate and could not sell out now wether that can be aimed at ticket prices or apathy from the Bradford pubic I'm not sure, I'd suggest a little of both.
Mark & Julian sold out because they couldnt take our club forward, the guys who took over knew the cheap ticket situation and were quite happy to continue with it, this is IMO where it went wrong Rahic had convince Rupp that their initial investment would be fine because Rahic convince Rupp he would be developing youth and selling them on for big fees.
Once his fantasies did not return the sort of money Rupp was expecting Rahic did his shuffling act with funds that were required to keep us on an even keel, until Rahic couldn't deceive anymore and that was when Rupp found out exactly what his co-chairman was doing.
For me an increase in season ticket prices can on be achieve with sucsess on the pitch, and as a few have said Rahic & Rupp missed a big chance after Wembley.

 

Nobody, and i mean nobody, drops their prices for anything other than one reason. They can't sell their product. And that splits into two reasons. The product isn't good enough and/or the product is too expensive. That where you need to know your fan base inside out, analyse everything about them. Your whole future as a successful business depends on it. Get the feedback off our fan base and find out what they think and why they choose to/not to renew, why new ticket holders have chosen to commit for the first time?
Ask them what they think of the game day experience, where they think improvements can be made in terms of facilities inside and outside the stadium? What has been the experience of newcomers, would they recommend to others? What about the retail and business side, could it be doing more in a city the size of Bradford? Why have we still failed to connect with a lot of postcodes within this city, after all this the future lifeblood of the club?
Lots of questions to answer, remember, with ticket prices being so ridiculously cheap, half the price of others in some cases, our fans still have money to spend on matchday, whether it be in the club shop via merchandise, in the corporate areas with matchday catering or in the bars and kiosks around the club. There's fans with money in their pockets, lets get them spending it at the club rather than other outside sources or entertainment.

 

Totally agree with the pricing, the rod was made for our own back by not putting prices up. The current owners are now stuck with the pricing as there would be moans and risk of drop in revenue after having them so cheap for so long.

 

The reason we couldn't sell out is because we never have had the fan base more than the prices,an example in point Manchester City. They are arguably the best side in the world playing the best football seen and there prices are good value yet they don't sell out every game. Because regardless of price, you can't just invent fans, you have to build your base.
I'd say even at Bradford, if you dropped the prices to £50 a season ticket you wouldn't have got many more than what have signed up at £150. What it shows is that in those 6 years we've had in league 1 we have built up a good base of fans, that despite relegation have decided to stick with the club. Thats not down to the price of ticket, thats down to them being fans of Bradford City and shows there is demand for football in this City. Its actually a great asset to have knowing your support has actually grown since the last time in league 2 and is a great place to start when marketing this club.

 

It will take a brave owner to increase ticket prices without sucsess on the pitch, especially after making quotes about it being one of the reasons they bought the club.
Lets hope Rupp has that decision to make around next April/May with regards increasing prices because weve had a good season and achieve our and Rupps goal by being promoted.

 

we only started getting decent gates when we went to affordable football so what’s to say they wouldn’t drop dramatically with an increase . For instance had we put them up to £200 this season I think we would have been worse off taken all the clubs activity into account

 

The ambition the club showed was to have a stadium that was more than just one third full.

They had to do it;there was no choice.

Achieving a high quality product people will spend more for takes time, care, and capable management. Not just blind and impotent ambition.

The issues you raise are a catalogue of gripes that in some cases are minority views, in other cases are either not important or at best not unusual for a club at our level.

We can't step the best young players getting poached. It's legal practice. We cant keep players like Wells when they want to accelerate their progress.

We can't suddenly attract thousands of avid City fans all willing to shell out to see anything other than maybe Premier League football, and even then half of the attraction would be the opposition.

Our real issue as your outlining is not ambition in general; its having a small devout hardcore of fans that isn't large enough or wealthy enough to elevate us exponentially. Even Rupp can't afford it. But who can?

I'm the end, unless that sole issue can be addressed, this is largely rhetoric.

 

I'd suggest that goes without saying, many not renewing even at the current great price of £150.

 

Which players are hero’s for effort alone?

Brunker was not the first and last cult hero and makes no odds to “fans accepting failure”. Barry Conlon was another clearly not good enough.

Didn’t Huddersfield copy our ticket plan and charge 199 and get to the premiership? And then only increased them to 249 when in the Premier league?

Which players have we failed to retain other than Meredith? Others were wrong choices with an owner who as you point out was useless.

Training facilities were not called out as sub standard at all. Was more the arrangements not being ideal.

 

Top post.

How does 'ambition' solve this issue @Faithful Bantam

 

Ambition without a plan, is just a pipe dream. What IS our ambition then? What's our pathway to fulfilling it? We talk about being a championship club - we're so far from that, that it really is just a pipe dream.

Of course, building a high quality product takes time and skill. But it also takes a level of ambition. You have to have a vision that everyone at your club buys into. Our most recent vision wasn't about the club, it was about the hubris and vanity of 1 man. I completely disagree about the appetite of our fan base. We have the numbers - I still don't accept that we'll only attract the sort of crowds we do through under-pricing tickets. Fans want value - and a big part of that equation is about quality. Build the quality and increase prices incrementally. Allow fans to see that their investment is driving momentum and progress. I'm not talking about a sudden, significant hike whilst we're on the way down. But over the next 5 years we need to steadily increase prices whilst delivering year on year improvement and a vision that fans can buy into.

 

Growing your fan base needs investment, thought, and an ambition to be something bigger and better - it certainly needs something more considered than 'lets just under price tickets'. But I'm making a completely different point. I'm not talking about magicking up swathes of more fans - I'm talking about the fan base we DO have, paying the going rate. Gates of 15-18k, in League One, paying the going rate for League One season tickets rather than the going rate for Conference North Season tickets.

Our plan for growing our fan base does need some serious thought. We need to provide a quality team that more and more people will buy into. We need to tap into our multi-cultural community much more effectively. We need to enhance the match-day experience for supporters too.

 

Brilliant post. Couldn't agree more. We've lumped our assumptions entirely on the pricing element rather than the quality element. Proof in point - prior to the play-off final we should've put prices up by at least £25 per adult ST. With the prospect of promotion looming, there's not a chance in hell that sales would have dropped. The marketing should have focused on the great potential deal available for Championship football - we'd have had the lowest prices in the that league, with a subtle message that failure to go up would see us do our best to retain the team and improve it to go one better. Who wouldn't have bought into that? Focus on how we're looking to improve value by improving quality, not just freezing a ridiculously low price.

 

Hero is maybe the wrong word. My point here, is that abject performances are often defended - not just on here, but in conversations I overhear. Average performances are flowered up into more than they are. We're nowhere near demanding enough in terms of expecting quality.

If we had an owner like Hoyle - someone openly willing to continue putting money in - we wouldn't even be having the conversation.

Cullen - OK, he went to Bolton, but soon ended up back in League 1. McArdle. Darby. Wyke. Hiwula. Marshall. That team was systematically broken up overnight. We lost Meredith because we didn't tie him down to a contract when we could've done. Maybe he wouldn't have signed, and there are always individual cases of players going that you simply can't keep. But we allowed an entire side to disintegrate in the space of a few weeks.

Similar principle though. We've had ex managers and players calling out our approach to the facilities and nutritional side we have being available, when needed, as being sub-optimal for this league.

 

You are flogging a dead horse here the proof is 14000 sold this season in division 2 of course as we rise up the league there is scope for small rise in prices . Affordable football, is the envy of most football fans and the ambition should be to increase on that along with progress they go hand in hand

 

We should have put them up when we got promoted, ideal time, or after play offs etc. Small amount each time.

 

Proof of what? That fans will continue to turn up in numbers as long as its cheap? I think it proves, rather than disproves my point. What if its proof that our hardcore of fans has actually grown over the last few years? Maybe the successful years under Parkinson have helped to spawn new generations of support who'll be part of our longer term future? Maybe its a huge indicator that if people are willing to pay £149 for a club that's been relegated, is in turmoil and in massive need of a rebuild under a manager who's not had chance to build any credit in the bank, we've little to fear from a reasonable increase in price if quality improves? - or to put it more bluntly - if large numbers will still pay to watch this shit, they're not going to get spooked at the idea of paying a little more.

 

Just comparing the prices of adult tickets to other clubs in league 2 and on average we are around half the price of the clubs i've looked at. I'm not sure i've seen that anywhere else in sport. There are pros and cons to this . A basic calculation of 10,000 season ticket holders at £200 gives you £2million. At £150 it comes in at £1.5million, a loss of income of £500,000. You need a minimum uptake of 7,500 at £200 to cover what you would get at £150 at 10,000. You then have to factor in loss of earnings from merchandise and food sales, and debatable sponsorship drop. How much of that £500,000 would be eaten into by this? Simple market strategy of how far can you push your consumer? If we put the prices at £200 and lost a thousand to fifteen hundred, your minimum gain is £200,000 excluding potential loss of merchandise/food and drink etc.
From my opinion, if we do manage to get promotion next season then it's imperative we stick the price up. I've used the figures above just as an example but you have to strike when the going is good. The potential loss of support for a successful team IMO does not justify keeping the price the same. I would go to £200 as a max though, that price still works out at about £8.70 a game as opposed to about £6.50 a game at £150. Less than a pint.