“๐๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ข๐ฏ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ต๐ณ๐บ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ๐ข๐จ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ด ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ๐บ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ด๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ข ๐ฅ๐ช๐ณ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด๐ฉ๐ช๐ฑ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ค๐ญ๐ถ๐ฃ ๐ข๐ด ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆโฆ ๐ฃ๐บ ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต, ๐ธ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ช๐ญ๐ญ ๐ฃ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ด๐ฆ๐ณ๐ท๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฎ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ต๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ.โ
In an interview posted to LinkedIn, Arsenal Chief Commercial Officer Juliet Slott explained he insights into the clubs commercial growth.
During the interview, she spoke about “putting supporters at the heart of everything the club do”. On paper, this is a spot on approach. It is recognition that the owners are custodians of the club, and those working do so in the interests of the fans, not the bank balance. But her interview was all smoke and mirrors.
For some time, I have thought the attack on away fans and the disastrous changes in home ticketing was all about having as many fans going to a single game as possible, rather than less fans going to lots of games.
We get around 40,000 away tickets during the course of a Premier League season. My feeling was the club want 40,000 fans to go to one game, not 4,000 fans going to 10+. And at home they want every single one of the 230,000 silver and red members going to one game, not 23,000 going to more than half.
In saying “w๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ข๐ฏ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ต๐ณ๐บ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ๐ข๐จ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ด ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ๐บ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ด๐ถ๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ข ๐ฅ๐ช๐ณ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด๐ฉ๐ช๐ฑ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ค๐ญ๐ถ๐ฃ ๐ข๐ด ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆ”, Slott has basically proven my theory right.
Her goal is to have as many fans going to one game as possible, at the sacrifice of the 1000s that have regularly gone to more games. And under this philosphy the club will suffer.
Slott wants us to be like the LA Lakers a mate of mine said recently. And I think he is right.
By having lots of fans go to one game, the club can then hike up ticket prices. The theory being that people will pay ยฃ100+ a ticket and go 3 or 4 times a season, rather than spend the same ยฃ400 and go 10 times a season. This approach will double our gate receipt income.
But this can only happen once fans are conditioned that they will only go to a couple of games a season. They will then be grateful to get a ticket and will pay whatever it takes to go to their one or two games.
The average price for a ticket to the LA Lakers is $453. Most fans go to a single game and will travel from all over the world and happily pay that as part of their holiday. And that is what Slott is looking at.
But she does not seem to understand that football is very different to basketball.
To start with the Emirates is a 60,000 stadium. The LA Lakers arena is just 20,000. The bigger stadium increases the supply and reduces the demand.
Whilst the LA Lakers quite easily get 10,000 “one-off” fans each game, Arsenal would have to attract 40,000+, and I do not think the demand is there for 40,000 different fans to pay ยฃ100+ a game across 19 league home games a season.
The club see the 40,000 gold members, 30,000 silver members and 200,000 red members as some sort of golden egg. They seem to think that having 270,000 members would result in the stadium still selling out each week if they removed season tickets and doubled or trebled ticket prices. “55,000 of the 270,000 will go” will be the thinking. But it is just not true.
On average, 5,625 silver members are applying for games. That is less than 20% of all members. 29,000 of red members are also applying – around 14.5%.
Across both membership categories, just 15% are applying for games – a total of around 36,450. Add that to season ticket holders and we have around 76,000 actively trying to go to a game.
“76,000 is higher than 60,000, the demand is clearly there” will be the response. But that is the demand when tickets are, on average, ยฃ40 a ticket. Would that demand remain as strong when tickets get pumped up to ยฃ100 a ticket? No. And that is where the philosphy breaks down.
The LA Lakers can charge extortinate ticket prices because of the supply and demand, which has many influencing factors.
Firstly that small arena. Secondly, the lack of alternative options in LA also pushes the demand up.
LA has 2 NBA teams – the Lakers and the Clippers. The city has an ubran popultion of 12.2 million. Compare that to London which has an urban population of 9.7m.
There are 7 Premier League teams in London, 3 in then Championship and 4 in League’s One and Two. That is 14 teams – without even taking into account National league and below.
London has 1 professional football team for every 700,000 people. LA has 1 NBA team for every 6,000,000 people!
I think the American ownership of football clubs is “if we can get a Super League, we will increase the fan base”. In their mind, they want there to be just 2 or 3 professional clubs in London, and then they would get the similar ratio of fans to teams as in places like LA. But this again shows a lack of understanding of the tribalism in football.
If you had a European Super League (ESL) with Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham in it, you would not suddenly get fans of West Ham, Crystal Palace and QPR supporting one of the ESL teams. They would still support the club they do now, the club their parents supported and so on.
Football is ingrained in the psyche of people in this country. For many it is a generational thing.
The NBA is also the only decent basketball league in the world. Basketball fans across the globe will happily pay that ticket price to watch a single NBA game in their lifetime. Football is not the same.
You are not going to suddenly attract a fan from Germany to pay ยฃ100 a ticket to watch Arsenal v Burnley when they can watch their local team for ยฃ20. Same as Greece, Norway and more!
The Premier League might be a bigger brand than the NBA, but football teams have far much comeptition for fans both domestically and overseas in comparison to basketball.
Slott looking at the American model and thinking “this is what we can implement here” just shows a lack of understanding of our great game.
We already seeing the effects on the new philosphy in the ground.
There has certainly seen a drop in atmosphere this season due to the ballot, reduction in Ashburton Army allocation and other factors involving less tickets than ever going on general sale. And against Burnley there were plenty of empty seats despite it being a sell-out.
The issue is that whilst fans from around the world might fly in for Arsenal v Manchester United, they will likely stay away for Arsenal v Burnley. And then that is when we end up back to the aforementioned ESL.
They will be banking on Arsenal playing Barcelona, Real Madrid and Milan every season rather than Bournemouth, Luton and Sheffield United, and that having more “super games” will increase demand and as a result, they can increase ticket prices.
The clubs philosphy is not about putting supporters first. It is about trying to create a new way of following football that will see more fans going to less games, and ticket prices getting hiked up as a result.
And our management are not the only ones to share this view. Every top club across Europe also wants the same…
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
Agree with most of this article. The club don`t think of us as fans, just customers and they`re looking to get as much dough out you as possible. You get someone a ticket for one or two games a season and they`ll spend a fortune, not just on the tickets but on programmes and in the club shop as well.
Compare that to the geezer who goes every week, he`s far more likely to be found in a local boozer before heading to the ground 20 minutes before kick off. This type of fan might get a couple of beers in the ground but that`s about it. Its a no brainer from that point of view but its unsustainable in the long run because it doesn`t take into account the tribal nature and deep rooted connection that supporters have with their club.
Fans who only go to 1 match a season can never feel the same as those who go every week and its easy to lose interest if the team is having a poor season. The fan who goes every week is what has kept clubs in business for over 100 years. These Yanks are good businessmen/women but they`ll never fully understand our footballing culture.
I disagree about the demand for tickets from the Membership though, I think you`d find that the 15% figure of those applying for tickets would be a lot higher if people thought they stood a good chance of getting one. I know quite a few members who rarely bother trying anymore. What we really need is a bigger capacity, over the last 2 years, we could easily be getting crowds of 100k every week, the bleedin Women`s team regularly draw crowds of 50,000. However, the club don`t seem interested at the minute because they`re trying to move to the model you suggest. Its why the ESL will inevitably rear its ugly head again.
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Just leave out the casual sexism please! The Women’s Team actually prove Keeno’s point IMHO.
They play 5 big matches at Ashburton Grove and all the rest at their real home base in Borehamwood which sells out every match but … the capacity is 4,500. I very much doubt they would sell 50,000 tickets for every single match.
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I never said the tarts team could get 50k every week but the fact they can draw gates of 50k at all shows you how big the demand is to watch Arsenal Football Club these days.
By the way, I`ll never let some virtue signaller online police my language mate. You`re just wasting your time trying.
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The teams want to maximize revenues, and tourists simply spend more money on a game-by-game basis than season ticket holders/diehards. However, tourists want to have an elite experience and an elite experience is not created by a stadium full of tourists, but by diehards – win or lose. As long as the club is winning, the experience will be at least solid regardless of who is in the stands. But if the club starts losing, and the stadium is full of tourists, the experience will be miserable and the number of tourists will decline. Unfortunately for the diehards, our club is always competitive and at the top end of the table – so there is little worry that a lack of atmosphere will result in a lack of tourists. And, so, Arsenal, like other big clubs in big cities across the sporting world, become just another overpriced entertainment option. Shall we go to the West End tonight, or shall we catch the football? Oh, whatever … it is shortsighted, as the diehard fanbase will shrink but that won’t happen for a few generations and, by then, the club will be run by someone else.
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Well written and insightful article. Hard reading when you’ve been a silver member as long as I have and to find that the only way I can get more than a token odd game with my silver ticket, is to share a friends season ticket. I miss the days when we could buy four tickets together in a reasonable part of the ground for reasonable money. I miss the old caring Arsenal.
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I shall be giving up my silver membership at the end of this season. The ballots have produced nothing for me, not even a “Sorry you haven’t been successful this time”. I have the same miserable experience as a red member, why should I pay a premium?
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