Those Boro (h) Ticket Prices Again

ralphie88 said:

We'd like think we know our fans and I'm sure United know their own fans.
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Well redcafe is the fans too and the consensus on here is that ticket prices are out of control

IBleedRed said:

Well redcafe is the fans too and the consensus on here is that ticket prices are out of control

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And yet people keep paying them, so they're hardly going to stop...

United were confident of attracting a large crowd because season ticket holders needed to attend the game in order to qualify for away tickets.

You'd have to be on coke to think those adult prices against Boro were anything other than absurd.

I'll send an email to the club and post the reply if and when I receive one.

Good find by the way ralphie.

Count Duckula said:

And yet people keep paying them, so they're hardly going to stop...

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You can't blame the fans, just cause people keep paying, doesn't mean it's their fault and their suits upstairs are vindicated.

WeWonItTwoTimes said:

United were confident of attracting a large crowd because season ticket holders needed to attend the game in order to qualify for away tickets.

You'd have to be on coke to think those adult prices against Boro were anything other than absurd.

I'll send an email to the club and post the reply if and when I receive one.

Good find by the way ralphie.

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You'll get a auto reply with a load of bollocks about representing "Value for money" and them being "Competitive with other top flight clubs" and other such nonsense.

Why haven't the media picked up on these prices?

We now know United were responsible for the Boro game and I believe QPR are at fault for the ridiculous prices when we meet them.

Surely it makes for a good story, especially when you consider that QPR have been in the news lately regarding extortionate ticket prices at their home games and with the country in/entering recession.

Maybe you should get your organisation to drop the media a line on this Ralphie?

The Hairdryer said:

You'll get a auto reply with a load of bollocks about representing "Value for money" and them being "Competitive with other top flight clubs" and other such nonsense.

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Probably, but I'm still going to do it. I regard this revelation to be the ultimate pisstake.

ralphie88 said:

I can't take credit for it, just stumbled across it on another forum. I was surprised actually - genuinely believed that it was Boro making the decision against United's wishes.

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Boro chief's being very careful what he says there. "we didn't feel we were in a position to argue the prices should be reduced" cos we get a share of a big gate... I think United said they suggested a reduction and Boro weren't up for it. The two statements aren't entirely incompatible. Be interesting to see what United reply to WeWonItTwoTimes (need to change that name mate!)

kf said:

WeWonItTwoTimes (need to change that name mate!)

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the cnut cant count

Is anyone surprised?

I wouldn’t believe that Boro COO anyway.

Fact is, its was mutually beneficial for both clubs to keep the prices high.

gaffs said:

Fact is, its was mutually beneficial for both clubs to keep the prices high.

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Well that's the thing, I'm not sure it is! Not sure what the average ticket price is at normal prices but let's say it's £35. That would give revenue of £1.89m for a 54k gate. If they fill the ground with 76k people, an average price of £25 gives them the same revenue and anything above that brings in more. Ground full, quids in, fans don't feel ripped off, everyone's happy.

kf said:

Well that's the thing, I'm not sure it is! Not sure what the average ticket price is at normal prices but let's say it's £35. That would give revenue of £1.89m for a 54k gate. If they fill the ground with 76k people, an average price of £25 gives them the same revenue and anything above that brings in more. Ground full, quids in, fans don't feel ripped off, everyone's happy.

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There's one problem with this though. They wouldn't have filled the ground by charging an average price of £25 and the club are well aware of this.

Remember that Arsenal were unable to sell out against Sheffield United charging £10 a ticket.

The reason for the 53,000 attendance against Boro is predominantly due to the fact that season ticket holder's needed to buy a ticket for the game in order to qualify for away/finals tickets. There are also c7,000 seasonal executive holders who are included within that figure even though I suspect hardly any turned up.

I've sent the email by the way and I await a response.

WeWonItTwoTimes said:

There's one problem with this though. They wouldn't have filled the ground by charging an average price of £25 and the club are well aware of this.

Remember that Arsenal were unable to sell out against Sheffield United charging £10 a ticket.

The reason for the 53,000 attendance against Boro is predominantly due to the fact that season ticket holder's needed to buy a ticket for the game in order to qualify for away/finals tickets. There are also c7,000 seasonal executive holders who are included within that figure even though I suspect hardly any turned up.

I've sent the email by the way and I await a response.

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I suspect alot of the 53,000 were like me. I thought feck it I've paid for it now I might as well go.

kf said:

Well that's the thing, I'm not sure it is! Not sure what the average ticket price is at normal prices but let's say it's £35. That would give revenue of £1.89m for a 54k gate. If they fill the ground with 76k people, an average price of £25 gives them the same revenue and anything above that brings in more. Ground full, quids in, fans don't feel ripped off, everyone's happy.

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The average price is over £40.

Would we have sold that many extra tickets though just by dropping them by £10? I doubt it. Credit crunch is on, even at £25 a ticket, most people dont want to go to see Uniteds kids v Boro on a weekday.

Arsenal sold tickets for £10 V Sheff United. They got an attendence of 56k, 4k under capacity.

For United to fill the ground, the price drop would have had to have be more than £10.

My email to the club:

Dear Sir/Madam,

As of yesterday it was brought to my attention that the Chief Operating Officer from Middlesbrough Football Club has stated the following on his club's official website with regards to the ticket prices for the Carling Cup third round tie between Manchester United and Middlesbrough.

It reads as follows: ''We do acknowledge that some fans felt prices for the United cup-tie were high for an early round of the Carling Cup. However, tickets were priced at Manchester United's normal Premier League levels, which they felt were fair given that they were playing another Premiership team. I'm sure they would say that the crowd of almost 54,000 supports that argument.

We did discuss ticket prices with United but did not feel we were in a position to argue that prices should be reduced when they were confident of attracting a very large crowd at those prices. We'd like think we know our fans and I'm sure United know their own fans.''

Would you be able to confirm his remark that United thought the prices were ''fair'' given that they were playing another Premiership team?

Did United therefore make no attempt whatsoever to discuss a price reduction for this game?

Can you confirm how the decision to charge full price for the QPR match was reached?

Would you say that the crowd of almost 54,000 supports the idea that the prices were fair?

It should be noted that the vast majority of the 54,000 attendance figure was firstly season ticket holders needing to buy a ticket for the game in order to qualify for away/finals tickets and secondly seasonal executive holders who qualify for every home game anyway.

I'd be interested to know exactly how many non-season ticket/executive holders attended the Middlesbrough game?

I'm well aware that juniors were able to attend this match for £10 but that becomes insignificant when the accompanying adult(s) is charged a ridiculously high price to purchase their ticket.

Arsenal charged adults £10 per ticket for their match against Sheffield United and United's ticket prices stood way above what any other club charged in the third round.

Are Middlesbrough really such a big draw that you can justify charging an average of £30 per ticket above what Arsenal charge for a match against a Championship team? Pogatetz? Shawky? Digard? Doesn't do a lot for me I must say.

Surely the Middlesbrough game provided the ideal opportunity to reduce prices to an extent that they attracted fans to the match who wouldn't normally attend due to cost?

But no, you'd much rather bank an extra couple of hundred thousand pounds. It smacks of short-termism and greed to me and events in the past couple of weeks should provide sufficient warning to the club that this can lead to major problems in the future.

I naively thought that after the Coventry match last season when ticket prices were agreed between both clubs at a 25% reduction that United would do all it could to continue the policy in future seasons. How silly of me.

Regards

My Name..



Awaits tirade of criticism for leaving things out etc...

WeWonItTwoTimes said:

We now know United were responsible for the Boro game and I believe QPR are at fault for the ridiculous prices when we meet them.

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Do we? We only have one side of the story - from Boro's COO.

Why would Boro want to have the priced dropped? They get 45% of the gate.

The Boro COO is hardly going to tell his own fans that he agreed to keep prices as they were in order to maximise his clubs profits from the game.

Sure, they may get a few more fans travelling to OT, but it wouldn’t be that many more.

Boro fans dont travel in great numbers - especially on a week night for a Carling Cup game.

ralphie88 said:

No consultation with QPR according to this -

http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~1419984,00.html

So what exactly is United's policy? Clearly it's not, as United say on their website, that "Ticket prices for some F.A Cup and League Cup home matches may be reduced with the agreement of the opposition," or, as Boro have suggested, that prices for League Cup games should be determined on the quality of the opposition (PL prices for PL opposition).

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"Both QPR and Manchester United are happy to set the record straight on this matter"

Sure United are happy to set the matter straight, tucked away in a corner of the QPR website!!!

The short termism of the decision is ridiculous. They're evidently struggling to sell tickets as it is currently (anyone remember the waiting list? ), and with the economy like it is, they might have a job on their hands selling season tickets next season. Factor in the likely price rise...

Count, you say folk continue to pay, so they can't complain. That's capitalist bum chum talk, but even so, people are starting to not pay. And with a football club with a loyal support such as United, you have to consider just how far past the line the club must have gone in driving out its fan base from the ground. If they scrapped the rule that linked the ACS with being able to apply for away tickets, I reckon you'd see about 20,000 turn up for the Boro game

ralphie88 said:

No consultation with QPR according to this -

http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~1419984,00.html

So what exactly is United's policy? Clearly it's not, as United say on their website, that "Ticket prices for some F.A Cup and League Cup home matches may be reduced with the agreement of the opposition," or, as Boro have suggested, that prices for League Cup games should be determined on the quality of the opposition (PL prices for PL opposition).

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''Haven't got a leg to stand on'' springs to mind.

I shall be including this new information in another email.

Oh what have we here...

An email from United in response to a QPR fan enquiring about whose decision it was to keep prices at full whack:

Dated Wednesday 8th October

Dear Tracy,

Thank you for your enquiry.

For any Carling Cup match we put to the Away Club that cheaper ticket prices are set.

You are right in saying that we put the cheaper price to the board at QPR but they declined.

I hope that this information helps.

Kind regards,

Claire.

Ticketing & Membership Services

www.manutd.com



Here's the thread, scroll down half way on the first page to see the email exchange.

http://www.qprdot.org/viewtopic.php?t=30689


hmmm....

I would tend to believe QPR there and not the standard issue reply from the ticket office.

If United policy is "Ticket prices for some F.A Cup and League Cup home matches may be reduced with the agreement of the opposition"

... then that implies that its a two way thing. Both clubs would have to agree for the price reduction.

Hopefully United will provide an official reply in the coming days.

ralphie88 said:

Nope, it's a good letter WWITT. Only a shame the QPR revelation hadn't come to light at the time.

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I've included the QPR revelation in a further email. Have MUST circulated this story to the media yet?

Email regarding the QPR revelation

Dear Sir/Madam,

Just to follow on from my earlier email it has now been brought to my attention that QPR have released the following response on their website with regards to how the decision was made to charge full prices for the Carling Cup fourth round tie between Manchester United and QPR.

It reads as follows: ''In response to a number of enquiries the club has received over the last few days, as well as a misleading report in one national newspaper, we would like to place on the record that the club did not refuse cheaper tickets for our Carling Cup fourth round tie against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

''Manchester United Football Club's pricing policy states that seats in the East Stand Upper Tier of the ground are priced at £40 on matchdays.

''The board of Manchester United took the decision solely to offer tickets at normal non-members prices for the tie.

''At no stage did any consultation take place with the Board of QPR.

''Both QPR and Manchester United are happy to set the record straight on this matter.''

Right then. So the justification (at least according to the Middlesbrough COO) for charging full price for the Middlesbrough tie was that you felt the prices were fair given that United were playing another Premier League team.

So what on earth is the justification for charging full price for the QPR tie, a match against a Championship team?

I'm sure you don't need reminding that for the Coventry game last season, a match against a Championship team, ticket prices were reduced by 25%. So why has the policy now changed?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

My name..

ralphie88 said:

No, they've only just been made aware of it. Not sure if they'll do a press release yet or not, might be worth things becoming a bit clearer.

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Surely QPR's statement is more than enough to make it a goer?

That QPR statement is a lot less mealy mouthed than the Boro one, clear as daylight. The email from the ticket office to the QPR fan directly contradicts the QPR statement so someone's lying here. Lets see if WWITT gets a proper reply...

kf said:

That QPR statement is a lot less mealy mouthed than the Boro one, clear as daylight. The email from the ticket office to the QPR fan directly contradicts the QPR statement so someone's lying here. Lets see if WWITT gets a proper reply...

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No reply today. I'll send the emails again if there's no reply by end of business tomorrow.

Surely they'd want a full ground at discounted prices because they can flog more over-priced food and drink?

Still haven't had a response.

I just phoned the club and after being on put on hold listening to United Road for 30 minutes I eventually got through. I'm due an official response within a few days apparently. There's been a delay because the club's legal team have been brought in to look at the statements made by Boro and QPR.

This is really, really interesting. Things definitely don't add up, and I'm looking forward to see who trys to worm their way out first and how they go about it.

WeWonItTwoTimes said:

Still haven't had a response.

I just phoned the club and after being on put on hold listening to United Road for 30 minutes I eventually got through. I'm due an official response within a few days apparently. There's been a delay because the club's legal team have been brought in to look at the statements made by Boro and QPR.

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So are United wondering whether they can get away with calling Boro & QPR lying bastards then?

ralphie88 said:

The bastards know how to kick you when you're down, don't they?

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They sure do!!

kf said:

So are United wondering whether they can get away with calling Boro & QPR lying bastards then?

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I couldn't possibly comment!