By Richard Bedwell
Ticket price increases – a different perspective.
I have an above average priced season ticket at Arsenal. The 6.5% increase means that I’ll be paying about £80 more than I did last season.
However I also pay £48 per year for my ATVO subscription which will now be included in my membership fee. Thus my increased payment is reduced to a bit over £30 – all of which is accounted for by the VAT element in the ticket price rise and all of which Arsenal will only have very temporary use of.
So Arsenal itself will not be taking a penny more from me than it did last year – or indeed the year before.
Maybe I’m one of the ones being ‘rewarded’ for my loyalty which I exhibit through subscription to ATVO and which, I presume, Stan Kroenke has a particular interest in via his 50% ownership in Arsenal Broadband.
Those people who have cheaper season ticket than I do (a majority maybe) and who also subscribe to ATVO may actually be paying less in total than last year.
Surely some mistake – or something that AFC chooses not to publicise?
Maybe ATVO is not a great cash cow and not much is being given away in return for what they hope will be a great marketing boost for what will now be known as ‘Arsenal Player’?
I’ll ask Ivan next time I see him..
Untold Arsenal on Facebook here
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I just repost my own comment from the other article
Even being from Belgium it will affect me. I come over 3 times a year so I will have to pay a bit more for each ticket.
But also my Eurostar ticket goes up every time we come over. Since this year the price of the Eurostar ticket has gone up with 18%. So I think from next season on I will have to pay around 25% more for attending a game at the Emirates.
On the other hand Arsenal will make me save a bit of money. As I have Arsenal TV online (first given to me by my children for my birthday) which I need for my ref reviews when the game is not broadcasted on TV. But from next season they will include this in the new Arsenal player in the memberships.
As being a red member I will have Arsenal TV included and will not have to pay seperate anymore.
And even when the red membership goes up with a few pounds it still would save me around £41 a year from next season. hey thats about enough for another ticket for a game…
That’s a very good point Richard. As someone who lives far away, I guess my views and knowledge of the expenses isn’t very good. But as this shows, Arsenal are doing the most they can to absorb the price rise. Yes fans still pay more, but the club tries to give you more for your money, which is fair in my view.
For me the added incentive is that I can just purchase a red level membership instead of paying for the ATVO, and if I go to visit England in the summer then I can try and buy tickets through that. Especially, because the club have increased the allocation of seats for red members.
As you say, it is strange that the club haven’t highlighted this. Let us know what Ivan says 🙂
ATVO is crap, how comes Liverpool TV is free to air on sky? we should be providing that as well. Personally i would prefer a free pint of beer at every match and my kids a free replica shirt. But if we just done away with the over sized seats and replaced with standard seating we could increase the capacity by around 10,000 now that would mean serious impact on matchday revenue and hopefully a discount on season tickets. Also offer upper tier only to away fans then charge them what they would charge us for an upper tier at their ground.
When I read yesterday’s article, I instantly thought about the Arsenal Player/ATVO saving. Even if some fans don’t currently have an ATVO subscription, the fact that it is bundled in with the membership is great for all current subscribers (effectively gain a free membership) and members (free Arsenal Player).
I think the reasoning behind the Arsenal Player move is that there are plenty of arm-chair fans what would love to go to games, maybe only one or two per season, but that level a £36 membership doesn’t seem too much value for money and might just decide to wait for general sale.
Now, suddenly membership will increase and demand for tickets should be higher. If some season ticket holders, can’t/won’t go to some games the ticket exchange should be a bit more active and therefore the ground should have a few more people in it on match day.
Yes Shard, I am also surprised the club haven’t highlighted this.
On a side note, I hope they get the ATVO browser issues sorted with the new Arsenal Player and an Android App version would be nice.
@Dale
I see what you mean about the people who want to go for one or two games. That includes me. I do not live in England and when I do visit I would like to watch games. Last time I did pay the then 30 pounds for the membership. This time I won’t have to if I go. SO yes, I gain, and possibly the club does too. Good business.
@Arsene Wonka
ATVO is not crap. It has certain issues as Dale points out but I find it quite nice. You get to watch all sorts of content and can download matches. I think it’s a good thing. About it showing on TV, I guess that’s part of the brand building that will follow the launch of the Arsenal player. We had an agreement with Setanta until they went bust. Where I live we get content from MUTV, Liverpool TV, Chelsea TV, ManCity Tv, Barca Tv and Real Madrid TV.. No Arsenal TV yet. It will happen at some stage I’m sure.
To be honest Shard I think Arsenal would do better by really promoting the online side of things when it comes to delivering video content. The on-demand model works better for this sort of thing and building Arsenal Player applications for mobile phones, tablet OS’s and internet TVs etc would freshen up the service.
I think most fans would watch the Wenger interviews, maybe a highlights package and some other features on players etc and having these on an on-demand basis makes them more accessible than in a schedule on a channel. They could do both but surely cost-wise it’ll be quite expensive to run a channel for what could be a handful of viewers.
“Arsenal Player” is not a very good name for the new service though, it begs the response “which one?, Fabregas? Wilshere? Sagna?…”
@Dale
hehe.. Ya I thought that too. But maybe they intend to use that as a sort of marketing tool. Kroenke is very focused on the online market. It was the first shares he bought, and really that is where the big money will be in the near future. US sports sell their online rights separately and you can watch them live or on demand (which as you say is an advantage over the TV)
Why I think there should be a channel, or maybe they could just release some content to existing channels, is because people still tend to think of the TV as a more public thing, while the internet seems more a private pursuit since it is more flexible to individual demand. I’m not going to pay to watch baseball for example. But if it’s on TV and I have nothing to do, then I might just watch it, and who knows, I might start getting involved enough to be willing to pay for it in the future. That sort of thing.
great news, I planned on getting a red membership anyway but if it cancels out the cost of my ATVO fee then I’m doubly happy! When can we sign up for red memberships? It seems to only be renewals at the moment…
I was under the impression that the commercial deals couldnt be renegotiated until 2013. Cant remember where i got that from though so im not sure how true it is..
You’d think Emirates would want to be associated with a successful team not also-rans so if they had anything about them they should be receptive to a new deal. Maybe thats just me being naive
Agreed about the benefit to members who also pay for ATVO.
Perhaps I should post this in the other article, but does anyone have anything similar to the chart below for the Mancs, but for us?
http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/05/season-ticket-price-increases-20045.html
(It shows the year-on-year season ticket price increases since 2005.)
The fact is that we don’t get a choice over cup games. We have to pay £1000 at the start of the season, and when things are tight and prices now so high, that extra £300 makes a big difference to many.
The point is about watching Arsenal. And these increases and an unwillingness to change these cup credits mean every year more loyal and long serving fans are turned away from Arsenal.
Remember you moron, that some of these people have been going since before the Champions League was invented, and the point was to support your team and watch a game of football.
You can just use the ticket exchange to cash in the cup games if you so desire.
Was bit surprised to see the hike in Silver renewals but I never bother with all that tat in the pack – who wants a fucking key fob / bottle opener etc…..the club shop sells all that shit if you really want it. The only decent thing it ever contained was Perry Groves book.
All things considered it’s still better being a Silver member than any other. £39 and I get first choice on tickets.
If, as expected, the GIC and the tossers that run the club pocket a fat wad from selling Cesc, and chose to reinvest it in renewing existing contracts and signing the odd second rater from minor leagues, then it will be my only investment in the club anyway.
I’ll decide come 31st August whether to spend anymore – a bit like the club really. Would be the first season since ’78 that I haven’t attended a single home game, but I’m sick and tired of being taken for granted and treated like a gullible fool. The increased costs and salaries of our commercial team relative to what they are doing for the club is the last straw for me.
To be honest I’ll be glad when this season is over – the mood is so bad
well if you needed further evidence of wenger contuing with the same crap he is apparently sitting down with bendtner to persuade him to stay.its a joke the man as no idea how supporters feel. he also says the price increase is justified,well why dont you get rid of the rubbish you have assembled,such as almunia,eboue,denilson,diaby(injured yet again the mans record is a joke)squillaci,rosicky,bendtner(only he and aw believes he is any good),vela and i believe any reasonable offer for arshavin s/be accepted.thats 9 out and bring in 3 ready made ist teamers and 2 others to pressurise the squad. then presumably with this wonderful youth policy wenger keeps going on about lets see who you have got.another thing i thought gavadis who i believe earns 1.2 million why as he not secured sponsership deals and why as it taken so long for wenger to adjust his preseason plans,asia and usa are important markets.as soon as the season ends you will hear again that his team is amazing,outstanding and deserve more credit and of course his favourite they only average 23,all reasons to forget what we have seen again,no improvement in the squad since the invincibles. just a thought arsene whilst supporters have had little or no pay increase even had pay reduced why do you extend contracts of players who s/be moved on.once again we can look forward to a stagnate summer and further gloom and doom for next season with no chance of honours,to those who say wait and see i say wait and see.
Sharad,
So we should sell all those players who are worht nothing if I should believe you so we will get no money for them.
And then what are we going to do Sharad? Start with 9 players less than this season? With our injury record? yeah that would do it.
Oh but you want to buy 3 good players ready made as you call them. So how much would they cost? Let us say 50M? Okay and then their wages. So they would cost 75M over let us say 2 or 3 years.
The others how much would they cost? Another 15M? okay and their wages another 5M. So that is paying 95M and we get back some let us say 25M for those worthless players you want out.
So who is going to pay that 75M? Yes watch the ticket prices then Sharad.
There should be some pre requisites before someone could qualify as an Arsenal supporter. The way some so-called fans post comments here make me wonder if it’s the same team or players we watch and talk about. A situation where @Sharad is advocating the sales of 9 players beggars for reasoning. It’s being talked about like some Christmas clearance sales. Cutting off an injured finger is never going to be a reasonable alternative to treatment. I would expect the fans on this forum to be a lot more objective. This is just not any blog, it is one for those that are willing to articulate their points of views without being offensive. On this forum, we show respect to all and sundry. Even Totteringham fans can testify to that.
@sharad
Please don’t come back here again.. People might mistake me for you. I’d rather not have that. Thank you.
@shard- shrad is right though isnt he?
Sharad, i have never heard so much arse-gravy. Pull yourself together man. as Walter pointed out, we need all of those players just to deal with our injury issues, but we also need them because on the whole they are all excellent players that live and breathe Arsenal.
What you have singularly failed to realise is that the financial situation at Arsenal has just changed. We now have a single owner making all the decisions, and having invested heavily in the club, he isnt about to see it fall behind the arabs or the spuds for the sake of a few signings.
Arsene and Stan may prune the roster to make way for new faces, but it wont be because the players are shit. I guarantee that anyone who is sold will go for more than we paid for them.
@manny/many/mnny
Who’s shrad?What’s he right about?
If you put up a blog and put in a comments box, then be ready to hear all sorts of opinions. Don’t ask ppl to bug off if they don’t agree with the all viewpoints of the writer.
I had commented earlier that Wenger should’ve atleast paid that extra £1mn Fulham was asking for Schwarzer; as I was convinced that Arsenal will again fall short of those 5-6 points that those jokers in our goal (Almunia & Fabianski) will gift the opposition. I would’ve felt better about the price hike if he did. However, Walter rubbished me saying if Wenger had signed Schwarzer, then Szechny would’ve left. This is they typical spin I keep hearing on this website all the time. My question is
1) If Szczesny is so good, why didn’t Wenger play him since the start of the season. Why did he wait until both Almunia and Fabianski had been injured and not play him earlier when they were busy gifting away points at the beginning of the season?
2) Szczesny talked about leaving because he saw Almunia/Fabianski committing howlers after howlers, whilst he was rotting in reserve/2nd division. He grew frustrated cos he is a better GK then the other two. But if Wenger had signed Scwarzer who would’ve played for a season or two at most, and put Szczesny as his understudy, Im sure that he is sensible enough to stay. After all, Wenger is famous for attracting young players, isnt he? Then why can’t he retain an unproven 20 yr old GK in a famous club like Arsenal? Much bigger names warm the bench of much smaller clubs!
3)Whenever someone talks about spending; Walter and Tony distort their words saying its unethical to spend like Chelsea or Man City. However, NOBODY is asking Wenger to spend like them. Every kid and its dog has known that Arsenal has had the same defensive and GK problem for many years now. What has the great coach done to solve it? Keep penny-pinching and signing geriatrics like Campbell/Lehmann/Silvestre etc or add more umproven young kids for the future. Then he makes excuses that the team is only 23 years old. It is not the fan’s fault that he keeps letting experienced players go and adding young inexperienced players to keep the avg age at 23!
Wenger has run out of all excuses, and so have the people who think he can do no wrong. Yes, Wenger has been great in the past, but he has let the fans and team down by not addressing the blatant weaknesses in his team just to pacify his own ego and his desire to prove others wrong. I am afraid he has taken his luck too far this time!
@Sammy
Nobody really has asked people to not voice contrary views. It’s just that views that are nothing but copy/paste jobs in their thinking with no attempt at a reasoned, thoughtful post, get tiresome after a while. For the most part, you actually do make your points well. In fact I agree with point 1 and partially with 2. But, I really don’t think Scwarzer was the solution, and paying 1 million more may not have been enough anyway since Fulham were wanting Given as a replacement, which Man City may not have been open to.
Point 3 just makes accusations against Wenger, against Walter and Tony etc. And then you try to show Wenger’s faults. Ok. fair enough. you think he’s done those things wrong. But on what basis can you ascribe his motives as trying to pacify his own ego? I have a problem with that. Criticise Wenger for the things he does wrong (which is subjective anyway), but I cannot take seriously those that question his motives.