How will the credit crunch hit football? The financial storm is not over yet, but at the moment, within the Premiership at least, the top clubs are sitting pretty, while smaller clubs in less prosperous areas are having to be more innovative in their response. Watching football at the top level either live or on television isn’t cheap at a time when incomes are being squeezed. A Sky package costs around £400 a year and season tickets have gone up by almost 800 per cent since the Premiership was set up.
How will the credit crunch hit football? The financial storm is not over yet, but at the moment, within the Premiership at least, the top clubs are sitting pretty, while smaller clubs in less prosperous areas are having to be more innovative in their response. Watching football at the top level either live or on television isn’t cheap at a time when incomes are being squeezed. A Sky package costs around £400 a year and season tickets have gone up by almost 800 per cent since the Premiership was set up. Another consideration is sponsorship and corporate entertainment budgets which companies often have to cut back in hard times. However, Dan Jones of the sport business group at Deloitte, believes that Premiership football is less vulnerable than other industries, because of fans’ enduring loyalty, and because much of clubs’ money is already secured. The record £2.7bn television deal runs till after 2010 and Sky’s competitors are already lining up for the next round of bidding as we highlighted in a recent story. Below the Premiership it’s more of a struggle, but the crowds are still at historically high levels.
At six of last weekend’s 10 Premiership matches there were capacity or near capacity crowds. These came at Chelsea and Liverpool, but also at West Ham and Spurs and at newly promoted Hull City and West Brom. Sunderland failed to fill the 49,000 capacity Stadium of Light, but a crowd of over 38,000 is still a good one. Bolton Wanderers still had 6,000 empty seats for the visit of Arsenal, illustrating how hard it is to raise their crowds above 22,000. Blackburn Rovers used a kids for a quid deal to get the crowd above 19,000 for a fixture against Fulham. That is still 12,000 below capacity, but Rovers argue that 20,000 attendees in a town of 100,000 is a good outcome. Indeed, in the Championship, nearby Burnley also do proportionately well. Perhaps the most disappointing attendance was the 7,000 empty seats at newly enriched Manchester City, even though the match was not on television. However, it is undoubtedly the case that City draws more on a catchment area made up of the less prosperous parts of Greater Manchester compared with the cosmopolitan crowd at Old Trafford. I was travelling up to Manchester last week when they had a game and there were two lads from High Wycombe in beechy Bucks on their way to Old Trafford. They asked the train manager if she was a City fan. ‘Yes.’ she replied, ‘I’m from Manchester.’
United’s season ticket waiting list has melted away following the expansion of Old Trafford and successive price increases, but the crowds remain immense. The prawn sandwich brigade is still there in force with 96 per cent of the corporate boxes occupied. Arsenal and Liverpool still have waiting lists for season tickets and Chelsea have sold out despite adult prices ranging from £650 to £1,150. However, clubs such as Blackburn, Bolton, West Brom, Sunderland, Wigan and Middlesbrough have to cope with more difficult local economic environments and a smaller travelling support with links with the area. Blackburn season tickets and corporate boxes are both down this season and the club is working harder to attract crowds match by match. The Baggies cut season tickets by 11 per cent after promotion last season, following a 20 per cut the previous season. That makes season tickes at The Hawthorns almost a third cheaper when the club was last in the Premiership. As a result, there have been capacity crowds at all three home games so far. The club lacks a sponsor but their finance director commented, ‘Clearly companies are watching their budgets, but we are talking to two very attractive potential sponsors. However, we are not willing to under-sell our sponsorship and have a price below which we won’t go.’