Walk Outs And Ticket Prices

£77 a ticket, 77^th minute walk out. Take action now or in a few seasons we might only be able to protest during extra time in cup ties. How long until we need a 99^th minute walk out? Who knows.
 
The new ticket price announcements and subsequent reaction from supporters groups has got me thinking so I’m back on here for my first post in years to share my opinions. I’m not promising this will be coherent or flowing and I’m struggling to decide which side of the debate I fall on so don’t expect any conclusions, just a few of my thoughts and you can make your own minds up.
 
Top ticket prices of £77 don’t price me out of going to the game. That happened years ago once it reached about £35. I’ve made it to the odd cup game since but I honestly don’t remember which was the last league game I went to. I suspect it was under Kenny Dalglish but I could be wrong. I remember my first game, mid eighties vs Arsenal, we won 2-1 and my ticket in the Paddock cost £1.50. The announced rises (and drops, it’s only fair to point out not every price has gone up) don’t affect me, I don’t have the disposable income or the free time to go to the games. It will however affect thousands of other people who have chosen to make their feelings known to the club in a peaceful but very obvious manner. More power to them and I hope everybody in the stadium who agrees with them joins in, no matter what is happening on the pitch. Liverpool fans are famous for backing the team as one collective group and should remain as one collective group. A sea of individual voices pulling together (mixed metaphors I know) to become stronger than the sum of their parts.
 
Something that has always annoyed me is ticket touts. I go to concerts as well as football, the frustration of not securing tickets for something in the knowledge that others have got them purely with the intention of selling them on for a profit… We’ve all been there. Bring the prices down at Anfield to below what people are willing to pay and touts will get them. Not all of them but some of them, and these will then be sold on to fans for inflated prices. The club gets less money, the fans pay more and the opportunist walks off with money in his pocket.
 
Let’s be clear on something, the club may be charging £77 for the first time next season, but it won’t be the first time anyone has paid £77 to get in.
 
I suspect every single Premier League game for at least the last 5 years or so has had somebody sitting in the crowd somewhere who has paid at least that figure for the privilege. Games against Everton and Man Utd will be littered with supporters who have paid excessive amounts for entry, why shouldn’t the club take that money rather than the tout?
 
There is a logical principle of supply and demand, and even with the new prices Liverpool will sell out every league fixture next season. From a business point of view the club are fully justified in what they are charging.
 
But football can’t be judged and treated the same way as other businesses. The success and failure of other businesses don’t affect the mood, the emotion, the happiness of people, of towns and of cities the same way football does. The finance side of running a football club cannot be ignored, but a balance has to be struck. Reading other people’s analysis of the figures it seems charging the increased prices will net the club about £2 million a season. That’s a lot of money to you and I but for the club it’s about 7 months of employing Jose Enrique. With the increased TV revenue about to fall into the wallets of Premier League clubs £2 million is a drop in the ocean. If the players put enough effort in to get one round further in the FA Cup that £2 million could be made up in one Saturday afternoon (or Friday evening..).
 
The phrase that has kept cropping up is ‘missed opportunity’ and I couldn’t agree more with this. Since the expansion of the main stand was announced the club have publicly stated they’ve been in discussions with supporters groups. The supporters groups dispute whether or not this was ‘constant’ but the meeting still took place. If nothing else it was half decent PR for LFC. That these groups are so angry and disappointed with this weeks announcements leaves you with the feeling it was only ever a PR stunt and they weren’t taken seriously. Supporters cannot expect to have every demand met and effectively run the club and make key decisions with someone else’s money, but they are the lifeblood of the sport and can offer a valid and important perspective that wealthy owners and high paid executives just can’t. The club has missed a great opportunity to say ‘we’ve met the fans, listened to them, understand them and acted accordingly. They are here for life and we want to make them feel valued’.
 
It’s hard to escape the feeling that this wouldn’t have been as big a storm if we were successful on the pitch at the moment. If we’d pushed on from 2013/14, kept Suarez and were fighting for the title people may be willing to pay more to watch. But we’re not. More than almost anything else you pay your money for a ticket with no guarantee of what you’re going to get. You don’t pay £60 to see U2 and have them come on stage playing nothing but Take That covers. At the moment you pay your money and take your chance, we may play like Liverpool, like Dortmund, like Real Madrid or like Bolton. It’s a gamble and there’s a limit to how much money you’ll risk. It’s easy to say ‘set your own upper limit and if it costs more don’t pay it’ but it’s football, that’s not how it works and anybody who says differently doesn’t understand and never will.

As promised at the start, no conclusions, just ramblings. Thanks for sticking with me if you’ve made it this far. The whole subject is very emotive and everyone will have differing opinions but one thing is certain, we are supporters first, customers second and it is in the long term interests of the owners to make decisions based on this.