[talkSAFT]

Season's Gate Receipts at The Hawthorns are about £7m
Revenue via The Premier League for TV money etc is £70m to £100m:-

   50% divided equally (Thats around £38 million each for all 20 clubs)
   25% Merit based: divided according to final league position in 2016-17 season (Thats around £2 million for 20th place team rising higher by £2m for every position all the way to £40 million for the champions)
   25% is divided as facility fee: to all clubs depending on how many times teams' matches were shown live. (thats around £1 million for every live game or guaranteed £10m if a team only had 10 or less live matches)


So, if we let in fans for free, we'd lose £7m pa, but the place could be rocking every fortnight, and the encouragement transferred to the players (as we've seen over the years) can turn defeats into victories, and thus push the Club up The League. (4 League placings worth £8m > the Season's Gate Receipts £7m, not to mention the extra revenue from Merchandise, and the day's experience turns young lads into fans for life.)

A bit extreme and silly, but you can't argue with the logic! Or can you? - over to you.

[HRK]

As much as I'd like the Hawthorns to be rocking again, the price of tickets isn't the reason for the dip in atmosphere.

It's the same at most clubs now and the only thing that will bring back some of atmosphere is following the Bundesliga's example. As someone who's watched football around the world, the best atmosphere and overall matchday experience was a Bundesliga game between Eintracht Frankfurt and FC Augsburg.

They don't give the football away for free over there, just price it a little more realistically to bring in the fans that make the most noise. Most Premier League clubs spend too much time fannying about on hospitality stuff to really care about doing the work to bring the fans in who would create the atmosphere. 

Albeit a video of a Liverpool fan, I've included it below as he hits the nail on the head for me about modern football in England at the minute. There's also one from the Eintracht game I mentioned above so you have a flavour of what it's like. I'd fully recommend everyone to at least go to one Bundesliga game at some point.

Also I cannot see season tickets ever being given away for free for any Premier League club, no club would freely given up a source of income just to fill a few extra seats. If they sold them at a price that covered the costs of staff and policing for the game effectively breaking even, that would be more realistic.

[Alouion]

Up until now I have always argued against ground expansion but I feel it is essential now. I also think it is an ideal chance for us to do so. We are, at present, the only PL club in a region of 3m people where you can watch live premier league football.
West Ham, Tottenham and Chelsea all have plans for greater capacity. It looks like Brighton, Newcastle and Leeds might come up, all of  whom have bigger gates than we do. I would like to see us expand the ground by up to 10000 seats. I agree we can do something on pricing or, alternatively, for example offer season tickets at a discount if they take up the option to buy a second full-priced ticket.  This might seem far-fetched but I am open to alternative ideas.

We have to raise the profile of WBA sooner or later if we wish to become a permanent fixture in the Premier League.  We are a smallish club by Premier League standards, punching way above our weight. It would be easy to fall into the championship by replacing good players with lesser ones and follow the example of Villa.

Of course, growing the club does not guarantee our future. However I believe it gives us a better chance to compete for bigger, better players. We have a chance to become the biggest club in the region, bigger than Villa, bigger than Wolves.

Like everyone on this forum I love this club and could not be prouder of it and what it has recently achieved in reaching 8th place when just 15 years ago we were so close to League 1. We have to show the world at large that we are in this division to stay.

[talkSAFT]

Letting people in for Free (losing £7m) was hypothetical. But the WMidlands is a pretty impoverished Area, and would-be fans just can't justify £25-£40 on top of their household budgets, and a decent compromise would bring back the Working Classes, who get more passionate than the Middle Classes. £10 entrance would maybe lose the Club about £4m (say).

[Salopbaggie]

Season's Gate Receipts at The Hawthorns are about £7m
Revenue via The Premier League for TV money etc is £70m to £100m:-

   50% divided equally (Thats around £38 million each for all 20 clubs)
   25% Merit based: divided according to final league position in 2016-17 season (Thats around £2 million for 20th place team rising higher by £2m for every position all the way to £40 million for the champions)
   25% is divided as facility fee: to all clubs depending on how many times teams' matches were shown live. (thats around £1 million for every live game or guaranteed £10m if a team only had 10 or less live matches)


So, if we let in fans for free, we'd lose £7m pa, but the place could be rocking every fortnight, and the encouragement transferred to the players (as we've seen over the years) can turn defeats into victories, and thus push the Club up The League. (4 League placings worth £8m > the Season's Gate Receipts £7m, not to mention the extra revenue from Merchandise, and the day's experience turns young lads into fans for life.)

A bit extreme and silly, but you can't argue with the logic! Or can you? - over to you.

How about the guy/woman who has sat in the same seat every game for 50 years never missing a home game, who turns up for the first game of the season only to find out they not only do not have there usual seat, but can not get into the ground because it is full of people (not supporters) looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon? Also it would be free for fans from all around the area to just come a cause trouble.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Season's Gate Receipts at The Hawthorns are about £7m
Revenue via The Premier League for TV money etc is £70m to £100m:-

   50% divided equally (Thats around £38 million each for all 20 clubs)
   25% Merit based: divided according to final league position in 2016-17 season (Thats around £2 million for 20th place team rising higher by £2m for every position all the way to £40 million for the champions)
   25% is divided as facility fee: to all clubs depending on how many times teams' matches were shown live. (thats around £1 million for every live game or guaranteed £10m if a team only had 10 or less live matches)


So, if we let in fans for free, we'd lose £7m pa, but the place could be rocking every fortnight, and the encouragement transferred to the players (as we've seen over the years) can turn defeats into victories, and thus push the Club up The League. (4 League placings worth £8m > the Season's Gate Receipts £7m, not to mention the extra revenue from Merchandise, and the day's experience turns young lads into fans for life.)

A bit extreme and silly, but you can't argue with the logic! Or can you? - over to you.

How about the guy/woman who has sat in the same seat every game for 50 years never missing a home game, who turns up for the first game of the season only to find out they not only do not have there usual seat, but can not get into the ground because it is full of people (not supporters) looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon?    Also it would be free for fans from all around the area to just come a cause trouble.

Which is why free admission will, of course, be contingent on your ability to score 400+ on a 500-question entrance exam about Albion on the gate

[4evaabaggie]

Season's Gate Receipts at The Hawthorns are about £7m
Revenue via The Premier League for TV money etc is £70m to £100m:-

   50% divided equally (Thats around £38 million each for all 20 clubs)
   25% Merit based: divided according to final league position in 2016-17 season (Thats around £2 million for 20th place team rising higher by £2m for every position all the way to £40 million for the champions)
   25% is divided as facility fee: to all clubs depending on how many times teams' matches were shown live. (thats around £1 million for every live game or guaranteed £10m if a team only had 10 or less live matches)


So, if we let in fans for free, we'd lose £7m pa, but the place could be rocking every fortnight, and the encouragement transferred to the players (as we've seen over the years) can turn defeats into victories, and thus push the Club up The League. (4 League placings worth £8m > the Season's Gate Receipts £7m, not to mention the extra revenue from Merchandise, and the day's experience turns young lads into fans for life.)

A bit extreme and silly, but you can't argue with the logic! Or can you? - over to you.

How about the guy/woman who has sat in the same seat every game for 50 years never missing a home game, who turns up for the first game of the season only to find out they not only do not have there usual seat, but can not get into the ground because it is full of people (not supporters) looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon?    Also it would be free for fans from all around the area to just come a cause trouble.

Which is why free admission will, of course, be contingent on your ability to score 400+ on a 500-question entrance exam about Albion on the gate  

That would not be time consuming, when would the gates open ....... wednesday.

Although I thoroughly agree that the atmosphere was far better when working classes filled the ground and the corporate prawn sandwich brigade steered clear of football ...... but that was before the big boys broke up the football league and sold their souls to sky. The elite gentleman's club have it all sown up ....

[Alouion]

Up until now I have always argued against ground expansion but I feel it is essential now. I also think it is an ideal chance for us to do so. We are, at present, the only PL club in a region of 3m people where you can watch live premier league football.
West Ham, Tottenham and Chelsea all have plans for greater capacity. It looks like Brighton, Newcastle and Leeds might come up, all of  whom have bigger gates than we do. I would like to see us expand the ground by up to 10000 seats. I agree we can do something on pricing or, alternatively, for example offer season tickets at a discount if they take up the option to buy a second full-priced ticket.  This might seem far-fetched but I am open to alternative ideas.

We have to raise the profile of WBA sooner or later if we wish to become a permanent fixture in the Premier League.  We are a smallish club by Premier League standards, punching way above our weight. It would be easy to fall into the championship by replacing good players with lesser ones and follow the example of Villa.

Of course, growing the club does not guarantee our future. However I believe it gives us a better chance to compete for bigger, better players. We have a chance to become the biggest club in the region, bigger than Villa, bigger than Wolves.

Like everyone on this forum I love this club and could not be prouder of it and what it has recently achieved in reaching 8th place when just 15 years ago we were so close to League 1. We have to show the world at large that we are in this division to stay.

[talkSAFT]

On a sort of similar thread, Everton gave Albion the option for the trip to Goodison:-

Do you want 1800 tickets, or 3000? (You make up the cost).

Albion plumped for 1800, because sales upto last week were quite slow, and we didn't want to pay for (say) 1000 unsold tkts at £30 = £30,000.

Apart from being surprised at the apparent lack of interest, I'd have expected a late rush for tickets, especially as we've only played 3 Away games this Year so far. And the extra interest is that we're playing the Club above us in the League, who we're hoping to catch.
I'm convinced we could have sold (say) 2300 in the end, and the extra 500 fans (+ 1200 less Toffees) could make all the difference in the Stadium, to possibly turn the game in our favour. As said earlier, each League position is worth £2m, which knocks that £30k into sawdust. And I bet there are (maybe) 500 fans who will be disappointed.

It's not an exact science, but I wonder why no Club has bothered to assess the effect a vociferous backing makes to the players. I bet the players would give an answer.

[HRK]

On a sort of similar thread, Everton gave Albion the option for the trip to Goodison:-

Do you want 1800 tickets, or 3000? (You make up the cost).

Albion plumped for 1800, because sales upto last week were quite slow, and we didn't want to pay for (say) 1000 unsold tkts at £30 = £30,000.

Apart from being surprised at the apparent lack of interest, I'd have expected a late rush for tickets, especially as we've only played 3 Away games this Year so far. And the extra interest is that we're playing the Club above us in the League, who we're hoping to catch.
I'm convinced we could have sold (say) 2300 in the end, and the extra 500 fans (+ 1200 less Toffees) could make all the difference in the Stadium, to possibly turn the game in our favour. As said earlier, each League position is worth £2m, which knocks that £30k into sawdust. And I bet there are (maybe) 500 fans who will be disappointed.

It's not an exact science, but I wonder why no Club has bothered to assess the effect a vociferous backing makes to the players. I bet the players would give an answer.

Subsidizing away support via tickets and travel is something we could as a club do much, much more than we currently do. The current £30 cap on prices across all teams is a massive step in the right direction and as such I've personally not missed an away this season. Couldn't realistically afford to attend them all before that point.


I have my ticket for Everton and the 1,800 allocation sold out quite quickly so I'd imagine we could have taken very close to the 3,000 total we could of had if we had the section in upper bullens as well as the lower.

The problem for the club is that while on the face of it, it appears to be penny pinching, but we haven't taken anything close to a full allocation on an away game for ages taking West Ham out of the equation as some only went that day because of the novelty of a new stadium imo. This has been consistent for about 4-5 years really which is sad because our away following used to be one of the best in the country.

What I think would improve our away attendances is free coach travel laid on by the club as the cost of the entire day on travel and food etc soon mounts up. You can bet that Burnley away this year where the club are  putting the free coaches on we'll take a full allocation to test the water about further games next season whether it would be wise to offer the free coaches for all games to boost attendance numbers.

For anyone on here who's making the trip Saturday and likes the odd beer or six you're obviously spoiled for choice in the city centre, but I'd imagine most Albion fans closer to 3pm will either be drinking in the Arkles that's on the corner of Anfield Road & Arkles Road that's about a 15 minute walk to Goodison Park or the Thomas Frost Wetherspoons on Walton Road about 10 mins from Goodison.

Obviously feel free to buy me a pint if that's helped you plan where to drink Saturday