For some clubs the season ticket sales are still modest. How can clubs move more of their audience over to season tickets?
Surprisingly, the price is not the main concern. If the clubs were to lower the prices so much and this alone would generate higher season ticket sales, they would inevitably lose money.
This is true according to Lars Brockstedt, partner in Sponsor Insight, who just published a large survey a based on 4,470 thorough online interviews. He believes that the football audience can be divided into three main categories:
Firstly, there are those who attend the matches sometimes. Then you have those who try to attend every home match. Lastly, we have those who actually buy the season tickets. For the club’s benefit, you could say that you should work towards all of these categories. You need to get more people to the matches. You also need to make those who sometimes attend to go more often. And finally, “you should try to get the ones that actively goes to buy a season ticket”, states Brockstedet.
What is it that draws the audience towards a match?
Brockstedet determinated three important factors:
First, the overall experience is important. How is it to be a member of the audience? How are the facilities? How is the merchandise offer? Are there queues? Are things happening before the match? All of this is important, thinks Brockstedet, and says that “lately, there has been an awakening when it comes to this area”.
He states that it is also of importance that people are talking about the club. People must become engaged, football needs to be the conversation topic at work, school and in the city. To achieve this, Brockstedt believes that one must work actively towards the media and be equally as active in their own channels. The clubs need to think like media houses, and need to actively pursue local branding.
Lastly, we have local patriotism. Sometimes the team becomes the heart of the city, and as a result of this the audience is much more faithful, rather than the ones that are based of success. Supporters that are only there when things are going well are of course a good resource. “However, it is the supporters that stick with you through thick and thin that you can trust”, says Brockstedet.
A huge opportunity
“Season ticket sales are the one of the biggest and most important challenges in football today”, says Dag Frode Algerøy. He is the Country Manager for Norway in TicketCo, and was the former sales manager for the private sector in one of Norway’s top football clubs Sportsklubben Brann, he knows the football market better than most.
Related article: Look at it from a customers point of view
Algerøy points out that many clubs sign new important players during the winter and spring.
“Here is a huge window of opportunities for those who has attended last season, but are not found in the overview of season ticket holders for this upcoming season”, states Algerøy.
According to the public survey, 36 percent of those who purchase single tickets try to attend most home matches. There could be huge gains from getting these to purchase season tickets instead. “In Brann, we sold 6,300 season tickets in 2016. In total, 185,700 tickets were sold, which gives an average of 12,380 tickets per match. On average, it was sold just over 6,000 single tickets per home game, and as Sponsor Insight suggests, 36% of these were more or less to the same people.
This gives the immediate unresolved season tickets at almost 2,200 season tickets for Brann. This is a volume that will even make the most targeted sales manager ecstatic”, says the former sales manager.
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