Season Tickets - Spread The Cost

[Svlad Cjelli]

So it's better not to think of this as a way to pay for a season ticket over 12 months, but really it's a way to reserve a season's worth of match tickets and then pay for them each month as you attend.

Do we not already have this? Is it not called a member card with the ability to buy tickets in advance of the game?
Why do you need the "badge" of being a season ticket holder.

Yes and no - this scheme would let you pay, each month across a whole year, 1/12th of the total price of 23 games. I presume the ticket price would be lower if you committed to this, too, and that there'd no no opt-out.

At the moment, people going to individual games pay for 2 matches in August, 3 in September, 2 in October, 3 in December and so on, and nothing in June or July. They also don't have a reserved seat for cup games and they pay the full, one-off price for every ticket. They do, though, have the right to miss out any matches they don't want to or can't go to.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

£30 a month for 12 months, £360 for the 23 games, it is the no opt out bit that would be difficult. Although did you not say start in Jan for the following season, so paid by Dec, then renew in Jan, I assume it would run along the regular ST as they now stand, as for price increases they could still happen, just that the club would have to stagger it a bit.

[Svlad Cjelli]

£30 a month for 12 months, £360 for the 23 games, it is the no opt out bit that would be difficult. Although did you not say start in Jan for the following season, so paid by Dec, then renew in Jan, I assume it would run along the regular ST as they now stand, as for price increases they could still happen, just that the club would have to stagger it a bit.

There's a couple of potions been suggested, which may have got confused.

The one to start in Jan (or Feb) would be to pay for a ST - let's say 6 payments of £65 to allow a bit of an admin charge, and if your ST isn't paid for by the start of the season your card isn't livened up. (BTW, I've done some research on this yeaterday and there's a grey area over whether the club could legally not switch your member card on if you've paid 5 out of 6 payments.)

Paying over a year is quite different, and it could be used to pay for ST's or the individual games could be spread over a season or a whole year, either as a ST or the scheme discussed in the previous post.

[Red]

£30 a month for 12 months, £360 for the 23 games, it is the no opt out bit that would be difficult. Although did you not say start in Jan for the following season, so paid by Dec, then renew in Jan, I assume it would run along the regular ST as they now stand, as for price increases they could still happen, just that the club would have to stagger it a bit.

There's a couple of potions been suggested, which may have got confused.

The one to start in Jan (or Feb) would be to pay for a ST - let's say 6 payments of £65 to allow a bit of an admin charge, and if your ST isn't paid for by the start of the season your card isn't livened up. (BTW, I've done some research on this yeaterday and there's a grey area over whether the club could legally not switch your member card on if you've paid 5 out of 6 payments.)

Paying over a year is quite different, and it could be used to pay for ST's or the individual games could be spread over a season or a whole year, either as a ST or the scheme discussed in the previous post.

A scheme like that would be pretty unique though wouldn't it? You don't get DFS saying pay monthly installments now and we'll give you a sofa in 8 months time.

Ultimately it's not how people plan. What you're proposing just seems to be a savings scheme - why should RFC get involved in this? What's to stop you opening a savings account with a high street bank and paying into that monthly?

[Svlad Cjelli]

.....
The one to start in Jan (or Feb) would be to pay for a ST - let's say 6 payments of £65 to allow a bit of an admin charge, and if your ST isn't paid for by the start of the season your card isn't livened up. (BTW, I've done some research on this yeaterday and there's a grey area over whether the club could legally not switch your member card on if you've paid 5 out of 6 payments.)

A scheme like that would be pretty unique though wouldn't it? You don't get DFS saying pay monthly installments now and we'll give you a sofa in 8 months time.

Ultimately it's not how people plan. What you're proposing just seems to be a savings scheme - why should RFC get involved in this? What's to stop you opening a savings account with a high street bank and paying into that monthly?

Agreed, but it's not so different from what RFC did a number of years ago for STs, although that was over 4 months rather than 6.

What RFC gets from it is the fact that it makes more peopel buy STs, 'cos I'm convinced that there are a lot of people who can't get outside creidt (or don't want to) who would bite their hands off at a scheme like this which would make it easier for people to pay for STs in advance, over a longer period. Even if they stuck on an admin charge of £30 or so I'm sure it'd still have a terrfic take-up and help them increase ST numbers.

[Red]

The people you're talking about who struggle to afford it, I would guess, are more worried about making ends meet this month rather than how they'll afford a season ticket next year.

It's more of a mindset than an affordability thing - there are people that might go for a scheme like this - but they're probably also the kind of people who are frugal enough to be able to buy one anyway by whichever means.

By all means lets see the club introduce it though I guess - if a few extra dozen season ticket holders come through it then fair fvcks. Although the fact they've done it in the past and decided to stop it, somewhat tells its own story - no?

[Hoop Blah]

Sunderland did this a few years ago (not sure if they still do) and when redundancies at the Nissan plant were announced a whole number of people just stopped paying. And that's the problem for clubs.

Yes and no. The club don't really lose anything as they then cancel the card. The previous games will have been paid for, so nothing lost in that respect.

The club don't lose anything? The whole point of a season ticket from the clubs point of view is that it's income in the bank over the summer so that they can budget and cover the costly time of the summer (when, historically they needed to function without the match day income).

If fans could 'walk away' from their season tickets then the club would lose money they've effectively already spent.

I hope you didn't teach your kids that bit of financial management!

[Red]

Don't think that's fair - it wouldn't take a genius accountant to budget for a certain percentage of cancellations.

[Hoop Blah]

Don't think that's fair - it wouldn't take a genius accountant to budget for a certain percentage of calculations.

Surely that budgeting would be heavily influenced by the results of the team (ie more people will walk away if we're having a crap season than if we're top 3). How is an accountant going to factor that in realistically?

Remember the ST money still probably goes a long way to dictating the managers budget for transfers and wages so offering out the chance to walk away without paying will presumably reduce those budgets.

[Red]

Don't think that's fair - it wouldn't take a genius accountant to budget for a certain percentage of cancellations.

Surely that budgeting would be heavily influenced by the results of the team (ie more people will walk away if we're having a crap season than if we're top 3). How is an accountant going to factor that in realistically?

You can have upper and lower estimates. There are all sorts of businesses that rely on factors out of their control for their profits - the weather for example.

Doesn't mean you can't budget for it. And clubs must be doing this anyway as a large part of their revenue is not from season tickets and dependant on results.

[weybridgewanderer]

How much extra revenue do you anticpate this would bring in?

An increase in season ticket holders is pointelsss if it brings in less money.

Some (maybe all) season ticket holders would choose this rather than pay up front so the clubs revenue from those would go down as we woul dnot be earning interest from having this money in the bank early.

How much revenue would we lose?

Some pay as you go customers would take one. Would they ultimately be paying more or less than they do on the "pay as you go" plan? And why would they prefer this than pay per game?

Estimate your Increased costs of administering this, establishing peoples credit worthiness and chasing up defaulters.

The club would need to be need to be regarded as a credit provider, does that incurr costs?

So, how much extra revenue do you see this scheme bringing in?

[Ian Royal]

I genuinely don't see much in the way of positives for the club to do something like this. It really isn't likely to cause a particularly significant increase in STHs IMO and it adds costs and risks to the current system.

It would be nice certainly, but there's no profit in it.