AFC Bournemouth to play Real Madrid

[bobby1413]

Just saw this on SSN. Pre-season friendly.

£60 for adults (£55 for ST holders)

It's a good game for the club to get, but £60?! That's extortionate. I'd expect to pay a premium but it's probably over double a competitive league match ticket.

[Super_horns]

Some will pay it though...

[soggy biscuit]

Assume they are over for more games than just Bournemouth?

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Generally clubs hosting big name clubs in friendlies have to pay them a guaranteed minimum amount in order for them to deign to turn up - I assume that the sum RM wanted as a guarantee was so large that with relatively small ground all AFCB could do was increase the ticket price in order to meet it.

[Super_horns]

True but it probably won't include the top stars.

[Judge Drenthe]

Who cares?

[winchester_royal]

Generally clubs hosting big name clubs in friendlies have to pay them a guaranteed minimum amount in order for them to deign to turn up - I assume that the sum RM wanted as a guarantee was so large that with relatively small ground all AFCB could do was increase the ticket price in order to meet it.

Or Bournemouth have done their research, found that £60 (£55) is the highest price they can charge that will still fill the ground, and are looking to maximise their revenues from the fixture paying little attention to the financial welfare of the fans. Knowing Eddie Mitchell I'll be very surprised if this isn't partly the case.

Or it could be a bit of both.

[Zammo]

I would LOL if the stadium was half empty though.

[sandman]

Putting the price aside how in the bluest of blue hell do Bournemouth get Madrid to play them and we get Swansea?

Then again the fact they're charging so much sort of answers the question.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Been doing some digging.

Real's minimum price for a friendly appearance is €400,000 (£342k).

They also require 30 business class flights, 30 rooms for two nights' full board in a five star hotel and a luxury 35 seater coach from arrival to departure. This adds around £60k to the Real Madrid bill which has to be settled in full five days before arrival by bank transfer, so Bournemouth will be forking out £400k for this.

Dean Court has a capacity of 9,600. Even with a sell-out they won't be making much on this.

Putting the price aside how in the bluest of blue hell do Bournemouth get Madrid to play them and we get Swansea?

AFCB are prepared to pay that sort of money.

[bobby1413]

They are welcome to play them based on that.

Ill stick with Swansea and save £££ on actually investing in the upcoming season

[No Fixed Abode]

Good advertising for the AFC Bournemouth brand though. SSN talking about it, will be in the papers tomorrow, you're on here talking about as well of thousands of other people on the interweb....

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

Promoted and the fans get a £60 (£55 s/t) ticket price for a friendly against Real Madrid.

Am I glad I support RFC!!

[soggy biscuit]

If I was a Bournemouth fan I would be quite excited by this, might even fork out for a ticket.

Having experienced top level football and realised that it really isn't all that, if RFC were to do this I would not buy a ticket.

[reading_fan]

£60 a ticket?

[From Despair To Where?]

Good advertising for the AFC Bournemouth brand though. SSN talking about it, will be in the papers tomorrow, you're on here talking about as well of thousands of other people on the interweb....

And todays "news" is tomorrows chip wrapper. Seems most of the talk is about Bournemouth charging £60 for a ticket just to cover costs.

Can't see there being too much benefit to the Bournemouth brand by charging the earth to host a friendly. Yeah, I, like thousands others, am on the internet talking about it, but, I, like thousands others, sure as oxf*rd won't be buying a ticket, any AFCB merchandise or giving a boost to their "brand" in any way whatsoever. I can remember Reading tried a similar trick in in the 80's charging the then princely sum of £12 to watch a friendly against decent European oposition. The attendnance barely scraped 1,000.

Then again, I don't buy into all this "global" game 1992 Year Zero bullshit. football by it's historical nature is parochial and if it was Reading playing Real Madrid in a friendly, I still wouldn't give two shits or get excited by it. I don't even watch Real when they're on the telly, certainly wouldn't go out of my way to pay good money to watch them. And the day people started to talk about football clubs in terms of a"brand" is the day the soul of football died.

And anyway, pre season friendlies are, on the whole, shit.

[sandman]

Good advertising for the AFC Bournemouth brand though. SSN talking about it, will be in the papers tomorrow, you're on here talking about as well of thousands of other people on the interweb....

Yeah but we're advertising our brand on a shit F1 car.

[Schards#2]

OUT for any friendly against any team unless the cost is minimal and I have absolutely nothing else to do.

I would not pay £20+ for any friendly involving any two teams on the planet

[TBM]

True but it probably won't include the top stars.

Only 3 of their first team squad won't be travelling - the one's involved in the Confed Cup

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Friendlies are like shirts - if you don't like the cost, don't buy it. And don't let anyone convince you you're "any less of a fan" if you don't go.

Anyway I suspect a whole lot more people who've never been to AFCB will happily pay that money to see RM play, so I'm not sure they're "ripping off" their supporters.