F.A.Cup...Re-play V Luton at Home. Tues 16th Jan 19-45

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Is that the case for cup, or league?

Used to be just for the cup. Only the host had a say in their league pricing, other than any league regs themselves.

Aye but there was something reciprocal around “if you charge our away fans £29 we can charge yours the same”, no?

[BWFC_Insane]

Interested in what the clubs rationale for pricing is here. There are a few possibilities….

1) Worried that £10 tickets wouldn’t cover costs re policing etc…
2) Don’t believe £10 tickets would have sufficiently boosted attendance to compensate for lower turnover
3) Feel £10 for a cup game against premiership opposition devalues their product too far….
4) Haven’t got the logistics to swiftly enact new pricing structures for a short turnaround one off game….


I dunno could be all of the above or none. I once talked to the late Phil Gartside about cup ticketing prices, keep in mind it was a very different time we were a newish premiership side and I guess in a totally different situation. His argument was the research had been done that showed they couldn’t break even on cheaper ticket prices as there wasn’t enough extra demand to compensate for the lower entry price. And indeed they needed to 60% fill the stadium at the time at full price to break even. So the maths didn’t work at all for low prices.

Now different era, different fans. I doubt there would be a similar pent up enthusiasm for cup games when we were in the top flight and of course our fans paid a lot for season tickets and away tickets at the time so nobody could blame them for not fancying Bury at home or whatever on an evening.

[dave the minion]

I guess on a very simplistic economic basis, to charge a tenner they'd have to be confident of getting twice as many people as at £20 (excluding ancilliary additional income from drinks etc).

If they didn't think that was going to be the case - and I can strongly see why this might be - then probably better over all to charge double and aim for just over half as many people???

I'm not sure personally that at a tenner a ticket we'd have filled the ground on a cold, wet, windy January mid-week in the middle of a very busy schedule of games....

[truewhite15]

Interested in what the clubs rationale for pricing is here. There are a few possibilities….

1) Worried that £10 tickets wouldn’t cover costs re policing etc…
2) Don’t believe £10 tickets would have sufficiently boosted attendance to compensate for lower turnover
3) Feel £10 for a cup game against premiership opposition devalues their product too far….
4) Haven’t got the logistics to swiftly enact new pricing structures for a short turnaround one off game….


I dunno could be all of the above or none. I once talked to the late Phil Gartside about cup ticketing prices, keep in mind it was a very different time we were a newish premiership side and I guess in a totally different situation. His argument was the research had been done that showed they couldn’t break even on cheaper ticket prices as there wasn’t enough extra demand to compensate for the lower entry price. And indeed they needed to 60% fill the stadium at the time at full price to break even. So the maths didn’t work at all for low prices.

Now different era, different fans. I doubt there would be a similar pent up enthusiasm for cup games when we were in the top flight and of course our fans paid a lot for season tickets and away tickets at the time so nobody could blame them for not fancying Bury at home or whatever on an evening.

I think numbers 1 and 2 above are probably accurate. £20 does seem a bit steep, but given cup attendance so far this season (granted, not against Prem opposition) and indeed cup attendance in general over recent years, I just can't see an awful lot more than 10k in the ground even at £10 a pop for a cold night in mid-January. And I don't blame the club for pricing it at £20 as a result. It's still a not-unreasonable price.

[BWFC_Insane]

I guess on a very simplistic economic basis, to charge a tenner they'd have to be confident of getting twice as many people as at £20 (excluding ancilliary additional income from drinks etc).

If they didn't think that was going to be the case - and I can strongly see why this might be - then probably better over all to charge double and aim for just over half as many people???

I'm not sure personally that at a tenner a ticket we'd have filled the ground on a cold, wet, windy January mid-week in the middle of a very busy schedule of games....

Yes. The argument always made by others against that is you compensate with food sales, parking charges etc….but I suspect that isn’t close to being the case.

[Prufrock]

I'm sure they've got people who's job is to work this out, but these games always feel like a missed opportunity to me. You've got the attendance on the day, but I think you've also got to think about getting kids hooked. Free kid's ticket with every adult sale or something like that.

Christ knows how much money I've put into the club over the years, but I'm confident it more than outweighs the subsidy when I was a kid!

[dave the minion]

Aye - agreed.

I'm sure there are people employed at the club who are far better placed to mode this, but just theorising here, but if we charge as proposed we might get, say, 9,000 (complete guess....), which is gate receipts of £150,000 (splitting arbitrarily between adult (5k), over 65 & kids (2k each).

If we half all the ticket prices maybe we'd get 15,000 (January mid-week, cold windy & rainy, general apathy after a long run of fixtures..) - thats receipts of £125k, so £25k less.

For it to wash its face that would mean each of the 15,000 fans spending £1.67 on site - doesn't sound like a lot, but if we assume 50% of people spend nothing, then for the other half its a drink each. And of course this doesn't take into account the fact that there must be substantial additional running costs for opening up the ground for 15k people v 9k.

So, whilst pricing higher will hurt the attendance, and there will be an impact on atmosphere and perhaps performance on the pitch as a result, financially its possibly the right thing for the club to do......

(Note: I am very aware tweaking my assumptions can give whatever conclusion you want!!!!)

[dave the minion]

I'm sure they've got people who's job is to work this out, but these games always feel like a missed opportunity to me. You've got the attendance on the day, but I think you've also got to think about getting kids hooked. Free kid's ticket with every adult sale or something like that.

Christ knows how much money I've put into the club over the years, but I'm confident it more than outweighs the subsidy when I was a kid!

Also agree with this. Obvious counter-argument is if you drag a load of kids in (tired after a day at school and staying up late), and they get freezing cold and we either get walloped or play out a drab low-scoring game, we could lose them for life!!!!

[BWFC_Insane]

Aye - agreed.

I'm sure there are people employed at the club who are far better placed to mode this, but just theorising here, but if we charge as proposed we might get, say, 9,000 (complete guess....), which is gate receipts of £150,000 (splitting arbitrarily between adult (5k), over 65 & kids (2k each).

If we half all the ticket prices maybe we'd get 15,000 (January mid-week, cold windy & rainy, general apathy after a long run of fixtures..) - thats receipts of £125k, so £25k less.

For it to wash its face that would mean each of the 15,000 fans spending £1.67 on site - doesn't sound like a lot, but if we assume 50% of people spend nothing, then for the other half its a drink each. And of course this doesn't take into account the fact that there must be substantial additional running costs for opening up the ground for 15k people v 9k.

So, whilst pricing higher will hurt the attendance, and there will be an impact on atmosphere and perhaps performance on the pitch as a result, financially its possibly the right thing for the club to do......

(Note: I am very aware tweaking my assumptions can give whatever conclusion you want!!!!)

Also factor in that the revenue the club receives from sale of drinks etc is way lower - I think they are all franchises.

[Worthy4England]

Is that the case for cup, or league?

Cup - FA Cup Rule 20...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Is that the case for cup, or league?

Cup - FA Cup Rule 20...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

At least the roads won't be fecked - council pause the road closures during the next two home games:
https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/road-closur ... match-days

[TANGODANCER]

Maybe I'm expecting a bit too much, but the risky way we played at the back tonight wont work against Luton and we need to keep Maghoma forward. He gave me the heebie-jeebies every time he got the ball in our half and Accy did get a few clear shots at our goal that could easily have changed things. All still horses for courses, so keep the faith, but let's not get careless.

[boltonboris]

Part of the plan was to engage them. Make them jump into the press when they weren't ready to and we break it and are in behind. It worked numerous times and the amount of 4v4 situations that we presented and nearly took was great. Really took the game to them

It is risk and reward though. Sometimes you get caught, but we won 3-1 and probably wouldn't do it as often against Luton. We'd be more likely to try and turn the ball over from them and counter in numbers

[TANGODANCER]

I'm keeping the F.A.Cup games in one thread by just changing venues and dates. Due to the sad incident of the postponed Cheltenham game, the team should be fresher for only playing half-an-hours football. Luton are currently well down the Premier table but that won't relate, because they're still two leagues above us in reality and it will be a tough call to win this one. That said, we are the mighty Whites and playing at home, so go forth and conquer...

[knobpolisher]

Being perfectly honest I hope we give a good a account of ourselves and lose 0 - 1.
I don't want anything to distract from our promotion push , and our fixture pile up could be horrendous.
I'd rather be playing Luton and Everton in the championship next season.

[GhostoftheBok]

Being perfectly honest I hope we give a good a account of ourselves and lose 0 - 1.
I don't want anything to distract from our promotion push , and our fixture pile up could be horrendous.
I'd rather be playing Luton and Everton in the championship next season.

I disagree with this, profoundly, and not just because I want Bolton to win every game we play.

A couple of years ago there'd have been sense to it, but we're in a different place now. We should finish this window with two solid 11s - we're close to that now.

Those players need football and the cup runs offer us the chance to keep minutes in everyone's legs.

The issue we have right now is that certain players have been playing almost constantly, but what we've seen is that lads are now stepping in to take that strain. Ashworth and Matheson came in as we advanced in the Trophy and Iredale took over for Williams yesterday.

It's actively desirable to have the extra games, so long as the manager trusts the full 22+ players at his disposal and will play them. You don't want lads sat around every week and lacking match fitness.

We made, what, 6 changes from the cup game for Cheltenham? That's without Geth and CMG n the reckoning.

Going out of the cups doesn't help us in the league. We're better off in them, winning football matches and keeping everyone in the squad happy with lots of game time.

When you can swap out Maghoma, Morley, Dad Bod, etc as a League One outfit and not feel weakened then there is no reason not go go full tilt on all fronts.

Internationals are masking the strength of our position right now. Not often we've been able to say that in recent years.

Get these lads to Wembley, give them the dream of getting there in the FA Cup (however unlikely) and watch how much confidence that gives them in the league.

[BWFC_Insane]

^I don’t think we have two 11’s yet. We are a few additions short. And the fixture congestion has only heightened how critical it is to add players this window. I’d say it’s become a must rather than a ‘ideally we would’

But I think the point about cups is fixture congestion. Go deeper in the cups and we could be looking at playing Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday for one or maybe even two weeks. Especially if we suffer a weather related postponement at any point.

The season won’t be extended. So four games in a week is possible, maybe at a critical point of the season. Maybe where we’d have to win all four to stay in contention.


I don’t think that’s desirable. The league is what matters. It is what determines our future. Cups are an irrelevance right now.

[GhostoftheBok]

I don’t think that’s desirable. The league is what matters. It is what determines our future. Cups are an irrelevance right now.

Bollocks to that.

Winning things is never irrelevant in professional football. It's the whole point. It's why you go into the game, aside from the fact it looks after you financially. You don't look back on your career and think fondly of that time your bonus hit your account.

If we got into a tricky situation with fixtures we could prioritise the league at that stage, using the B Teamers. Why pre-empt it - and cost ourselves revenue?

A club our size will never win anything with that mentality, as there will always be concerns over the league for some reason or another. I've no intention of watching Bolton "prioritise the league" for the next 40 years, with little to no hope of ever winning the top division title.

People complain that our lads don't have a winning mentality, then demand we wilt out of the cups.

Again, bollocks to that.

[Harry Genshaw]

Aye, when has prioritising other comps worked for us in the past? Try and win every game we play. It breeds confidence.