What sort of football club can the town of Bolton support?

[BWFC_Insane]

Given the current bleak situation I think this question needs asking.

We have been living beyond our means as a club thanks to Mr Davies' generosity for the past decade and a half. When the tap has been turned off it is clear we are absolutely as far as possible away from being able to be self sufficient despite cutting massively season on season since relegation.

Now looking at our average attendance for the 14/15 season it puts us 14th in the championship. But a couple of league one clubs have higher average attendances. Of course now ours will be even lower.

The other factor here is ticket price. It is hard to get a true statistic of where we sit here given prices are a range for both season tickets and match day tickets for all clubs so impossible to quickly or easily determine an average. I can't imagine our average price is that high though.

So given that as a pure football club our income is likely to be towards the bottom end of the championship at best, and as far as I can tell we aren't likely to generate significant turnover from non-footballing activities (hotel breaks even iirc) what can the town really support?

We clearly are reliant on a new owner but even then, what is the potential here? We might have a higher attendance if we performed well, but that would need initial investment. Even then I suspect that increasing ticket prices is unlikely to generate significant additional income here as probably doing that significantly will lower attendances accordingly.

What then can we expect as a club given that, if we are self sufficient bottom of the championship or league one looks about right? Can we or should we do more as fans? Pay more, attend more? I don't have any answers but the reality is hitting home.

[Hoboh]

I honestly reckon over the long term, the move to Middlebrook and Chorley will prove to be a defining moment in the history of the club.

[BWFC_Insane]

I honestly reckon over the long term, the move to Middlebrook and Chorley will prove to be a defining moment in the history of the club.

Attendances aren't any lower though are they than if we were still at Burnden? And the problems of the town financially being able to sustain some sort of club wouldn't be any different there.

[Athers]

It's a fair point, but just to note that I think the question applies to the Football League only. If somehow BWFC was dropped back into the Premier League, they could let the crowd in for free and it wouldn't really dent the revenue. So in that sense we could support a PL club.

In the Football League where, if run correctly, our budget would feel like middle of the Championship to me as we have some advantage of commercial revenue streams which prop up our cheap season ticket prices.

[Bruce Rioja]

If it all goes tits up, I'm off watching Chorley. And that's that!

[Peter Thompson]

Put a decent side out on the pitch with decent players playing passionate decent football and crowds will eventually return - it'll take premiership football to get back to the regular 20,000 plus attendances, but we can get crowds of 17,000 / 18,000 on a regular basis in the championship if we are challenging at the top (which TBH is a long way off given our current situation & squad)

People slag off our attendances but we have been on an alarming decline since the Stoke semi final, and the football over the past 3 or 4 years has been dire and everything surrounding the club is negative. A lot of the fans who have stopped going over the past 12 - 18 months or so are hard core supporters who watched the team home & away throughout the 80's & 90's but who have simply had enough - seriously I know lots of fans / people who have watched the whites for 20-30 years or more who were just going to games out of sheer loyalty not because they wanted to or looked forward to it and were bored to tears by the quality of football on display

Improve the product on the pitch, give the fans some genuine hope and they will start to return - what's happening now is not the fans fault.

[Jugs]

I have to disagree with Peter on attendances, unfortunately. If you look back at our Championship winning season of 96/97, we did get 17,000 through the gates on occasion, but we also got 13,000-14,000 a lot of the time, too. Same as we are doing at the moment. In the home game before we clinched promotion against QPR, we got 14,150, while the home game before that saw less than 14,000 turn up. This despite us being well on our way to smashing 100 goals and almost 100 points. Surprise, surprise, 19,000 turned up to witness us clinch promotion. Our first Saturday home game of that season saw just 13,500 turn up. A few days earlier, we'd got 18,000 through the doors for City.

The fact is that there are certain fans who only turn up when we're in the PL, or it's a big game. Bolton - and numerous other clubs of our size - will never have 'good' crowds unless we're in the top flight.

Even teams who are doing well in this division, such as Birmingham and Cardiff, are still struggling with low crowds.

[Bruce Rioja]

Even teams who are doing well in this division, such as Birmingham and Cardiff, are still struggling with low crowds.

To be honest, Jugs, I pay for my season ticket on this interest free credit business. The thought of actually opening my wallet and peeling off £25 or so to watch some of the utter shite we've seen this season would have seen me probably missing more matches than I've seen.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

We seem to have a base of about 13,000 supporters in this division.

We were told it would grow if we got a big-name manager. It didn't.

We might like to think it would grow if we have a great season. It doesn't.

If we went up we'd get a few more; maybe the base would grow to say 18k, and the rest would be walkups.

If we went down... well, I don't know. When I first started going (Third Division, 86ish) the standard crowd was 4k - less was embarrassing, more was exciting. That was a club in decline: the base grew during the turnaround under Neal and Rioch, but it's not the same thing supporting a hopeful team on the up as opposed to one on the slide. Our own attendances in the 80s and early 90s prove that.

I think (without criticism) that Bruce Rioja's mindset is typical: it's a lot of money for not much entertainment. If we go down, whoever's in charge will have to look very very carefully at pricing.

[BWFC_Insane]

It is more complex than just attendances. Ours are low but also need to factor in average cost of tickets. As the combination of the two will determine turnover.

I suspect some clubs might have slightly lower averages but generate more turnover as prices are higher (QPR) for instance.

If we want a better team on the pitch we will need to generate higher income. If nobody is prepared to sink money in like Eddie, what is the answer?

[Bruce Rioja]

It is more complex than just attendances. Ours are low but also need to factor in average cost of tickets. As the combination of the two will determine turnover.

I suspect some clubs might have slightly lower averages but generate more turnover as prices are higher (QPR) for instance.

If we want a better team on the pitch we will need to generate higher income. If nobody is prepared to sink money in like Eddie, what is the answer?

There is a tipping point somewhere, but it doesn't look as though anyone's ever bothered to work out where it lies. If we were all in for say a Tenner, then not only would gates go up but presumably associate sales (pies, ale and whatnot) would also go up. This, of course, needs balancing against the cost of additional stewarding etc.

[BWFC_Insane]

There is a tipping point somewhere, but it doesn't look as though anyone's ever bothered to work out where it lies. If we were all in for say a Tenner, then not only would gates go up but presumably associate sales (pies, ale and whatnot) would also go up. This, of course, needs balancing against the cost of additional stewarding etc.

I know the club did a lot of modelling of this when we were in the premiership. I believe Allardyce presented a plan to raise ticket prices in order to fund transfers. IIRC the problem is that the money made on the "associate sales" is very small for whatever reason so the models really relied on attendance vs ticket price. I suspect the issue is that there isn't much to the tipping point either way.

[Athers]

*without research* The unfortunate truth is that football supporters aren't as sensitive to price (inelastic, technically) as we perhaps should be.

If we start from where we are and want to raise more revenue, we'd be better off increasing the price than decreasing.

I honestly think we'd not get 20,000 for our next match if it was free entry.

[BWFC_Insane]

*without research* The unfortunate truth is that football supporters aren't as sensitive to price (inelastic, technically) as we perhaps should be.

If we start from where we are and want to raise more revenue, we'd be better off increasing the price than decreasing.

I honestly think we'd not get 20,000 for our next match if it was free entry.

I think the club did research to show there was a sweet spot and if you went above it you ended up without net gain, generally.

It was a fair few years back though so I don't remember everything.

[Peter Thompson]

*without research* The unfortunate truth is that football supporters aren't as sensitive to price (inelastic, technically) as we perhaps should be.

If we start from where we are and want to raise more revenue, we'd be better off increasing the price than decreasing.

I honestly think we'd not get 20,000 for our next match if it was free entry.

With this current shower of shite I totally agree - but give supporters something to cheer about, better football, better players and a win every now & again and they will return, it will not happen overnight and they will not return immediately I'll stick by what I said in that we would get 17,000 - 18,000 home gates if we ever get a decent side challenging at the top end of the championship.

Its no surprise that crowds are dropping everything about the club over the past 3 or 4 years on & off the pitch is and has been dire....why should fans waste their time & money sitting through 90 mins of dross every week, you can almost predict what will happen every week before games start....give them something to get excited about and something to look forward to on match days - l'm actually surprised we get the crowds we do with the utter shite on display week in week out, they deserve a medal.

[Jugs]

As well as the game itself, the matchday experience needs to be improved.

For example, Worthington's or Carling inside the stadium? Two of the most awful beers around! Give us something decent to drink. Give us a proper choice. The coffee is no better either.

Who even drinks Worthy's anymore?

And perhaps they could stop running out of pies too, and teach the stewards to be a lot less zealous. The pre-match music could also be looked at because it's pretty dire at the moment. And what's the deal with showing repeats of Liverpool v Everton in the upper tier at half-time in the north upper tier?! Who's in charge of this stuff?

I get the feeling that every change they make to the matchday experience is aimed at kids and families. It's not good enough. They need to improve the experience for all.

[Bruce Rioja]

For example, Worthington's or Carling inside the stadium? Two of the most awful beers around!

At the Brentford game I chanced my arm on a hot choccie. It tasted of precisely nowt!

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

we would get 17,000 - 18,000 home gates if we ever get a decent side challenging at the top end of the championship.

Our last experience doesn't bear out your confidence, PT.

Early February 2001. Having reached three semi-finals the previous season, Bolton have won 10 of their last 13 games (the last five wins being 2-0, 2-0, 2-0, 2-0 and 3-0) and are second in the division. Huddersfield Town come across for a Roses clash, on a Saturday. How many do we get? 14,866.

Other Saturday attendances that season include

14,113 v Pompey (after five straight wins in the first six games)
13,406 v Barnsley
12,836 v Crewe (after four wins in six)
15,493 v Tranmere (the big grudge match of the season)

We did get bigger crowds on occasion - 21k for Sheff Wed on Boxing Day, 20k v Blackburn (local and promotion rivals) and just shy of that for PNE, who we'd meet again later that season, and 24k against Grimsby in what (IIRC) was the club's first big Family Day. But even in the middle of a promotion battle we usually settled back down to a base of 13,000 home fans, and even that wasn't guaranteed: for the midweek visit of QPR after one win in eight we got 10,180.

The attendances are all here, reported in good faith.

[Jugs]

For example, Worthington's or Carling inside the stadium? Two of the most awful beers around!

At the Brentford game I chanced my arm on a hot choccie. It tasted of precisely nowt!

It needs to be looked at mate. The quality of the drinks really is poor. There are non-league clubs that do it better.

[Bruce Rioja]

For example, Worthington's or Carling inside the stadium? Two of the most awful beers around!

At the Brentford game I chanced my arm on a hot choccie. It tasted of precisely nowt!

It needs to be looked at mate. The quality of the drinks really is poor. There are non-league clubs that do it better.

Indeed there are - Chorley for one, whose catering is superb.