Friday, February 12, 2010

I'll take one ticket for a dollar, please

A soccer team in England is using the Radiohead model of sales to boost attendance, and it's working.

When Radiohead released their last album, they did it without any record label and they did it online, using a pay-what-you-want way of selling records. It worked very well for them, and apparently it's working well for the English soccer team.

Reds fans often use the "it's too expensive" excuse for not attending games, and often attendance is embarrassing. I wonder if this pay-what-you-want model would work for teams that struggle to draw fans. There are too many games to make it work all season, but maybe for select days?

Then again, the "too expensive" excuse Cincinnatians use is just that - an excuse. It's not too expensive when you can take a family of four to the ballpark for less than $30 (that includes parking.)

2 comments:

Jason McGlone said...

Beyond that, imagine how much more cash the Reds would make at the concession stands if, say, I didn't feel like paying anything at the gate. They'd probably end up getting at least close to the same amount of money from me--and probably lots of other folks who probably wouldn't otherwise go to games on any kind of regular basis.

johnu1 said...

Well, you have to charge them SOME-thing in order for it to count as a paid admission. I think there might be a break-even number on a per-seat basis, but no idea what that is.

Concession income would go to a different account but it does still imply that the fan has invested some money in the day. Souvenirs, sodas or the Hall of Fame ... the club benefits, as does the MLB marketing and the vendors who have to pay to be there.

I'd say the one thing the Reds should work on constantly is making it easy for people to get to the area of the ballpark and have a place to park (or walk, or ride a shuttle bus.)