Premier League clubs could face action over ticket prices if fans are no longer valued

For generations, football belonged to working-class folk. Stadiums up and down the country were packed to the rafters week in, week out, a sea of flat caps and cigarette smoke as thousands turned up to see their heroes bring some cheer to their weekend after a long working week.

The flat caps and the cigarettes may have gone, the latter not a bad thing, but the joy that football brings to the teams that reside in its communities has not. Thousands still keep coming, they still come in search of the euphoric feeling that only football can truly deliver.

But as times have changed, so too has football. It has had to, nothing lasts forever.

Some point to the formation of the back in 1992 as the moment the game set off on a journey that would change the course of the game forever. In reality, time, technology, attitudes and a whole manner of other things move on, meaning that simply staying the same can never be an option.

Tickets are now not the accessible price for all that they may have been some 40, 50, or 60 years ago. There are layered levels of support, from watching the game on a terrace with a restricted view to watching it in a hospitality box with your own personal chef and a bottle of Margeaux.

They all have a cost, but as clubs have become more and more reliant on raising revenues to meet the ever-increasing cost of payroll, transfer fees, agents, not to mention the infrastructure of the football club to allow it to maximise other revenue-generating opportunities across the business, the cost, as is often the case, gets passed on to the consumer, in this case, though, the customer is actually the fan, and fans are not customers. The failure of the European Super League should have taught clubs that.

The fans, rightly, get angry when clubs try to pass on increased costs to them through higher ticket prices. The club argument is often that they feel they have no choice.

Which side is in the right here depends on your own personal opinion of the modern game and how football clubs now have to operate in a multi-billion pound global industry where there are so many stakeholders. For context, for some time Premier League season ticket prices had largely remained frozen.

In an era of low inflation and Premier League broadcast revenues rising sharply both domestically and internationally, there was less pressure on clubs as businesses, and at a time when they were enjoying more money than ever arriving in the coffers, hiking ticket prices for fans would have been a poor look. But things have changed economically in a significant way, and the signs have been there for a little while when it comes to domestic TV rights plateauing, something that will inevitably lead to decline in the coming years.

The most recent Premier League broadcast deal was trumpeted as a success, and on the face of it a rise from £5bn to £6.7bn would appear to be so. But that deal is now over four years instead of three, and the Premier League have given away an extra 70 games per season, up to 270, to broadcasters.

In real terms, the actual value of each game has diminished, while the ‘rise’ is actually the Premier League treading water. For the Premier League they still have hope that the continued love-in for English football’s top-flight internationally will yield bigger revenues when the next cycle comes around, especially with the United States now a market of serious growth.

It is likely that those revenues will rise considerably, but it might not be the panacea for all that ails Premier League clubs. Frozen ticket prices had become commonplace over the last 10 to 15 years, but with external pressures mounting in terms of rising costs, of the 12 teams to have announced their season ticket prices for next season, only Crystal Palace has continued to impose a freeze.

Liverpool’s first rise in seven years is 2%, Manchester United have increased prices by 5%, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur 6%, and Brighton & Hove Albion 8%. Brentford, Burnley, Everton, Manchester City, Sheffield United, and West Ham United have also increased prices for next season.

For Nottingham Forest fans, however, this season’s ticket rise was a brutal one, with the club having increased its season ticket prices by an average of 24% for the 2024/25 season, even if they fall through the Premier League trapdoor and back into the Championship next season. Aston Villa also incurred the wrath of fans earlier this year when they were seen to be cashing in on the long-awaited return of Champions League football and a seat at the European game’s very top table by hiking prices for the games at Villa Park.

The decision was lamented by the Aston Villa Supporters Trust and the wider football family, with the club labelled "out of touch" after revealing they were charging up to £97 a ticket for home Champions League matches this season. Adult tickets for their four home matches in the new 36-team league format will be £85, £94 and £97, while season-ticket holders get discounted rates of £70, £79 and £82.

Villa’s defence was that they had to make “difficult decisions” in order to stay competitive. But despite the furore, the anger was soon forgotten when those in attendance at a packed-out Villa Park witnessed a memorable European night as Jhon Duran fired home a late winner to secure a famous win over Bayern Munich.

As wonderful as the result was, any message and protest about price rises was largely lost in all the commotion. The hierarchy were allowed off the hook, something that is often repeated up and down the country. It’s hard to get ownership to make major U-turns as it often means that staying away in protest is the only way, the problem is in the hyper-commercialised Premier League world is that someone will step in to fill the void, meaning that there is demand continues to outpace supply, and that remains the key leverage for club owners.

Like all industries, football is facing a problem in terms of rising costs, at the same time that fans are also feeling the pinch in their everyday lives. Market-driven factors and rising inflation have impacted significant cost lines including wage costs, labour-based contracts, utilities, and rates at clubs, the majority of which are loss-making businesses.

To use some inspiration from the wonderful 2011 financial drama, ‘Margin Call’, the view of many clubs is that now the music has started to slow down for the Premier League in terms of broadcast revenue, at a time of macroeconomic pressures forcing day-to-day costs to rise, as well as the fact that despite all of these external factors the wages of players continue to head north, as do transfer fees, there has to be a cost to bear, and that means pulling levers such as raising ticket prices and on merchandise. They will be deeply concerned about when they can’t hear the music at all.

It is a deeply unpopular move for clubs to pull such levers, but in an industry where most clubs sell out their allocations, and where there is the expectation that the demand will continue even with price rises, clubs now have the strength in numbers to pull such a move. Once the first broke rank, the rest followed.

Season tickets are also an important factor in cash flowing the business. The summer months can be lean with no games played, while new signings and the need to spend money in the market still exist.

Season ticket sales help the cash flow of clubs through this period, and an increase in the money coming into the club ahead of the season is a welcome boost. There is also the added concern for clubs around how they remain compliant with the Premier League’s current profit and sustainability rules, and the forthcoming squad cost ratio regulations, both of which carry sporting sanctions through points deductions, which can be hugely impactful for business.

A breach can be £20m, or it could be £2m. It remains a breach that will be punished, as Forest has found out this season. At a time when clubs are having to try and raise more money to meet costs and remain compliant, ticket prices offer a chance for some additional help.

But from a business perspective, raising ticket prices would be a normal course of action, especially given that the Consumer Price Index inflation has risen 33% since May 2014. That means the costs have increased at a time when ticket prices haven’t followed. Clubs are now starting to close that gap.

From a fan point of view of view, however, football clubs are community assets, and fans are not customers. If a business starts charging more for a service you can go elsewhere to find a cheaper deal, but fans can’t simply switch off their allegiance and go and watch football elsewhere.

Football clubs have to strike that balance, and not all are managing to do that. But it is hard to be too sympathetic to big business where the owners and stars are paid in multiple millions.

For supporters, the cost of living has risen sharply in recent years coming out of the pandemic. Budgets are more stretched than ever and people are having to prioritise more and more.

While for some football is a non-negotiable when it comes to budgeting, for others it is just an impossible cost to meet.

There is no richer domestic football competition on Planet Earth than the Premier League. A competition that spends tens of millions taking its own clubs to court; a competition where spending more and more on wages and on transfer fees is not only expected but encouraged by some fans, fuelled by social media; a competition that generates billions in revenue each year, you would think that more could be done to exert power to make sure that football is affordable for fans.

The same goes for UEFA and those clubs competing in its competitions. Matchday revenue hasn’t been the most important thing on a club’s balance sheet for a long time, but it has often been a lever to pull first whenever cash needs to be found.

Broadcast revenues remain the golden goose for clubs, followed by commercial revenues, then comes the matchday revenues. As clubs have started to try and wean themselves off the reliance on broadcast revenue given the potential iceberg that could be hit in a few years when we see the diminution in the value of broadcast rights because the broadcasters simply can’t meet the need to pay more each cycle, they have looked to other avenues, such as maximising the potential of global fans who can’t attend the game live but want the same experience.

There is nothing to suggest that increasing revenue from that group of fans would be used to offset ticket prices for those match-going fans. The clubs still need the matchday revenue, it is hugely important for cash flow at lean times.

During the summer months, with no income, the season ticket money arrives. During the season there is fresh cash into the building in the millions every couple of weeks.

While the value on the balance sheet may not be as big, the importance in terms of cash-flowing a business is. The further you get down the pyramid the more important matchday revenue becomes.

There are always two sides to every story, and as big business, which it undeniably is now, and which we played an active role in creating, these clubs see matchday revenue as a revenue stream to be relied upon, one where supply and demand dictates pricing. Clubs are always going to need to be competitive, but that is a hard line to sell fans at every price hike.

There is only so far supporters can go before they say no. We’re not at the point where we are facing mass walkouts and non-attendance at games as, as mentioned before, there is so much demand.

But it will come at some stage in the future if the fans continue to be squeezed out. It is cliche, but football is nothing without fans.

Watching empty stadiums and fake crowd noise during the pandemic was proof of that. The passion is of value as it is what makes the Premier League stand out, it is a major part of what broadcasters pay so much money to screen games around the world.

The value of fans and what they bring to the table should never be diminished, and that starts with addressing the attitude of many clubs, not all, to hiking ticket prices.