by sussexpob » Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:06 pm
You can currently get tickets tomorrow for £21 quid. You can get tickets to Trent Bridge for £25 on the 1/3 days. You can get tickets in Southampton for £40 on all the first three days. Thats for adults through the official websites. These arent exactly that expensive, are they?
If the fixture list falls the right way, on a given weekend over 150,000 people in Birmingham, or its direct urban conglomeration, are watching football live. This takes into account the bigger two teams are not actually in the top flight, and are not selling out. Cheapest ticket to Villa's game v Wigan, their next league match - currently £33. They averaged nearly 35,000 per match last season, over a course of 23 games they hosted. Nottingham has County, Forest, Derby all close. £28 quid cheapest ticket. Averaged 24,500 last year. Worth noting that if you drew a line of about 50 miles round these two places, how much competition they have to put up with for fans. But in the same geographical areas cricket cant get people to pay £21 quid for a whole days entertainment, the national team vs the best test side in the world? Cant fill a stadium of 16,000?
There is more to it then prices. Prices havent exactly gone up that much, I specifically remember going in what would have been 2006 or 2007 to Lords, when a rather unfancied and frankly terrible Windies side toured, and the prices were £65 quid minimum. I think the cheapest are still the same, or about £70 instead. Its a third of what is available tomorrow.
People would pay if they thought they were going to see something entertaining and relevant. In my opinion, maybe a lot like me, fans are so pissed off with the nonsense of administration in the game, being disregarded or talked about like idiots, they find it increasingly hard to find the motivation to go. If someone offered me a free ticket I wouldnt travel to see it. Ill watch it on tv no doubt tomorrow, follow the series, but wont go out of my way. Its kind of hard to support a team whole heartily with so many uninspiring people in it. Would I pay to see someone like Rashid bowl, or has it got that bad, Id rather see him fail so people in charge might wake up.
Lets be honest, not hide behind a pound sign. The future of cricket is bleak, and if the ECB continue to steer the ship in the wrong direction, very soon we will be talking about summer test series as a thing of the past. Falling sales for marquee tours are a very worrying health check.
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