Captain_Townsend Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 (edited) On 17/02/2024 at 13:58, ender4 said: If I had a place to eat and drink before the match (with no entry cost to get in) and could get served at half-time, I’d easily spend an extra £40 without even noticing I was spending extra. Instead I eat elsewhere away from the ground, get wasted before I even get to Aston and then buy nothing in/at the ground. I’ve been to the Spurs ground as a ‘home fan’ and I spent more in their ground than I’ve ever spent at VP. There were no real queues to buy stuff, there was space to chill and chat with mates whilst drinking, prices were a bit higher but after 3 drinks you don’t really notice. I would struggle to spend £19 at Villa Park even though I am willing to. Wasn't that the whole point of our original redevelopment? We planned for Villa Live to be a venue that would get people to the ground earlier on match day (and to the ground on non match days) to basically spend more at Villa. Edited February 18 by Captain_Townsend 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wishywashy Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 (edited) In the revised planning permission when Villa Live was mothballed, a lot of of the various offerings lost from scaling back Villa Live: like the club shop, the sports bar and the museum, were actually going to be incorporated into the North Stand via a mezzanine instead. Evidently, this mitigates the scaled back plans and means the decision does make sense. That is until the club end up cancelling the North Stand. They're faced with the situation that they've spent years working on a massive redevelopment of Villa Park, that would have ideally tackled these underlying issues that prevent fans from spending. Now, all they've got to show for it is a still theoretical retrofitted café, in a building they were initially very happy to demolish. Really don't understand what the club are doing with Villa Park at the moment. All they've done is just put a lick of paint on pre-existing offerings and attached a GA+ 'Premium Experience' tag on them. It's underhanded and insulting. The cherry on top would be if the club decided that The Warehouse should also be a Premium Experience. All this because the redeveloped North Stand was scrapped for reasons we can only guess at. The President responsible for communicating these decisions has done nothing but tell us, and evidently the council, authorities and every other stakeholder in this redevelopment, blatant lies. One regular year of Aston Villa. Will never happen. Edited February 18 by wishywashy 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheltenham_villa Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 19 hours ago, Brumstopdogs said: The biggest proportion of matchday per fan is still ticket income and ours is unfortunately still far to low for a premier league club. I think we have a proportionally higher number of season tickets compared to others and that is one of the biggest problems for the club. I'd predict another 15% rise on my season ticket is coming in the summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwivillan Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Is elephant in room new stadium? I've heard it mentioned in passing on podcasts and obviously not a popular talking point 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Yes because in the Doug Ellis it's next to literally impossible to spend money on food or beverages without missing the game and to date, since Keith Wyness not a single thing has been done about it. Not even the bare basics of....getting staff to serve and not mope about. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 4 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said: Is elephant in room new stadium? I've heard it mentioned in passing on podcasts and obviously not a popular talking point If you look at what spurs of done and think that they are the weakest of the big 6 then for me yes (or even arsenal, their stadium makes a killing too) it's a huge advantage for them over us Anyone been on the VP tour and had the guide show you the trinity and proudly say Everton only have 1 corporate area while we have loads? I imagine spurs guide in a few years will say something similar about us And if the stadium stuff being part of FFP is on the horizon (which is a **** joke) then we need to twist before it's too late 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugeley Villa Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 21 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said: The biggest proportion of matchday per fan is still ticket income and ours is unfortunately still far to low for a premier league club. I think we have a proportionally higher number of season tickets compared to others and that is one of the biggest problems for the club. I'd predict another 15% rise on my season ticket is coming in the summer. That’s from 2021/22 though. We’ll no doubt be higher now although still not close to the top clubs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galway Lion Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 You only need to see the crowd at Spurs and the number of Korean tourists. They would spend a fortune. Would be interesting to know how many season tickets are owned by Korean agents 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 19 hours ago, villa4europe said: £71 a game?! That's madness Interesting to see a proper breakdown of it, if it's day trippers buying merch, if it's the prices being sky high or if they've created a space that fans want to be in and spend longer there To me the lower grounds should have been that, VP has the problem that way too many fans want to get there at 2.59pm and walk out the second the final whistle goes (I'm guilty as charged) if we were at home today with a 3pm kick off where are villa fans watching the early and late kick off? It's not at VP, whereas I think spurs have done that It's not really, they charge £5.20 or more for a pint. The service speed is lightening quick and fans can and do come to the ground early and stay later as there is huge space for them on site to watch the early kick off and late kick off games. So the total time they spend there is multiple drinks and food + ticket price. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain_Townsend Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 We Don't need New stadium. Did anybody actually look at the North stand plans? There was serious premium offerings there and a new glass area over tunnel area you could pay to enter. Not to mention the original Villa Live proposal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain_Townsend Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 (edited) Replying to myself here! We are a bit like Newcastle. We have two sides that are poor and two sides that are good. North and Witton Lane being poor obviously, Trinity and Holte being good. 1. We had a great plan to make the poorest end the best stand and great offerings behind it. 2. I am sure something better could happen on Witton Lane too. Architects would deliver something there, I have no doubt. Fulham are building a new stand right next to the Thames for heavens sake! Edited February 18 by Captain_Townsend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 18 VT Supporter Share Posted February 18 10 hours ago, GingerCollins29 said: A lot of these "fans" will be daytripper tourists, on a short holiday, buying replica shirts of their international players, especially so at the sky 6. Honestly, look in the background at the crowd when Spuds are on telly. The amount of South Koreans (my assumption) is unreal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 1 hour ago, Captain_Townsend said: We Don't need New stadium. Did anybody actually look at the North stand plans? There was serious premium offerings there and a new glass area over tunnel area you could pay to enter. Not to mention the original Villa Live proposal. The issue is that's one stand. Club needs to increase the income per fan and to do that needs improvements elsewhere in the ground as 75%+ of the fans are not in North Stand. To improve fan experience you want more fans coming earlier and more fans staying later, this eases the pressure on transport links and also increases the revenue per fan. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerCollins29 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 22 minutes ago, sidcow said: Honestly, look in the background at the crowd when Spuds are on telly. The amount of South Koreans (my assumption) is unreal. Best thing we could do to boost our revenue is buy an Asian superstar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted February 18 Moderator Share Posted February 18 The big difference in spend per head from fans isn't whether they have an extra pint, it's what they spend in the shop - I was (working) at the Wolves-Spurs games earlier this year at the Orange Bowl and the number of Korean fans that were there hours before the game with endless carrier bags of merchandise was really, really notable. The difficulty is that in order to increase spend per head in a globally impactful sports market, the obstacle to success is season ticket holders, it's the people that come for the football - what you want, if spend per head is your number one goal, is tourists. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allani Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 41 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said: The big difference in spend per head from fans isn't whether they have an extra pint, it's what they spend in the shop - I was (working) at the Wolves-Spurs games earlier this year at the Orange Bowl and the number of Korean fans that were there hours before the game with endless carrier bags of merchandise was really, really notable. The difficulty is that in order to increase spend per head in a globally impactful sports market, the obstacle to success is season ticket holders, it's the people that come for the football - what you want, if spend per head is your number one goal, is tourists. Although I think that Leeds Utd also have an average spend per fan per match that is considerably higher than Villa's. Obviously the Sky 6 have access to the "global tourist fans" that you mention. But our spend per person is (assuming the table published above is still more or less correct) more than 30% lower than Southampton, Brentford, Brighton, West Ham, Newcastle and Leeds. West Ham possibly have the bonus of the Olympic Stadium to thank for that and maybe the Newcastle figures have been further inflated since their CL qualification and state ownership. But I don't think we can dismiss Leeds earning almost 40% more (possible excuse being first time in the PL for a while?) or Palace, Wolves, Brentford and Brighton doing a better job. I don't think they get more "out of town" fans and I don't think that they would have a lot more access to a fan base with significantly more disposal income. To rival the Sky 6 obviously we need a sustained period of time in / around the top of the league, qualifying for European football, etc. But it still seems like there is lots that we can do to raise our match day income without "ripping off" fans who go every week. Of course they won't be spending £100 every week in the club shop - but there must be ways of improving the services provided to either encourage people to arrive / leave a little earlier or spend more at half-time (the fact that so many people post on this forum about not being able to buy a beer or pie at half-time is a pretty damning indictment that we're not making it easy enough for fans to spend money that they would be willing / happy to spend). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted February 18 Moderator Share Posted February 18 15 minutes ago, allani said: (assuming the table published above is still more or less correct). I'm not putting a lot of faith into that table to be honest - I'm not sure how they'd go about gathering those figures, they aren't something that's publicly available or can be deduced from the published accounts. It'd be interesting to see the source of the numbers or any kind of methodology. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 (edited) 1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said: The big difference in spend per head from fans isn't whether they have an extra pint, it's what they spend in the shop - I was (working) at the Wolves-Spurs games earlier this year at the Orange Bowl and the number of Korean fans that were there hours before the game with endless carrier bags of merchandise was really, really notable. The difficulty is that in order to increase spend per head in a globally impactful sports market, the obstacle to success is season ticket holders, it's the people that come for the football - what you want, if spend per head is your number one goal, is tourists. That's only part of it. Korean fans don't spend as much on alcohol as English fans. If you get fans to the ground earlier and they leave later and you can serve them quickly at half time. You're charging £5+ per pint and people are drinking 4,5 6 pints there and they need to eat so £10-15 for that. You're getting £30-40 extra per fan and those are at 40%+ profit margins. The vast majority of fans going to games are English season ticket holders or regular fans. This is the main case for new stadiums. They are designed so fans enjoy being there for long periods of time and then they end up spending more money. Everything they spend money on is very high profit margin like beer, food, drinks, merchandise etc.. I was at the Tottenham stadium a couple of seasons ago. I think we got to the stadium an hour before kick off and then watched Villa and City draw in late kick off in the stadium after the game. So that's 2pm to just after 7pm, lots of beers, food whatever was spent. I've been to Brentford, Brighton, West Ham and they are good for arriving and having beers there. So not surprised to see them higher up in the list too Edited February 18 by CVByrne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted February 18 Moderator Share Posted February 18 I think we're overestimating the impact of pies and pints on finances. It's a difficult and odd thing to accept, but the way to get more from your commercial income isn't by getting an extra £100 each out of the 40,000 fans in the ground, it's getting an extra £1 each out of the 4 million that are following you on Instagram and watching on a TV somewhere. As supporters that attend and live locally, we assume an importance for ourselves in the game that we no longer have, that balance has changed. A senior footballing executive told me that City don't worry about empty seats at the Etihad because it's not where their money comes from. What was true at the beginning of this century is less true than it once was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 6 hours ago, CVByrne said: The issue is that's one stand. Club needs to increase the income per fan and to do that needs improvements elsewhere in the ground as 75%+ of the fans are not in North Stand. To improve fan experience you want more fans coming earlier and more fans staying later, this eases the pressure on transport links and also increases the revenue per fan. Isn’t that what Villa Live was supposed to do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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