Ticket Prices - Match Categorization

RichMc70

On what basis do you think the club catergorizes the games for ticketing prices?

I can understand that each season there will be a handful of tasty games, which will attract desperate demand but what about the other catergories.

Heres what I'm talking about :-

Category A matches are charged at the highest prices and those games are against.....
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, West Ham United
(How on earth does Man City and West Hame get into this category?)

Category B are I guess the middle of the road type games against.....
Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Everton, Fulham, Portsmouth, Sunderland

Category C matches, I assume are the games which are supposedly bottom of the pile and against......
Birmingham City, Burnley, Hull City, Stoke City, Wigan Athletic, Wolves

Now what I don't understand is how games against Blackburn, Bolton, Fulham, Pompey and Sunderland are somehow deemed a higher category than the teams in Category C.

The natural assumption is that it's all about the money, which I think is true, but why bother with a three tier ticket pricing system. The club may as well just have two and stick an extra quid on the bottom prices.

Link to club website ticket prices
http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/tickets/ticketinfo_prices.html

therecklessone

RichMc70 wrote: »

On what basis do you think the club catergorizes the games for ticketing prices?

Demand for tickets, from both home and away fans.

The Bingo Club have always been a Cat A game, always sells out plus they take their full allocation.

Citeh are replacing Newcastle this season, I'd imagine on the basis that they're seen as challengers to the top 4, plus with players like Tevez/Adebayor/Robinho etc they might attract the casual PL fans (not necessarily Spurs fans)

I've no idea why we have a 3 tier scheme, but it works from the marketing side so they must be doing something right.

Hearvee

The Cat A matches are obviously the ones the ones with big demand, so London derbies against the Goons/Chelski/Spammers will always be there, as well as the other top 4 teams (Utd/Liverpool). Man City will be in there this season as lots of casual fans will want to see their big money team.

The Cat C matches are usually those teams who are expected to be relegation fodder, so won't be much of a draw to supporters. And all those teams are relatively new to the premiership.

Cat B just holds everyone else.

RichMc70

If its based on demand for tickets then I would expect all Cat A and Cat B fixtures to be sell outs, however the attendance figures for last season does not back up that theory.

e.g.
Hull City (Cat C Fixture) 36,062
Everton (Cat B Fixture) 35,742
West Ham (Cat A Fixture) 35,969

Therefore Hull drew a bigger attendance than both Cat B & Cat A classed fixtures.

Obviously as things stand we have a relatively low stadium capacity compared to other clubs of our size. When the new stadium is built and we are playing in a stadia capacity of say 60,000 then I certainly think the three tier game category system will become more relevant. For the moment I believe it's a sham to squeeze a few extra quid out of our pockets.

Personally I do not feel any extra excitement or nerves between games involving us and any of the Cat B and Cat C fixtures. I generally sit in the South Stand Lower so my ticket prices for the season will be Cat A £42.10, Cat B £32.30 and Cat C £27.40. So does a game against Blackburn or Bolton really warrant and extra £4.90, than say a game against Burnley or Hull ???

Anyway I've decided to email the club for their outlook on the matter, so will update you in due course (if I get a reply)

Mullo76

Bear in mind the 5 of the C games are usually classed as family games with added advantages so this encourages more families/kids etc to go boosting up the numbers.

RichMc70

Finally I have received a reply from the club in regard to my email query concerning Ticket Pricing Catergorisation. Anyway here's what they sent to me:-

Subject: RE: Ticket Price Categories
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:50:48 +0100
From: Customer.Care@tottenhamhotspur.com
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Hello,
Thank you for your email. Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding.

After discussing your query with the Ticketing Manager I can confirm that as a London derby, West Ham has always been a Category ‘A’ fixture (Fulham has moved from Cat ‘C’ to Cat ‘B’).

The reasoning behind the placement of a Club in a particular Category includes the relative attractiveness of the opposition and recent League positions. We feel many agree with the choices that find established Premier League Clubs categorised more highly than those newly promoted.

We have passed your comments to the ticketing department for their attention.

Kind regards,

Customer Care


They did not answer many other questions I put forward in my email, however I did'nt expect anything more. I dare say all the other PL clubs are doing the same thing in some form and if so then I think the whole thing stinks in that it is some kind of 'price fixing cartel', but maybe that's just the dubious side of my nature.

therecklessone

Rich, as long as I've been a ST holder we've had 6 Cat A, 7 Cat B, and 6 Cat C home league fixtures, I really don't see the problem mate.

RichMc70

therecklessone wrote: »

Rich, as long as I've been a ST holder we've had 6 Cat A, 7 Cat B, and 6 Cat C home league fixtures, I really don't see the problem mate.

Ronan, theres no problem as such other than I believe the three tier system is pointless as a marketing tool. Outside of the so called 'big four', I really do not see any justification for ticket price differential.

Anyway I got my reply from the club, which I was pleased about, whether I agree with them or not.

End of topic for me on this one.