Action Replay – The Price Is Right, or wrong
There has been a lot of media coverage about the cost of attending concerts by Taylor Swift and Oasis, and some – though much less – on the prices of tickets for sporting events. Particularly in the context of profitability and sustainability rules, football clubs now have to rely more on income from ticket sales, sponsorships and merchandise.
One particular case where fans objected was Aston Villa, who are back in the top European competition this season, after forty years away from it. Most fans will pay at least £70 to watch a home Champions League game, but in the top seats it will be over £90. The club at least changed their mind after trying to double the cost of disabled parking for the season. They have a kit deal, and shirt deals with betting companies to help them out a bit.
And it’s not just football. Tickets for top boxing events can cost upwards of £200. Also, there have been complaints about Lord’s cricket ground in London charging £95 to watch the fourth day of the Test against Sri Lanka, when the ground was less than a third full. Most years Lord’s hosts two Tests (out of six), while some well-known venues, which tend to be a lot cheaper, miss out. The MCC is a bastion of privilege and has been accused of racism and sexism. It is also a home of profit (over £67m in 2023).
Twickenham, the home of English rugby union, has now been renamed the Allianz Stadium, after the world’s largest insurance company, which has also acquired the name of Bayern Munich’s football stadium in Germany, as well as the rugby league ground in Sydney and a football stadium in São Paulo. Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh hosts Scotland’s rugby union internationals: except it’s now Scottish Gas Murrayfield. The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff is now the Principality Stadium. Plenty of other grounds are named after sponsors: Emirates, Etihad, Vitality, Amex and so on. And of course most big stadiums host not just sporting events but music concerts etc as well. In the US National Football League, far more stadiums have sponsors’ names than is the case in England.
Another way of boosting income for both football clubs and the European governing body UEFA is to increase the number of games. So the league stage of the Champions League (and other European competitions) has now been changed to eight matches per club rather than six, with an additional knock-out round for many of those participants too. Players complained that too many games made them tired, and there was even talk of a strike. Fifpro, the union for the very top players, stated that legal action against Fifa was ‘inevitable’ after the number of matches for the Club World Cup was increased too.
PB