It’s no secret that Tottenham Hotspur Football Club were against the £30 price cap for away fans in the Premier League.
This was already in the public domain.
The social misfits at the THST (Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust) who had already noisily wet the bed over this issue some good time ago.
Primarily this was because it denied them the opportunity to add the deal to their list of spurious ‘achievements’…
So the contents of the leak at least, came as no surprise.
The ‘context is everything’ mantra is something I would ensure every schoolchild in the country learned and understood as if it were the Lord’s prayer.
Of course it’s easy to brand a cheapskate as a cheapskate, but on this occasion, I’d be interested in hearing a more nuanced explanation from young Daniel.
Does he ‘personally’ hate it because it means he’s losing a few quid on match day? Or does he ‘personally’ hate it because it’s not a solution?
My guess is that it’s a bit of both.
One, it straightforwardly opens the gates to discounting tickets. Which is something Levy fundamentally doesn’t understand, so his ‘hate’ is a natural response.
Two, away ticket pricing almost neither here nor there.
Know your customer.
Away fans are a different breed, and if anything you could subject them to a modest price hike and you still wouldn’t put them off.
And this is the interesting bit.
Away fans are a pivotal element of the match-day experience. Thanks to the Internet, humans have discovered the comfort of echo chambers, but at a football match, the absence of opponent supporters makes for a lesser atmosphere.
Levy’s preferred strategy would be to get a third party to offer a discount. So if the railway company or the coach company was interested in some extra business, then this could allow them to run a Premier League endorsed special offer.
After all, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but if you want to travel by train anywhere in the UK these days for more than a couple of hours, it will routinely cost you about £100.
What’s interesting, or perhaps curious is a better word, is that Levy doesn’t understand that for the OVERWHELMING majority of fans who DO NOT attend games, but watch on TV, the atmosphere is just as important.
Gate receipts have become increasingly less relevant for about a decade. The real money is in broadcasting rights and player trading.
I have extremely severe doubts about the torturous business of flogging fans overpriced food, drink and merchandise – in the flesh.
In case anyone hadn’t noticed, conventional retail is dying on its arse, pubs and restaurants are all in decline.
More people are not just shopping online, but almost eating online, getting recipes ingredients delivered to their door either by a supermarket or by bespoke menu companies.
These aren’t fads, this is the future.
Levy unveiling the biggest retail space of any football club in Europe makes me wince. I’d be more impressed to hear he’d bought shares in production facility in China as well as a distribution network in the UK.
So beat Levy up, by all means. But not over this. There are far darker, indeed, far dafter strategies at work.