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Are ticket prices getting silly?

Nibbles

Cricket Spectator
Ive just recieved an email from Edgbaston regarding tickets for next years Ashes series. Tickets this year were £55-£60 for both the test and NZ ODI, and the previous ashes tour the tickets were, if i remember correctly, £45 (we went on the Sunday!)

Heres what the email said;

Ahead of the massive demand for Ashes Tickets the Club has set up a dedicated hotline to deal with all the enquiries. The hotline number is 0844 277 1882 and will be live for Members on Monday 11th August from 10.00am. Members tickets will be £60 while all other tickets will be £75 each. Members will have exclusive access until 14th September when previous International bookers from between 2005-2008 will have a chance to purchase before the remainder go on general sale to the public from 1st October. Tickets will also be available online throughout the process.
£75 :o

Having read through the internet a bit, it seems like the Oval may be charging something approaching £100, with Lords doing similar.

The problem is, whilst they might get a decent crowd on one day (especially if they get the corporates in), the general public, particularly those students amoungst us (me included) who make up a large portion of the crowds, are almost being completely priced out of watching one of the best sporting events in the country.

I suspect if i say to people who i plan to go with that the tickets are £75 il get laughed at. And that doesnt even begin to take into account what happens if it rains or is a dull day cricket in general. Edgbaston's policy is on a half refund if theres less than 20 overs bowled, no refund if any more!

Is this getting crazy?

I dont know who sets the prices, i suspect its the grounds themselves as, particularly outside of London there is very little big cricket events on to draw in crowds. But surely raising the prices to such a level is likely to result in a much smaller crowd than ideal with a large portion of the crowd being the suit brigade who can afford it and not those people who bring an atmosphere to a match!

Thoughts?!
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
I have some sympathy with them for doing this. Demand far outstrips supply for Ashes tickets and so it's perfectly natural that the price is high. This is a major source of income for the English game and they wouldn't be doing their job if they failed to make proper use of it.

I know that the issue isn't straightforward and there's a risk of pricing some people out of watching Test matches altogether. However there are often occasions when cheap tickets can be had - for instance on the 5th day at Lord's when kids got in for free and adults for something like £15.
 
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dontcloseyoureyes

BARNES OUT
I have some sympathy with them for doing this. Demand far outstrips supply for Ashes tickets and so it's perfectly natural that the price is high. This is a major source of income for the English game and they wouldn't be doing their job if they made proper use of it.

I know that the issue isn't straightforward and there's a risk of pricing some people out of watching Test matches altogether. However there are often occasions when cheap tickets can be had - for instance on the 5th day at Lord's when kids got in for free and adults for something like £15.
Yeah I agree with this post completely.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Per day.

Can't imagine paying 160 AUD for one day of cricket. Especially the brand of cricket England play. Insane.
That may say as much about the AUD as it does about the cricket...

I've paid more than that to watch cricket. I paid £200 for a pair of tickets for the 5th day of the Oval Test in 2005 on the off-chance that I might see some play - best money I ever spent. I also paid God-knows-how-much to travel to Australia to watch the Sydney New Year's Test in 2007 (less good value!), and to watch the World Cup in 1992.

If you love cricket then spending 75 quid for a day's play is a lot but not beyond most people's means.
 

pasag

RTDAS
That may say as much about the AUD as it does about the cricket...

I've paid more than that to watch cricket. I paid £200 for a pair of tickets for the 5th day of the Oval Test in 2005 on the off-chance that I might see some play - best money I ever spent. I also paid God-knows-how-much to travel to Australia to watch the Sydney New Year's Test in 2007 (less good value!), and to watch the World Cup in 1992.

If you love cricket then spending 75 quid for a day's play is a lot but not beyond most people's means.
Honestly, to me it's an absurd price for something that you're not guaranteed to get value for and you can watch on TV anyways.

It's out of the price range of most young people and at the end of the day they're the ones who are supposed to be taking cricket forward, not the old toffs in the crowd. We speak about making cricket more accessible to the masses with T20s but this totally goes against that, when many can't even get in to the grounds in the first place.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
It's out of the price range of most young people and at the end of the day they're the ones who are supposed to be taking cricket forward, not the old toffs in the crowd. We speak about making cricket more accessible to the masses with T20s but this totally goes against that, when many can't even get in to the grounds in the first place.
Have you been to Edgbaston for a Test match? If so I think you'd have to admit that it's not populated by old toffs, it's populated by people of all ages, many of them young, many of them in fancy dress, from all social classes, and all of whom are determined to enjoy themselves at the cricket.
 

pasag

RTDAS
No I haven't, but watching on TV the youngest people there, the dress up ones seem to be mid to late 20s. And if you keep raising prices every year even they won't be able to afford it eventually. Compare that to an MCG Test or one-dayer which is filled with heaps of kids and many, many teenagers all over the place. An extremely young crowd.

At the end of the day you're selling your soul for short term cash and alienating your future. Same thing with selling the rights to a Pay TV company. Good for a quick buck but when only certain people can afford to watch, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
 

nightprowler10

Global Moderator
Hmm. £75 per day and seems to be the minimum at any of the Ashes tests. I'll have to rethink making a trip out there. Paying close to USD750 for one match seems pretty ridiculous, and that's not even including travel and lodging.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
No I haven't, but watching on TV the youngest people there, the dress up ones seem to be mid to late 20s. And if you keep raising prices every year even they won't be able to afford it eventually. Compare that to an MCG Test or one-dayer which is filled with heaps of kids and many, many teenagers all over the place. An extremely young crowd.

At the end of the day you're selling your soul for short term cash and alienating your future. Same thing with selling the rights to a Pay TV company. Good for a quick buck but when only certain people can afford to watch, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
Your point (particularly with regard to pay TV coverage) is a reasonable one and I don't pretend that the issue is clear-cut.

But the fact remains that cricket is now more popular in England than it has been for a long time, and grounds are still generally full for Test matches (certainly Ashes Tests) in England, unlike elsewhere in the world.

Whether kids can afford to go is not really the issue. The issue is whether parents can afford to take their kids. Very few people can get to many days' Test cricket in a year - perhaps one or two - for a number of reasons, not least because there aren't the tickets available. So, while expensive, it's not as though it's a frequently-recurring cost, and for the time being the expense is clearly not preventing people from all backgrounds from going. Your suggestion that it's only toffs who can afford it is very wide of the mark.
 

pasag

RTDAS
Well, 'toffs' was an exaggeration on my part to prove the point that that is the direction it seems to be going in. I know cricket is very popular as seen by these games getting sold out quite regularly. The obvious solution would be to build bigger stadiums and increase capacity. Although it's easier said then done, it really does seem absurd to me that with such a large population where cricket is quite popular the stadium capacities are so small.

But as I said, most young people, your school and university students just wouldn't be able to afford something like that. I wouldn't. And they're cricket's future. So when we speak of trying to bring people to the game with Twenty20 and hope they stay for Tests, what hope do we have when ticket prices are that expensive?
 

Nibbles

Cricket Spectator
The Ashes crowd at Edgbaston is a pretty young crowd. A lot of students get there, as theres a uni just down the road.

I wouldnt overly object to £75 myself to watch a match, provided i knew i was going to see a decent amount of cricket. A one day game, therefore, would be my choice if i was going to spend that much. But if this year is anything to go buy, they only saw a 28 over a side match which then ended up as a no result anyway due to the rain.

Put it this way, how would you feel if youd paid £75 for a ticket to only see 20.1 overs of cricket. I'd be a bit miffed but there would be nothing one could do!

Zaremba, i see what you mean about popularity but this to me seems like grounds trying to make too much out of this popularity. OK people want to see England play but the ECB and the counties should really be trying to get more people to the county games as most of them take place with only a handful of people in attendance. If you can get a decent crowd to county matchs (T20 helps!) then theres no need to charge absurd prices for England games just to balance the books.

It boils down to, at the end of the day, whether you'll see full grounds. I expect, much like this summer, there will be a few days during each test that dont have full crowds and the days that are full will mostly be quiet crowds and it wont be as good to be there in person.

The people that you really want to come to a match are your average joe in the street, not the business types with more money than sense. At the end of the day if you want a sport to grow then you need to get it talked about in the pub and the way to do that is to get those who talk abotu sport in the pub to come along and enjoy the day. That way, when you go to the pub you'll hear people saying 'oh did you see Flintoff's bowling today' instead of the usual football related toss that most people seem to talk about.

I hadnt, incidently, even thought about you aussies who are having to pay an absolute fortune to see matches. What were the ticket prices to the 06/07 Ashes series, per day? It wasnt bad a few years ago when you could get tickets to a days test for the very resonable price of £40, it actually made it ideal to go to every day if you really wanted. But at £75 a day, plus a hotel, flights, food and beer at the ground (which is a necessity but costs a fortune) the cost to touring fans seems to be a bit on the wild side!
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Well, 'toffs' was an exaggeration on my part to prove the point that that is the direction it seems to be going in. I know cricket is very popular as seen by these games getting sold out quite regularly. The obvious solution would be to build bigger stadiums and increase capacity. Although it's easier said then done, it really does seem absurd to me that with such a large population where cricket is quite popular the stadium capacities are so small.

But as I said, most young people, your school and university students just wouldn't be able to afford something like that. I wouldn't. And they're cricket's future. So when we speak of trying to bring people to the game with Twenty20 and hope they stay for Tests, what hope do we have when ticket prices are that expensive?
As I say, a fair point.

On the other hand, how far can they realistically drop the price of these massively in-demand tickets in order to accommodate these groups of people?

I mean, how many university students could afford ticket prices of even, say, £30? This would mean blowing an entire fortnight's weed budget on one day at the cricket, where the beer isn't even subsidised.
 

Nibbles

Cricket Spectator
The last event was proof of the pudding, tickets were £45 and every day, Thursday thru Sunday was packed to the rafters. And, incidently, so was Gun Barrels afterwards.

I guess it isnt helped when Lord's gets 2 tests a year (in non ashes years) and all the other venues only get 1, if at all. You can see why these grounds have to charge a fortune to get a crowd in.

But then this year, £55-£60 a ticket and apart from the odd day here and there i havnt seen a sold out ground yet. OK, it may 'only' be South Africa but there were full grounds last time they played in 2003!
 

pasag

RTDAS
As I say, a fair point.

On the other hand, how far can they realistically drop the price of these massively in-demand tickets in order to accommodate these groups of people?

I mean, how many university students could afford ticket prices of even, say, £30? This would mean blowing an entire fortnight's weed budget on one day at the cricket, where the beer isn't even subsidised.
Solution in bolded :p
 

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