by weybridgewanderer »
14 Feb 2009 21:37
westendgirl philM
"...An FA Premier League spokesperson said that it is for a club to decide how attendance figures are calculated. Apparently, some clubs base attendance on tickets sold and others on ‘gate receipts’, i.e. the number of ticket holders passing through the turnstiles...."
Maybe I'm missing something but does not gate receipts = tickets sold rather than the number through the turnstiles?
yes it does
tickets sold and gate receipts is the same thing, number through the turnstile is entirely differnt
in the "old days" these were always reported lower than the actual attendance for a number of reasons
1/ coz of "lift overs"
2/ coz you could pay someone less than the admission price, the money would go in his pocket rather than to the club
3/ the attendance reported was used to justify the money owed to the inland revenue. if the club reported a few thusand less than actually turned up then they would not be liable for as big a tax bill
its all change now! buying tickets in advance and other "security" measures have made it harder for clubs to hide income
these days most clubs make a loss so they have little if any tax liability
most stadiums are ticket entry so they count the tickets sold rather than the number through the gate. they really don't care how mnany people turn up all they care about is how many tickets they sell.