Royalty Points Review

[STAR Liaison]

# Idea 4 – allow a transfer / donation of some Royalty Points to a member with a lower number of points, so long as the transferor still has more points than the person who gains. This could happen once only per season and during the close season only. (For example Bart has 1800 points and Lisa has 1250 – Bart transfers 260 points so he has 1540 and Lisa has 1510 and now they are likely to be in the same bracket to buy tickets at the same time.)

This is the only idea raised which I wouldn't be comfortable with. As has already been pointed out, if this was to come into existence the person with fewer points being able to attend would seemingly have been given the ability to jump the queue at another persons expense, and this just wouldn't feel fair.

But someone else (the person giving the points) loses out and therefore goes down the queue below other people. So the rest of the fan base overall would not lose out.

[Will95]

I've said it before, it's tough. You want to support the long term fans, but I have mates whose parents never went to football, have had a season ticket on their own for 4 years and have missed about 10 games since then, home and away, who missed out on Brentford. I'm lucky, my dads taken me since 2000 and I've had a ST since 2005 and have missed only 8 or so games away (competitive only) since January 2012 so I have the points. To be honest, the fairest system would be as it is now, but have 230 (10 a game) points for a ST, 5 for just a one off home ticket, 10 points for an away game within 2 hours drive (Brum, Brighton bring the furthest) and 15 for a long one (Ipswich, Forest, Derby and the northern ones). Points for friendlies too, those who (through stupidity admittedly) trekked to Exeter on a Tuesday night this year got no reward for doing so, which seems a little unfair to me.

[Moonfish]

# Idea 4 – allow a transfer / donation of some Royalty Points to a member with a lower number of points, so long as the transferor still has more points than the person who gains. This could happen once only per season and during the close season only. (For example Bart has 1800 points and Lisa has 1250 – Bart transfers 260 points so he has 1540 and Lisa has 1510 and now they are likely to be in the same bracket to buy tickets at the same time.)

This is the only idea raised which I wouldn't be comfortable with. As has already been pointed out, if this was to come into existence the person with fewer points being able to attend would seemingly have been given the ability to jump the queue at another persons expense, and this just wouldn't feel fair.

But someone else (the person giving the points) loses out and therefore goes down the queue below other people. So the rest of the fan base overall would not lose out.

The person donating the points doesn't really lose out though, they just get their ticket a day or two later than they could have originally, but in doing so it allows their friend to jump forward in the queue at other peoples expense.

Example, rather than person A getting a ticket on day 1 of sales and person B getting one on day 5, they share points and can both get them on day 3. Therefore anyone buying a ticket on or after day 3 now has two people in front of them rather than just person A.

This is not fair and is why I am not in favour of this particular idea. As I say though, the others are much better.

[STAR Liaison]

^^^^

But persons C D and E who book on day 2 all move up a place because person A has now fallen behind them. That's what I mean by saying 'the fan base overall won't lose out.' Or is there something wrong with this logic?

[STAR Liaison]

[quote="Will95"]I've said it before, it's tough. You want to support the long term fans, but I have mates whose parents never went to football, have had a season ticket on their own for 4 years and have missed about 10 games since then, home and away, who missed out on Brentford. /quote]

The Royalty Points scheme is there to deal with tough situations - but Brentford was particularly tough / unusually attractive:
- early season winnable Saturday game
- closest / most local away game
- a favourite ground with happy memories for older supporters (Stuckey, Senior, Cureton, the Elm Park feel)
- we hadn't played there for 12 years
- small allocation

Fulham away - where we've played 3 times in 8 years - won't be so tough and that's the next pressure point, unless we get something like Maidstone or Basingstoke away in the cup.

[Nameless]

Giving extra points for longer travel times is hard to justify IMHO.
PRESUMABLY IT's measured from the Mad Stad, which means anyone living in the Midlands isn't travelling anywhere near as far but getting bonus points.
And if you give extra points on a mileage distance why not reward people who travel to every home game from Norwich, Liverpool or Newton Abbott extra points as well ?
I don't think it's a good idea, and it doubt it makes any difference to where anyone sits in the points table as anyone who regularly travels away will almost certainly either be aSTH go to almost very home game anyway so will be ahead of non travelling fans.

[Sutekh]

How about card holders getting bonus points for consistently attending home games when NA is/has been in charge?

[Will95]

Giving extra points for longer travel times is hard to justify IMHO.
PRESUMABLY IT's measured from the Mad Stad, which means anyone living in the Midlands isn't travelling anywhere near as far but getting bonus points.
And if you give extra points on a mileage distance why not reward people who travel to every home game from Norwich, Liverpool or Newton Abbott extra points as well ?
I don't think it's a good idea, and it doubt it makes any difference to where anyone sits in the points table as anyone who regularly travels away will almost certainly either be aSTH go to almost very home game anyway so will be ahead of non travelling fans.

I know a guy, does no home games but travels to every away from Northampton and has 3000+ points, yet as he isn't a STH he will have missed Brentford. Fair? STH having priority is a horrible idea really.

[Hendo]

Why?

If I have forked out the best part of £400.00 and committed myself for a year, why shouldn't I get priority? Its not like new season ticket holders get first dibs. Its season ticket holders who have been around for a long time and have probably done quite a few away games who get first dibs.

Not everyone can justify spending half a weekend and a fair bit of money travelling to away games.

3,000 + points for away games only at what, 10 points a game? 300 games and we play roughly 23 away games a season (not including cup), sorry but the points system has not been going for more than 10 years so that would be a rough maximum of 2,300 points.

If someone could confirm if it is 10 points for an away game and how long the points system has been running that would be great.

[gazzer, loyal royal]

This really is a tough one, and something that won't please everyone, regardless of what point you implement.

Im a member of the SFA travel club, and they treat home and away games separately. Home games are down on when tickets are released to members, and non members, with lesser games members are allowed to buy for one non member. This would be the same for cup games. Big game STH get priority as normal, and can bring a friend for lesser games. (I remember the 7-5 Arsenal game, each STH could buy 4 tickets or something stupid, and we just ended up with loads of Arsenal fans in the home ends.)

Away games are done on an 8 game basis. You get a point for every away game attended, and the last of the 8 drops off for each away game that comes round. Therefore if you go to all 8 away games, you get first choice of tickets and are guarenteed one. To get more points you have to go to the smaller games. It seems pretty fair, although there is a problem that fans buy tickets for smaller games and do not attend (although people are randomly selected to collect tickets at the city in question with photo ID).

This could work in terms of away games, where you have to build up game tokens to get priority on away tickets. This is what is done at Arsenal and ensures the fans who go away the most get tickets for European away games, Spurs, Chelsea Etc

not a fan of giving points based on how far away the game is. This would someone living in Manchester this year could potentially get more points due to the location of the games to themselves rather than distance travelled.

[Will95]

Why?

If I have forked out the best part of £400.00 and committed myself for a year, why shouldn't I get priority? Its not like new season ticket holders get first dibs. Its season ticket holders who have been around for a long time and have probably done quite a few away games who get first dibs.

Not everyone can justify spending half a weekend and a fair bit of money travelling to away games.

3,000 + points for away games only at what, 10 points a game? 300 games and we play roughly 23 away games a season (not including cup), sorry but the points system has not been going for more than 10 years so that would be a rough maximum of 2,300 points.

If someone could confirm if it is 10 points for an away game and how long the points system has been running that would be great.

5 points an away and he used to have a ST.

[Will95]

This really is a tough one, and something that won't please everyone, regardless of what point you implement.

Im a member of the SFA travel club, and they treat home and away games separately. Home games are down on when tickets are released to members, and non members, with lesser games members are allowed to buy for one non member. This would be the same for cup games. Big game STH get priority as normal, and can bring a friend for lesser games. (I remember the 7-5 Arsenal game, each STH could buy 4 tickets or something stupid, and we just ended up with loads of Arsenal fans in the home ends.)

Away games are done on an 8 game basis. You get a point for every away game attended, and the last of the 8 drops off for each away game that comes round. Therefore if you go to all 8 away games, you get first choice of tickets and are guarenteed one. To get more points you have to go to the smaller games. It seems pretty fair, although there is a problem that fans buy tickets for smaller games and do not attend (although people are randomly selected to collect tickets at the city in question with photo ID).

This could work in terms of away games, where you have to build up game tokens to get priority on away tickets. This is what is done at Arsenal and ensures the fans who go away the most get tickets for European away games, Spurs, Chelsea Etc

not a fan of giving points based on how far away the game is. This would someone living in Manchester this year could potentially get more points due to the location of the games to themselves rather than distance travelled.

I like this.

[LWJ]

As previously alluded to on here I am an avid away supporter but avoid home games like the plague.

I understood others points of view on the Brentford thread, but think the suggestion of splitting points based on away games and home games is a very good idea. That way STHs still have their priority but then those who follow the team up and down the country also don't miss out.

Is it possible to implement this?

[Hendo]

Why?

If I have forked out the best part of £400.00 and committed myself for a year, why shouldn't I get priority? Its not like new season ticket holders get first dibs. Its season ticket holders who have been around for a long time and have probably done quite a few away games who get first dibs.

Not everyone can justify spending half a weekend and a fair bit of money travelling to away games.

3,000 + points for away games only at what, 10 points a game? 300 games and we play roughly 23 away games a season (not including cup), sorry but the points system has not been going for more than 10 years so that would be a rough maximum of 2,300 points.

If someone could confirm if it is 10 points for an away game and how long the points system has been running that would be great.

5 points an away and he used to have a ST.

But you said he does no home games, yet now you say he used to have a season ticket?

Season ticket holders should get priority, as its been said before, they are the ones who are actually giving money to RFC.

[PieEater]

I really like the idea of Royalty Point inflation as a way of getting over the expiry issue! What rate of inflation would you propose? One point (ie 10% in the first year, decreasing thereafter) per annum?

The rate depends how much you want to depreciate legacy fans and support current fans, I'd suggest 1 extra point per season, so after 5 years your current supporters are earning 50% more for home games and 100% more for away games than legacy fans.

As we've had no inflation for a number of years you could also consider a larger initial step of 5 pts, then an additional 1 pt every year afterwards.

If they take up this idea I will insist on them being called Pie Points

[Nameless]

How about card holders getting bonus points for consistently attending home games when NA is/has been in charge?

You'd then have to give extra bonus points for the games where Bullivant, Burns, early Pardew and Rodgers were in charge...

[Nameless]

I know a guy, does no home games but travels to every away from Northampton and has 3000+ points, yet as he isn't a STH he will have missed Brentford. Fair? STH having priority is a horrible idea really.

Your only other option if you don't want STH to have priority is to make it an open house where no one gets priority. Which is clearly nonsense. Your mate needs to join the Northern Royals.

[Forbury Lion]

They should have increased Royalty Points awarded with every passing season - I guess they could start now, this will make attending 10 games in the current year worth more than 10 over the past 10 years so those fans would get priority though having more points, call it Royalty Points Inflation

I don't condone the issuing of tickets to fans for spending money on merchandise and I don't condone having double points games as I would rather someone went to a game because they want to and not just buy a ticket so they get enough points to buy a ticket for a much sought after game.


edit - didn't spot there was a page 2 and I see the inflation idea has already been mentioned.

[Forbury Lion]

# Idea 4 – allow a transfer / donation of some Royalty Points to a member with a lower number of points, so long as the transferor still has more points than the person who gains. This could happen once only per season and during the close season only. (For example Bart has 1800 points and Lisa has 1250 – Bart transfers 260 points so he has 1540 and Lisa has 1510 and now they are likely to be in the same bracket to buy tickets at the same time.)

This is the only idea raised which I wouldn't be comfortable with. As has already been pointed out, if this was to come into existence the person with fewer points being able to attend would seemingly have been given the ability to jump the queue at another persons expense, and this just wouldn't feel fair.

But someone else (the person giving the points) loses out and therefore goes down the queue below other people. So the rest of the fan base overall would not lose out.

The ticket office do make allowances for families, so if Bart and Lisa were going to a match with their Dad Homer and Lisa was a few points short because she skipped a couple of matches due to a clash with her saxophone lessons, then Homer will probably be able to buy all the tickets when his points total comes up.

[PieEater]

edit - didn't spot there was a page 2 and I see the inflation idea has already been mentioned.

oxf*rd off Forbes, Pie points are my idea on pg1