£1 for kids for Sunderland and Middlesbrough

[Dirk Gently]

You're missing the key point in this, that RFC are doing a service to all of mankind.

These are the 2 Saturdays in December when we have home matches, so in households all across the Berkshire areas the same conversation will be going on :

She : "You are going to help me with the Christmas shopping with me on Saturday, aren't you?"
He : "Sorry Love, I'm taking the kids to the football, it's only a quid for each of them."

or

She : "You're in charge of looking after the kids on Saturday - I'm going Christmas shopping."
He : "Sorted!"

[Hugo Boss]

Not to mention the fact that a lot of people, especially those with kids, are quite hard up around Christmas time.

I think it's a great idea.

[Skyline]

What a wonderful philanthropic gesture.

Selling tickets to kids for £1 that they could sell many times over at full price.......apparently.

Marvellous.

It is, isn't it? I believe in marketing it's called a 'loss-leader' - sell something for less than you could, because you then get follow-up sales that more than make up for any small loss you make on the original sale.

As has been pointed out, it's near to Christmas, so the pester-power of the kids is almost guaranteed to drag the accompanying adults into the club shop. Sell a replica shirt here, RFC bedclothes there, and you soon make up for the loss of revenue from not selling the ticket to an adult, who would be much less likely to go in there.

And then you have the fact that kids seem to find it virtually impossible to go to something like a football match without needing to eat burgers and drink coke, and you probably make more on the concessions sales than you would from an adult as well.

[Baines]

What a wonderful philanthropic gesture.

Selling tickets to kids for £1 that they could sell many times over at full price.......apparently.

Marvellous.

One of the main problems for clubs is that the age profile of fans is now much older than in the past. Hopefully this will help to address that problem and introduce a counterweight to the middle-aged bores who seem to predominate.

[Schards#2]

Makes you wonder why they didn't do this for the odd league game last year.

[The 17 Bus]

I thought they did some sort of offer for th e Wigan game? Might be wrong tho.

[Wycombe Royal]

Makes you wonder why they didn't do this for the odd league game last year.

Maybe their is someone new who has been employed who wanted to re-introduce the promotion which has been used successfully in the past.

Maybe the club are already thinking of ways to get more fans in the ground ready for when the capacity is increased.

Maybe the club are looking past the end of their nose in terms of running and growing their business.

[The 17 Bus]

Maybe it was because Boyd Butler left after pissing so many off with his linked tickets and the job was not immediately filled.

As for the two games, at the two december games last season both had just over 23000, so 1000 spare at each, I seem to recall a lot of that was in the home stands as well.

[Stranded]

Makes you wonder why they didn't do this for the odd league game last year.

Different people in charge. They linked the less attractive pre Xmas games to the bigger games last year to ensure ticket sales/a sell out crowd.

Using a different tact this year.

[RG30]

Maybe it was because Boyd Butler left after pissing so many off with his linked tickets and the job was not immediately filled.

As for the two games, at the two december games last season both had just over 23000, so 1000 spare at each, I seem to recall a lot of that was in the home stands as well.

And it was Boyd Butler himself who originally scrapped the Young Royals club, believing the "Member Card" was the future. Interesting article on Premier League World a few weeks back which showed the Junior Gunners at Arsenal and how they've been operating for 30 years now. The lady who was interviewed claimed that in a few cases 3 generations of Arsenal fans had been members in that time.

IMHO it is absolute essential the club keeps working hard on the marketing side of the club, and within the past 2 months you cannot fault the attitude taken. The Wigan/Derby games looked unattractive but decent home crowds showed up considering and the Liverpool game eventually sold out when just days earlier it looked being an embrassing TV appearance on Sky for the MadStad.

[RoyalBlue]

What a wonderful philanthropic gesture.

Selling tickets to kids for £1 that they could sell many times over at full price.......apparently.

Marvellous.

It is, isn't it? I believe in marketing it's called a 'loss-leader' - sell something for less than you could, because you then get follow-up sales that more than make up for any small loss you make on the original sale.

As has been pointed out, it's near to Christmas, so the pester-power of the kids is almost guaranteed to drag the accompanying adults into the club shop. Sell a replica shirt here, RFC bedclothes there, and you soon make up for the loss of revenue from not selling the ticket to an adult, who would be much less likely to go in there.

And then you have the fact that kids seem to find it virtually impossible to go to something like a football match without needing to eat burgers and drink coke, and you probably make more on the concessions sales than you would from an adult as well.

IIRC the club have never been prepared to explain the way the catering deal works i.e. do they get a percentage of the sales, do the caterers pay a fee for the catering rights and then keep everything they make, or is it some sort of hybrid deal?

Therefore no one other than the club and caterers knows whether the club would make any money from all the extra burgers and drinks that the kids buy.

[Behindu]

IIRC the club have never been prepared to explain the way the catering deal works i.e. do they get a percentage of the sales, do the caterers pay a fee for the catering rights and then keep everything they make, or is it some sort of hybrid deal?

Therefore no one other than the club and caterers knows whether the club would make any money from all the extra burgers and drinks that the kids buy.

I've never really understood this bugbear of yours.
Why should the club be 'prepared' to 'explain' this ?

[RoyalBlue]

IIRC the club have never been prepared to explain the way the catering deal works i.e. do they get a percentage of the sales, do the caterers pay a fee for the catering rights and then keep everything they make, or is it some sort of hybrid deal?

Therefore no one other than the club and caterers knows whether the club would make any money from all the extra burgers and drinks that the kids buy.

I've never really understood this bugbear of yours.
Why should the club be 'prepared' to 'explain' this ?

And I will never understand why you are prepared to defend every single thing they do!

Why the big secrecy over how the catering contracts work? I'm sure you will state the club have nothing to hide, so what's wrong with a bit more openness?

The standard of catering, both quality of food and service, has been a bugbear of supporters for years, as have the extortionate prices charged. I don't want or feel supporters are entitled to see the detailed accounts behind the operation, but why just why would it hurt the club to explain the broad principles (not figures) behind the deal? To suggest such information is of any great commercial sensitivity would be utter b*llocks! I'm sure such information is already known throughout the catering industry itself.

Doing so would help supporters better understand the stances taken by the club on the quality of the catering and the prices charged.

If the club get a share of profit from match to match sales then they are far more likely to care about the way the catering operation is run and how the supporters feel about it. If they get the same payment regardless of sales (in that the caterers buy the catering rights and keep all profits) then there is less incentive for the club to care. If the encumbent caterers cock up and, as a consequence, make a loss, all the club have to do is sell the rights to one of the other catering companies that knocks on the door.

[Huntley & Palmer]

I'd imagine RFC would have franchised the business out to a catering company. So will be receiving a fixed fee per season from that company, or a percentage of each product sold. Whichever they decided would offer them the better revenue per season.

As for caring about the quality of service and product, there would be SLA's within the contract that the caterer would have to meet. Queue times, reasonable product price ceiling perhaps a few other things like staff ability. It would be reviewed regularly but I imagine most of the time the company is left to it's own devices, which is the whole point of franchising/sub contracting in the first place.

[Behindu]

And I will never understand why you are prepared to defend every single thing they do! .

On the basis that you probably don;t really think about what others say I guess you won;t realise that I don't 'defend' anything. There is a big difference between 'defending' and putting an alternative position. Too often people (naming no names) are happy to be critical about every single thing and if pointing out that life is not always as simple as they think is 'defending' then fair enough...

Why the big secrecy over how the catering contracts work? I'm sure you will state the club have nothing to hide, so what's wrong with a bit more openness?.

I have no idea whether there is anything to 'hide'. And I also don;t think there is any 'secrecy'. I just don;t know on what basis you think you have any right (or even need) to know about the operational contracts of a private company. It may even be that the caterers have insisted on a confidentiality clause (not uncommon) to protecttheir cpmmercial interests. Not that you would have considered there being anything other than a 'conspiracy' angle to it...


I've also never made a secret of the fact that personally I think the catering franchises woul dbe better run on an 'outlet' basis rather than a whole stadium. Get a bit of competition going in each stand in terms of choice and hopefully price.
I believe this was looked at and considered too complex, but I would have thought with a bit of imagination it might work. Trouble is the stadium catering is not the money making part of the operation. It's the hospitality and conference work that makes the money and if I understand correctly the stadium stuff gets done because if it didn't the company wouldn;t get the rest of the contract.

[Yorkshire Royal]

Er.. Dont clubs usually do kids for a quid when they are worried about not selling enough tickets?

And how anyone can really have a problem with it because their kids have season tickets is just stupid. People really will moan about anything.

[Behindu]

Er.. Dont clubs usually do kids for a quid when they are worried about not selling enough tickets?

Championship clubs used to commit to doing ( I think ) 2 a season. IIRC it was a bit of a 'sop' intended to make it look like they were making football accessible to all. Of course it tended to be used for the least attractive fixtures to try and boost the attendances. The Quids make no money for theclub but as Dirk points out if you assume an adult comes along with every copuple of kids that can be a bit of a financial boost.

I'd imagine RFC think the Sunderland and Boro games in the Xmas run up may not be as attractive as Liverpool or Arsenal so are doing a bit of marketing - curse their hides !

[readingbedding]

Makes you wonder why they didn't do this for the odd league game last year.

Because Middlesborough was our first game of the season and Sunderland were in the Championship last year.

[Royal Lady]

Makes you wonder why they didn't do this for the odd league game last year.

Because Middlesborough was our first game of the season and Sunderland were in the Championship last year.

Strange comment - he didn't ask why we didn't do for the same teams last season. I do wish people would read posts correctly before trying to act all cocky, otherwise it makes them look rather foolish, doesn't it!

[Squelchy2507]

Maybe it was because Boyd Butler left after pissing so many off with his linked tickets and the job was not immediately filled.

As for the two games, at the two december games last season both had just over 23000, so 1000 spare at each, I seem to recall a lot of that was in the home stands as well.

2/12/06 v Bolton Att: 23,556 Away Fans: 1,767 Home Fans: 21,789
16/12/06 v Blackburn Att: 23,074 Away Fans: 1,256 Home Fans: 21,818

Season Average Att: 23,829 Away Fans: 1,976 Home Fans: 21,853

So the two home games in December saw no significant difference in the number of home fans from the season average.

http://www.squelchy.co.uk/attendances0607.htm