Home Attendance Watch

[tee peg]

Yep counted in there.

[North Somerset Royal]

Just checking

[Whistle]

A lot of STH didn't come. I thought there was only about 15,000-16,000 in the ground.

The club ought to publish the number attending as well as tickets sold.

The official attendance is the number attending as recorded by the turnstiles on the night. Any ST not attending are not counted. There were 18150 there last night and thats what it looked like.

I'd check that belief. All club's policies on 'official' attendances have changed over the past few years. Do you really think 13289 or whatever watched every Bradford City home game last season?

There were 3000 empty seats in the South Stand, 1000 occupied - which implies that 17,000 of 20,000 other seats were occupied that is - 85% full in home areas - didn;t look like that to me.

[Deathy]

.

[North Somerset Royal]

Its not a question of club policy. Its the law. Under Health & Safety legislation all clubs have to record actual numbers entering the stadium and maintain a record for inspection. At the Mad Stad the turnstiles record the information electronically and then the figures are adjusted to take account of those in the non turnstile areas (hospitality, Directors, players etc ) That is why the information is given out during the second half. If it was number of tickets sold they could announce it before the kick off. In any event sometimes the OS gives the number of tickets sold (inc ST's) as well as the attendance. For example last season the club sold 24161 seats for the Spurs game but attendance was 21322 home + 2803 away total 24125

[Deathy]

.

[Whistle]

Its not a question of club policy. Its the law. Under Health & Safety legislation all clubs have to record actual numbers entering the stadium and maintain a record for inspection. At the Mad Stad the turnstiles record the information electronically and then the figures are adjusted to take account of those in the non turnstile areas (hospitality, Directors, players etc ) That is why the information is given out during the second half. If it was number of tickets sold they could announce it before the kick off. In any event sometimes the OS gives the number of tickets sold (inc ST's) as well as the attendance. For example last season the club sold 24161 seats for the Spurs game but attendance was 21322 home + 2803 away total 24125

You are right about what information is recorded; I don't think you are right about what information is announced to the public. Announcing the gate in the second half is simply a tradition. I'll repeat the point - evidence of one's own eyes - do you think 85% of the home seats were filled last night? I didn't.

[Stranded]

But what exactly would be the point of recording and reporting one figure, that could easily be found out if required, but announcing a different figure to those present.

It's not as if it actually matters does it?

[Baines]

Looked very bare in parts of the North Stand last night

Patches in the away section of the South Stand where it looked unpleasantly bare as well

[Whistle]

But what exactly would be the point of recording and reporting one figure, that could easily be found out if required, but announcing a different figure to those present.

It's not as if it actually matters does it?

Clubs think it looks better if the figures are higher - often success is gauged by % of capacity filled.

For marketing purposes they need to know how many STH don;t turn up - I heard it was 1 in 6 for an August Bank holiday or Saturday game a few years ago. But it's not easy to find out this info - or if it is NSR can tell us all the figures for last season.

Bradford City are claiming a big success for their reduced price STH - 13,000 "showed" for an end of season midweeker with Barnet with nothing at stake in League Two - their lowest gate of the season. Sounds incredible.

I think fans would rather know the truth - crowd figures are something that's been part of football results for decades.

[North Somerset Royal]

No sorry I dont know what the ratio of non shows by ST holders is. Even back at Elm Park I heard people saying that the figures announced were not right and I suppose that in the days of cash paid at mechanical turnstiles there was plenty of scope for error. However all the cases I am aware of where football clubs were found to be massaging the attendance figures were ones where they were understating attendances and creaming off cash to evade tax.
There is less scope for that with computerised turnstiles and ticketing and the figures announced at the game are the same as those recorded by the league published in the press etc. I cannot believe that JM would allow attendances to be overstated thereby tentially increasing the clubs tax liability just to make it look as if they have more supporters.

[Stranded]

But what exactly would be the point of recording and reporting one figure, that could easily be found out if required, but announcing a different figure to those present.

It's not as if it actually matters does it?

Clubs think it looks better if the figures are higher - often success is gauged by % of capacity filled.

For marketing purposes they need to know how many STH don;t turn up - I heard it was 1 in 6 for an August Bank holiday or Saturday game a few years ago. But it's not easy to find out this info - or if it is NSR can tell us all the figures for last season.

Bradford City are claiming a big success for their reduced price STH - 13,000 "showed" for an end of season midweeker with Barnet with nothing at stake in League Two - their lowest gate of the season. Sounds incredible.

I think fans would rather know the truth - crowd figures are something that's been part of football results for decades.

No sorry, don't buy that at all. I think people have just got used to seeing a full stadium and now when there are spaces aren't really sure how many are actually in the ground.

I thought there were less that the 8k we got against Luton in the ground, why would they artifically inflate a gate there when there were no STs to take account of?

[Whistle]

No sorry I dont know what the ratio of non shows by ST holders is. Even back at Elm Park I heard people saying that the figures announced were not right and I suppose that in the days of cash paid at mechanical turnstiles there was plenty of scope for error. However all the cases I am aware of where football clubs were found to be massaging the attendance figures were ones where they were understating attendances and creaming off cash to evade tax.
There is less scope for that with computerised turnstiles and ticketing and the figures announced at the game are the same as those recorded by the league published in the press etc. I cannot believe that JM would allow attendances to be overstated thereby tentially increasing the clubs tax liability just to make it look as if they have more supporters.

You're missing the point. The club are stating what the revenue is - i.e. tickets sold - so it's not a fiddle. What I don't think they are stating when they announce the attendance is - literally - how many are attending - i.e. they are including the no shows.

No-one's taken up the point about Bradford City yet?

[Stranded]

Because for all we know there actually was 13k there for that game.

[North Somerset Royal]

No sorry I dont know what the ratio of non shows by ST holders is. Even back at Elm Park I heard people saying that the figures announced were not right and I suppose that in the days of cash paid at mechanical turnstiles there was plenty of scope for error. However all the cases I am aware of where football clubs were found to be massaging the attendance figures were ones where they were understating attendances and creaming off cash to evade tax.
There is less scope for that with computerised turnstiles and ticketing and the figures announced at the game are the same as those recorded by the league published in the press etc. I cannot believe that JM would allow attendances to be overstated thereby tentially increasing the clubs tax liability just to make it look as if they have more supporters.

You're missing the point. The club are stating what the revenue is - i.e. tickets sold - so it's not a fiddle. What I don't think they are stating when they announce the attendance is - literally - how many are attending - i.e. they are including the no shows.

No-one's taken up the point about Bradford City yet?

Fair enough but I still cannot see why they would bother to do that when they have been quite happy in the past to publish low figures. Surely if your theory was correct the attendance for all those games that were sell outs when we were in the Prem would have been reported as capacity crowds when in fact the attendance figures were always well short of capacity.

[Ian Royal]

There is absolutely no point in giving an inflated attendence by reporting tickets sold when you have to record and have available actual attendence anyway.

I can't believe someone is basing this on what seems to be him guestimating the percentage of the ground which is full. Utter madness. Especially when other people are producing specific examples which show it isn't the case.

[Dirk Gently]

As I understand it, the club always used to announce the attendance as the number of people through the turnstiles (i.e. discounting STHs who didn't turn up.)

But Premier League policy is to announce number of tickets sold (i.e. including STH no-shows), so we had to change our policy 2 years ago to match. The PL is very conscious of PR and image and don't want low attendance figures at certain grounds (e.g. Middlesboro, Wigan etc) being used as a metric against them, so they insist all clubs in their league release figures that way.

It now looks like we've just not changed back to the previous system.

HTH!

[RoyalBlue]

As I understand it, the club always used to announce the attendance as the number of people through the turnstiles (i.e. discounting STHs who didn't turn up.)

But Premier League policy is to announce number of tickets sold (i.e. including STH no-shows), so we had to change our policy 2 years ago to match. The PL is very conscious of PR and image and don't want low attendance figures at certain grounds (e.g. Middlesboro, Wigan etc) being used as a metric against them, so they insist all clubs in their league release figures that way.

It now looks like we've just not changed back to the previous system.

HTH!

That would certainly explain why the actual Sheff Weds attendance appeared much smaller (lots of empty seats, not just in the South Stand) than that announced on the night.

[Sarah Star]

But surely at some of the matches when we were in the Premier league, which were supposedly sold out, they announced an attendance of less than the full capacity. How does that work then?

[Whore Jackie]

Because either the away side hasn't sold or taken their full allocation and/or some of the non-STH seats in the home ends were unsold. There always going to be the odd seat on its own that's difficult to shift.