Dropping attendances- a result of economic decline?

I know it's only October, but it seems that Championship attendances have dropped since last season. With a report published over the summer by the BBC about the cost of football, it seems the tough economic times are catching up on more and more people. Only two teams have recorded average attendances higher than last season (Middlesbrough and Derby), whereas every other team has dropped. The division average is a 6.04% drop in fans attending games, with 7 clubs having a drop below that average. Leeds is the club to be hit the worst, their attendances dropping by 15%.

Is this a case of teams playing poorly and driving fans away or it now being too expensive? I'd say it's too expensive for some families to go to the game now, but after a discussion on this board before, I know it's difficult for teams to drop ticket prices and still make as much money as they currently do.

http://theseventytwo.com/football-league/championship/2011/10/26/middlesbrough-and-derby-county-buck-the-ticketing-trend/

I'm going to Watford for the first time this season this weekend, because it's the first time I've been able to afford it given it's a £10 ticket weekend. And me and the wife both bring home, what I would consider, a reasonably good salary, and have no kids. So I think it's definitely a result of the economy - if it's restricting the things we do, what the hell is it doing to families, who perhaps don't earn as much?

I bought ingredients for two meals at ASDA yesterday, and a block of cheese - £20 in total! Madness.

I think the reasoning is at least two fold, maybe more.

I had a season ticket at Boro for over 15 years, from 12 to 30, I now don't have one, (gave it up + 8 years ago) and go to the games when I can be bothered and when I can afford it.

Now my reason for not going is two fold - Financial and apathy towards footballers and football in general, gione are the days when I would go to support the club regardless, and worry about the cost later - I now want value for money - is that right?.

I could probably afford to go, but that would mean sacrificing other things, which now I deem more important/vaue for money, and currently it costs a minimum of £27 for me to go to watch my team.

Given my apathy towards footballers, i have no afinity with them now given that even some average footballers (my team has plenty) earn more in a week than I do in a year, I simply can't be bothered to spend what I deem an overpriced £27 to watch what in truth is largely average football, with very few players seeming to care about the club etc.

If the club reduced priced to say £15, I would probably go, it seems value for money, but I think I am probably not the only one who feels like this, but what are other people reasons for no longer going?

I don't support my local team (Boo and hiss me if you want), but four or five years ago I'd still go and watch them once a month or so with my Dad, Uncle and cousin. Now that my cousin and I both have part-time jobs we can't go to many games, but back then we didn't have to pay as much either.

Newcastle have just brought out a new season ticket that is almost half price in order to try and boost crowd figures. I think the problem for most clubs is not bringing in more season ticke holders, it's making fans come back each week to watch games. No one is going to want to shell out almost £30 to go and watch a poor game of football.

Our Chairman said (when we were in the PL) that there was no longer teh need for fans to pay through the turnstiles, such was the money the club received from SKY.

Since getting relegated we have savagly slashed our wage bill, but the prices remain the same.

Currently the ground is, on average, less than half full, so why not half teh prices, and get double the crowds?

This would ensure the amount of gate receipts was teh same, but there would be more people who ate, drank and bought merchadise etc.

i really cant understand this, and hope someone knows why

At Palace its been not too bad recently...I have held a season ticket for 4 years now since I left uni and there has been no price rises in that time. My season ticket is about £400 a year which given I get 23 games comes to £17.40 a match which I feel for the value I get is pretty damn good especially when other London teams are a lot more expensive. They are lots of "Kids for a Quid" days and bring a mate for a tenner so Palace are trying to at least improve the fan base and get some interest rather than sitting idly by.

However where I do notice a difference is away games. Now I used to go to some 5-6 a season but so far I have only gone to Watford. This is due to the cost of getting places rather than ticket. It costs a fortune in petrol or train these days! This season we have seen some terrible away attendances so I assume this plays into a large part of the decline in attendaces. If for example one year you get 2,000 away fans at a game and the next only a 1,000 in a 20,000 seater stadium say thats a 5% drop right there.

@Essence of Excellence:

Great to hear your club are making an effort to improve home attendances...sounds like Middlesbrough could learn a thing or two from them. You're right that both clubs and fans are taking a double whammy, in as much as it now costs a lot more to travel, so fewer fans can make it to away matches.

Costs over £30 to go West Ham. Don't mind if it's good game - but if its rubbish that's far too much..

remember on average attendance for whole league, there has been a loss of around 26,000 for norwich, around 20000 for swansea and 15,000 for QPR from last year, which would bring down the league average down a bit

ncfc_Tooze wrote:remember on average attendance for whole league, there has been a loss of around 26,000 for norwich, around 20000 for swansea and 15,000 for QPR from last year, which would bring down the league average down a bit

But surely that should have been replaced by the teams going down, especially a fairly big side like West Ham.

blackpool would just about cover QPR from last year, with an full attendance of 16,750, thats without any splits between away and home fans etc and average attendance last year was just above 15,000 average last time in championship was 8,611
West hams full attendnace is 35,333 and averaged just above 33,000
Birminghams full attendance is 30,016 and averaged 25,462, last time in championship average was 19,081

so not really, you have to take into account 'glory hunters' for teams like birmingham and blackpool aswell because big teams are coming etc

If you'd looked at the source you'd see that the figures are only from clubs that were in the division last year and still in it this year. I'd guess if you took into account teams that were relegated from the Premier League last season the average % would have dropped even lower.