Because of the ticket price fiasco I’ve been looking at how we compare to other Premier League teams match day revenue.
These are 22/23s figures. We are dwarfed by the big 6. Spurs made £100m more than us that season, you’d expect it to be higher with x1.5 of our stadium capacity but not 6 times our revenue.
I feel like we are in a really difficult spot. It would have been wrong to reduce our capacity for our champions league season to do up the North Stand. It wouldn’t be fair on the fans that would miss these games.
Witton station has had plans drawn up for the revamp but is still at this stage:
The next step is for WMRE and Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) to work with Aston Villa, Birmingham City Council, Network Rail, UEFA, and West Midlands Trains to build a strong business case.
Dunno where that’s going to go with financial issues of the council. Currently the area couldn’t deal with the stadium being expanded.
I’ve seen people discuss the possibility of a new stadium but leaving Villa Park just wouldn’t be for me. The pros would be higher capacity, modern facilities to built to cope with that capacity and I’d assume in an area that could deal with that many people commuting.
I’m struggling to see how close this gap on the big boys with our current capacity.
So I’m just interested on everyone’s thoughts on how we move forward while staying competitive against these teams.
by Kanedauke
5 Comments
I don’t understand how the revenues are generated to create such disparity. It’s more than just gate receipts surely? Is it overseas broadcast rights?
The breakdown of this match day revenue would be useful. How much is from corporate tickets, how much from concessions etc?
Food and drink in general at the Villa is crap and service is awful so people drink elsewhere first. If that experience was much better for the fans maybe we would make more there?
This isn’t just ticket revenue though.
It shows how little us charging so much for tickets, especially champions league, will make to our overall balance. Double it and we’re still less than west ham. There’s far more issues than just ticket prices.
The bar staff are absolutely awful both in the concourse and in corporate. They all act like they’ve never worked a bar in their life. I never bother with a halftime pint or pie because there’s no chance being served unless you go down15 minutes before half time. This isn’t an issue at lots of more modern stadiums and could easily be fixed at Villa Park.
I’ve been in corporate a few times the last few seasons and stopped ordering half time drinks after I saw them pouring them at kick off and setting them aside for 45 minutes. I’ve been in the heineken lounge before and they’ve run out of heineken before kick off. Just awful bar management that could easily be fixed and get a lot of cash in.
I’m not saying pints are going to save us any more than increased ticket costs are, but it does seem like a misstep to be so badly organised season after season.
This being 22/23 counts for a lot for sure, I’d imagine. Not gonna expect an otherworldy jump but with West Ham not being in Europe I imagine we’ll be top 8. Newcastle also had a run to the Carabao final to boost their numbers a bit, though obviously they had UCL last season so they’ll still clear us. Brighton also had a decent FA Cup run and were at home in the quarters and semis – obviously they had the Europa last season though so they might still be close. But I think our ticket price last season plus the UECL run will lift us a fair bit.
Obviously doesn’t invalidate the point that matchday revenue does need increasing – noone is denying that, that’s why the league ticket prices for this season haven’t inspired the same level of anger as the UCL prices, and why discontent about season ticket prices blew over fairly quickly. There’s definitely a line though and we’ve seen the club isn’t afraid of trying to cross it, which does mean that the expansion is very quickly going to become the better option, if it isn’t already. I do agree this was not the season to do it, though, it’s a difficult situation but hopefully before long the club will have the chance to put something together.
I’d consider leaving Villa Park an awful decision personally, but fortunately the club have repeatedly said this isn’t remotely under consideration. Provided they stay true to their word on that (and hopefully stick to their guns on getting Witton Station upgraded) then I have decent faith in whatever they decide to do.
In 2022/23 season, spurs played the same number of league games at home (obviously…), and one home FA cup game – exactly the same as villa. We played stevenage, they played portsmouth, so it’s basically a wash. However – they also played in the champions league, meaning three home group games, and one home knockout game (they lost to ac milan on aggregate) – price-wise, this is probably worth another six or so ‘average’ premier league games. So that would put them at (sort of) 26 home games to our 20, up by 30%.
As noted, their stadium is about 50% bigger than ours, so up another 50%.
Then, ticket prices – I can’t be bothered to do the full research, but out most expensive season ticket was about £750, theirs was closer to £2k. Assuming not everyone bought them that high, call it £1500, so double ours.
So far, you’re looking at a total – just from tickets – of four times what we would have made.
I don’t know what is counted in ‘matchday revenue’ – TV money, or not? hospitality packages? – but given that it’s a brand new stadium, in London, you can safely assume food and drink prices are commensurately higher at least. That doesn’t necessarily scale exactly but add it in and you’re not far off of 6x our matchday revenue.