2018/2019 season memberships

[TheStig]

 

Hi everyone

 

<rant on>

 

I just received an email from the club regarding next season's membership. Its the usual marketing namely sign up now and get a seat at last year's price. In the past I have been a GA member but this last year due to waning interest and other commitments I contented myself with a 5 game membership and went to the derbies as well.

 

It is no secret that crowds have dropped off (for other clubs too) and in my opinion there hasn't been the same atmosphere at games like in year's past. I was disappointed then, when I looked at the memberships rates and stadium map to see nothing had changed. Same marketing, more or less same seating allocation etc.

 

I think its time to chime up and say this madness has to stop. The way ticketing is being managed, along with the general approach to marketing the club is having the opposite to its intended effect namely crowds and interest are declining. Things need to change. I am not sure whether these matters are set by the club or by the FFA but none of it makes economic sense to me.

 

Please let me explain.

 

Think of AAMI Park as a giant jumbo jet with a fixed number of seats (30,050) and 13 or 14 flights per year. No airline in their right mind would fly a plane with 1/3 paying passengers and the remaining 2/3 of the aircraft empty. Worse still they wouldn't designate that half the plane would have unavailable seats with the nicer seats costing significantly more and the cheapest seats right up the back in the noisiest part of the plane. Why ? Possibly to save a few dollars in not needing as many flight attendants? I don't know. That's not how airlines are run. To maximise revenue

airlines seek to fill every seat on every flight.

 

At the same time the competitor airlines (Air Cricket, Air AFL etc) have different seat allocations which give the lowest paying passengers reasonable opportunities to sit in the nicer and more pleasant parts of the plane at the lowest cost. They do this by making all the seats in the plane available with plenty of opportunities to get a good window seat. Further Air AFL has taken active steps to reduce the cost of food on the plane in order to better service its passengers.

 

http://www.goal.com/en-au/news/a-league-ticket-prices-much-higher-than-big-bash-league/1pxuaxkj4hmyn1heyr6q70oypr

 

The contrast could not be greater. Clearly the other airlines are customer focussed and also realise that empty seats = less revenue. By contrast Air City seems to think that it is a boutique airline with a better product than its competitors and that it can just produce the service that it wants to deliver, restrict seat availability and people will simply pay a premium to sit in what on other airlines is just an average seat. Needless to say this has resulted in declining passenger loads for Air City (and thus declining revenue) whilst the passenger loads of its competitors continue to grow.

 

So how can this be fixed?  To paraphrase an orange-haired President "From this day forward a new vision will govern our club. From this day forward its going to be only... Members first. Members

first. Every decision on membership, on seat allocation, on food service, will be made to benefit Melbourne City supporters, fans and families."

 

So how would that pan out in practice. What would need to happen? Let's start with the user experience. GA ticket holders and members should have the ability to sit in good seats on the side of the pitch so that they have a cost-effective and enjoyable user experience every time they come to the game. This means initially opening up the top stand on the eastern side of AAMI Park to GA ticketholders. Yes this will mean that some extra staff will need to be hired but in time as patrons realise they can get good seats at fair prices comparable with other sports there will be growth in overall revenue to more than cover these extra costs.

 

As part of that process, and to cover some of the extra costs City should reach agreement with Foxtel and the catering companies whereby as the number of GA ticket holders grows, as set targets are met eg 10k, 12k etc in a given game, Foxtel and the catering companies should agree to pay a certain amount of extra revenue directly to City in recognition of the benefits that accrue to those companies eg better tv viewing experience (due to fuller stadium on screen) and more food sales.

 

But it doesn't just stop there. A grade member ticket holders should indicate whether they are going to fill their seats for a given game. If they are not going to attend then there should be a bidding silent auction for all other members to upgrade (from whichever class). The highest bidder gets the A grade seat and their successful bid revenue goes to the club with a small percentage to a suitable football related charity. In this way at every game all member A grade seats will always be full, Member satisfaction is maximised and there are revenue benefits for the club.

Similarly for member Premium B seats, members should indicate whether they will be attending the game and if not then the club should freely and randomly offer these seats as a free upgrade for GA members. No revenue for the club but again members satisfaction is maximised. Every Premium B seat filled at every match.
            
The next area of concern is ticket prices. Melbourne is a saturated sports market and the current pricing structure overvalues soccer relative to other sports. The prices should change to the following to more precisely align demand with supply, improve soccer's cost competitiveness and again enhance the value proposition for patrons.

 

GA   - $15
Premium B       - $25
Premium A - $35 

 

Annual memberships should be priced at $150 for Blue, $250 for Silver and $350 for Gold.

 

Now some people are likely to point out that this would cause a dramatic drop in revenue. Let's assume that, excluding derbies, we have had average crowds of about 8,000 including by my estimation 1500 Premium A patrons and 2000 premium B patrons in each match.

 

On paper, assuming the same crowd I estimate this would cost about $52,500 per match which is significant.

I estimate revenue currently at 4500 x 25 + 2000 x 40 + 1500 x 50 = $267,500 per match.

 
However with the changed pricing structure I believe many people would be prepared to still pay the same or even slightly more but have the improved viewing experience.  

I assume there are, on the lower levels, about 3000 Premium A and 4000 Premium B seats. Under my revised pricing structure I expect these to completely sell out to members.

So the revenue from this would be 3000 x 35 + 4000 x 25 + for the remaining GA members 4500 x 15 = total of $272,500.

So at this stage we have already increased gross revenue, improved the spectator experience and we haven't even taken into account the increased GA numbers that would flow from the drop in prices.  

 

Well we know there are 3,000 or so members not turning up at present so I'll go out on a limb and say that they will now come. On top of that i will conservatively add an extra 2,000 GA stragglers who will be attracted by the low prices. These can be either new patrons, friends of existing patrons or other people attracted through a marketing campaign.

So that's an extra 5,000 x $15 = $75,000 bringing gross revenue up to $347,500.

 

Now I said that the top tier east side would be opened up to GA members so we can expect lots of extra happy patrons filling these tiers. As discussed above some of the cost of extra staff would be defrayed by deals with Foxtel and food service companies. Possibly Telstra thanks could cover some costs too. Anyway with the extra $80k in revenue generated by these changes the extra staff can be easily afforded.

In summary these changes will bring in more revenue, make patrons happier, create more atmosphere at matches, improve the viewing experience and start us on a growth trajectory. Some may say that this risks losing significant revenue however look at the millions spent on Tim Cahill. Has that produced a sustained increase in patronage? No, quite the opposite.
 
The only way forward for the club is, as Bayern Munich does, to put City Members First. Only then will the club's downward trajectory be reversed.  

  
</rant>

The Stig

[Tony999]

I gave up reading midway through the fourth paragraph. I couldn't give a toss what they charge, l renew regardless and always will. Don't renew if you feel ripped off.

Next.

[Jovan]

This season has been the first season I missed several home games. Partly because of how we were playing and mostly because of externals work/school stuff with kids. There was probably 3 or 4 games I made that I did so in the last minute. Thats the entire reason I buy  season tickets. If I had to also nominte I was going it would be a game changer and I would just get tickets at the gate.

Ticketeing and game day experience is an important factor but it's not imo the major reason for the decline or stagnation of the League. 

Soccer is and probably will always be (in my lifetime anyway ) a fringe sport that will never become the core part of people's lives in this country. 

As long as there is game to go and a half decent club to support I'll be happy regardless if there is 7800 or 30049.

[Hellenic Hero]

Will not be buying a membership. A League is dead.

I'll buy GA tickets into the terrace for big games, that's about it 

[belaguttman]

Well, that's it for us then. We ended up getting a 5 game GA ticket this season but could only get to 4 games. We skipped both home derbies as there were only shit seats surrounded by visit0rs available. We can't do Sunday games, Friday games are best for us but really, the GA end has little appeal for us: no atmosphere, all we can here is chanting away fans. 

There's no 5 game active option, there's no 5 game options for higher category seats. 

[n i k o]

9 hours ago, TheStig said:

Well we know there are 3,000 or so members not turning up at present so I'll go out on a limb and say that they will now come.

I admire the cause in reducing ticket prices and I agree they are way too high. But with this point you've made above it doesn't make sense. Why would 3000 paid up members at a higher membership cost start turning up if their membership was cheaper? If anything them paying more would entice/obligate them to going whilst paying less would encourage them to not go. 

[mjake1234]

9 hours ago, TheStig said:

 

Hi everyone

 

<rant on>

 

I just received an email from the club regarding next season's membership. Its the usual marketing namely sign up now and get a seat at last year's price. In the past I have been a GA member but this last year due to waning interest and other commitments I contented myself with a 5 game membership and went to the derbies as well.

 

It is no secret that crowds have dropped off (for other clubs too) and in my opinion there hasn't been the same atmosphere at games like in year's past. I was disappointed then, when I looked at the memberships rates and stadium map to see nothing had changed. Same marketing, more or less same seating allocation etc.

 

  
</rant>

The Stig

Wow. Quite a rant but a refreshing way to look at the club. Currently MCFC certainly seem to have ossified brains and be locked into the Einstein theory of insanity. How about the Stig for president.

Edited April 24, 2018 by mjake1234
Deleted a lot of the rant

[jw1739]

12 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

Well, that's it for us then. We ended up getting a 5 game GA ticket this season but could only get to 4 games. We skipped both home derbies as there were only shit seats surrounded by visit0rs available. We can't do Sunday games, Friday games are best for us but really, the GA end has little appeal for us: no atmosphere, all we can here is chanting away fans. 

There's no 5 game active option, there's no 5 game options for higher category seats. 

Sympathise Bela, but you're asking too much. No-one's going to sell you a 5-game reserved seat membership valid for whichever 5 games you decide to attend during the season. To do so would mean tying up that seat for the whole season and making it unavailable to anyone else. That's why the club restricts that sort of membership to GA. Yes, later in the season they may make 5- and 3-game reserved seat memberships available,  because very few full reserved seat memberships (if any) are being sold at that time, but they won't do so at the start of the season.

[belaguttman]

Active support seats are only nominally reserved, that's why it's the area to offer it in. Anything that encourages attendance should be encouraged, especially if someone's prepared to make a 700km round trip to do it. Active support tickets are the same price as GA so it isn't costing the franchise any money and isn't tieing up reserved and more expensive seats. It also avoids the Ticketek experience

[TheStig]

1 hour ago, n i k o said:

I admire the cause in reducing ticket prices and I agree they are way too high. But with this point you've made above it doesn't make sense. Why would 3000 paid up members at a higher membership cost start turning up if their membership was cheaper? If anything them paying more would entice/obligate them to going whilst paying less would encourage them to not go. 

Thanks everyone for the polite responses.

In response to the comment above, first there are people out there for whom that extra $15 per game makes a huge difference and is the difference between going to a game or not going. This is particularly so when you want to bring the whole family. And the other point is that other sports such as the Big Bash provide a day out at lower cost as they are a more affordable option, particularly if you want to buy any food at the ground.

That aside, there is one other point I forgot to cover and that is the scheduling time of matches, Melbourne is a huge city and if you live in the outer east it can take up to an hour and a half to get home if going by train and then car. So if matches are scheduled to finish around 10.00 PM you are getting home really late and mothers are often not happy about children being out so late because they consider that it upsets their sleep patterns or the kids have school next day and they want the kids in bed by a certain time.

With this in mind matches need to be scheduled earlier than at present. 7.50 PM is just too late. I would suggest 7PM as a more reasonable option with 4.30 PM for earlier matches.

Oh and the other point is that kids up to age 18 should be free if accompanied by an Adult (up to 4 kids per adult). There should also be a very, very cheap membership option for uni and TAFE students who generally don't have a lot of spare cash.   

Stig

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[n i k o]

3 minutes ago, TheStig said:

Thanks everyone for the polite responses.

In response to the comment above, first there are people out there for whom that extra $15 per game makes a huge difference and is the difference between going to a game or not going. This is particularly so when you want to bring the whole family. And the other point is that other sports such as the Big Bash provide a day out at lower cost as they are a more affordable option, particularly if you want to buy any food at the ground.

That aside, there is one other point I forgot to cover and that is the scheduling time of matches, Melbourne is a huge city and if you live in the outer east it can take up to an hour and a half to get home if going by train and then car. So if matches are scheduled to finish around 10.00 PM you are getting home really late and mothers are often not happy about children being out so late because they consider that it upsets their sleep patterns or the kids have school next day and they want the kids in bed by a certain time.

With this in mind matches need to be scheduled earlier than at present. 7.50 PM is just too late. I would suggest 7PM as a more reasonable option with 4.30 PM for earlier matches.

Oh and the other point is that kids up to age 18 should be free if accompanied by an Adult (up to 4 kids per adult). There should also be a very, very cheap membership option for uni and TAFE students who generally don't have a lot of spare cash.   

Stig

Some fair points, although you did t exactly address the point I was making. Also regarding start times, until we change to winter season the times will always remain as late as reasonably possible. 

Edited April 25, 2018 by n i k o

[GreenSeater]

Let's just face facts. Our attendances won't increase rapidly any time in the foreseeable future. Everyone keeps going on about the "Melbourne sporting public" and how this city is so sports mad, but the reality is, this city is aussie rules and cricket mad. They'll show up for big events in other sports (Aussie Open tennis, F1, the occasional big european club friendly etc), but at the end of the day, there really aren't that many people here who like football enough to show up to the A League week after week. You could put the price at whatever you want, but people wont come. Melbourne sports fans love the footy and the cricket because they are rusted on sports ingrained in Australian and Melburnian culture for over one hundred years. People go to watch the footy team their grandad told them to support, they go to the cricket because Australia loves cricket. The only other sport they love is the spectacle. The big event, hence why the Derby used to always be such a big thing. Football will continue to grow slowly as time progresses, and I think it will get another healthy dose of new fans after the World Cup as usual, but we can't expect it to grow exponentially in a short space of time. The way I see it, we are a financially stable club who don't need to fit a certain number of people in the ground each week to survive, so sit back and enjoy the short beer lines while you can.

[belaguttman]

When I went on a tour of Millentor Stadium, the St.Pauli ground in Hamburg, I was rather startled to hear that they had a supervised grandstand for children, another bay for senior citizen supporters (decorated with flower pots no less) and had even removed corporate seats to provide a larger viewing area to accommodate disabled members. Now you could point out to me that this is a community-owned and run club and a rather left-wing one at that, and you'd be correct, however, it's also a club struggling in the lower reaches of Bundesliga2 this season, yet the ground is always full and there's a waiting list for membership. The more inclusive and flexible a club is in finding ways to accommodate membership, the greater loyalty is generated and the greater long-term support there is for the team. Ideas like those of @TheStig will do more to ensure long-term growth than the current strategy. There's no reason why MCFC couldn't adopt some of those membership strategies

[Forever City]

With City we have about 6k rusted on fans that will come week in week out. Membership prices won't affect these fans.

Edited April 25, 2018 by Forever City

[johnno cpfc]

6 hours ago, TheStig said:

 

7 hours ago, n i k o said:

I admire the cause in reducing ticket prices and I agree they are way too high. But with this point you've made above it doesn't make sense. Why would 3000 paid up members at a higher membership cost start turning up if their membership was cheaper? If anything them paying more would entice/obligate them to going whilst paying less would encourage them to not go. 

Thanks everyone for the polite responses.

In response to the comment above, first there are people out there for whom that extra $15 per game makes a huge difference and is the difference between going to a game or not going. This is particularly so when you want to bring the whole family. And the other point is that other sports such as the Big Bash provide a day out at lower cost as they are a more affordable option, particularly if you want to buy any food at the ground.

That aside, there is one other point I forgot to cover and that is the scheduling time of matches, Melbourne is a huge city and if you live in the outer east it can take up to an hour and a half to get home if going by train and then car. So if matches are scheduled to finish around 10.00 PM you are getting home really late and mothers are often not happy about children being out so late because they consider that it upsets their sleep patterns or the kids have school next day and they want the kids in bed by a certain time.

With this in mind matches need to be scheduled earlier than at present. 7.50 PM is just too late. I would suggest 7PM as a more reasonable option with 4.30 PM for earlier matches.

Oh and the other point is that kids up to age 18 should be free if accompanied by an Adult (up to 4 kids per adult). There should also be a very, very cheap membership option for uni and TAFE students who generally don't have a lot of spare cash.   

 

You also forgot to mention Pensioners of whom i am one of many, we are opting out of our memberships as we find that whichever way we get to games at AAMI the cost is somewhat prohibitive.If we come by train the travel time getting home and the long walk to the ground do's not help, if we come by car the parking opposite is not always available and adds to the cost $20 if we pre-book provided there is no other event then it is $30 plus the drive down Hoddle street is a nightmare at the times we need to get to the game. Oor memberships cost us $500 for the season they are Silver Concession and are what i call reasonable seats not the best, over the time we have been coming we have made friends with the people that sit close to or alongside of us who do not have concession and they are also not renewing for the same reasons as us and the fact that what we have been watching is very mediocre football. I have been watching football for all my life both here and in the U/K and believe me the standard here is nowhere near as good as the Championship .

[jw1739]

I agree that certain memberships for certain people are getting expensive. But come on folks, this is 2018, and you don't get something for nothing. There are perfectly good seats in City Blue for $290 per season - and that's the full adult cost - just $180 for pensioners and a mere $65 for a junior. You don't even have to cough up the whole lot at one go; spread it over 11 monthly payments.

As for transport, well, everyone has to pay for it whether you come by train or by car. Again concessions apply for quite a few people using public transport - which takes you almost to the turnstiles at the ground; there would be few venues around the world better situated in that regard.

Sorry, I just see a whole lot of whinging going on.

[kingofhearts]

Support the team if you want, don't support them if you don't want.

Simples

[Tony999]

11 hours ago, jw1739 said:

I agree that certain memberships for certain people are getting expensive. But come on folks, this is 2018, and you don't get something for nothing. There are perfectly good seats in City Blue for $290 per season - and that's the full adult cost - just $180 for pensioners and a mere $65 for a junior. You don't even have to cough up the whole lot at one go; spread it over 11 monthly payments.

As for transport, well, everyone has to pay for it whether you come by train or by car. Again concessions apply for quite a few people using public transport - which takes you almost to the turnstiles at the ground; there would be few venues around the world better situated in that regard.

Sorry, I just see a whole lot of whinging going on.

Even if you are on the absolute lowest wages you will earn $300 in two days which pays for a memebership. Definitely a lot of whinging going on.

[HeartFc]

I might get a membership, just waiting to see which Melbourne team wins the GF and Ill decide which to join. 

[Deluka]

Wasn’t a member this year as I couldn’t see the value as I wouldn’t be able to attend many games, I had planned to get a 3-5 game membership but if I couldn’t make one of the allocated games I’d virtually be paying the full ticket price anyway.

I went to the three games I could for a total of $80 instead of paying $250 for full GA so I plan to do so again next season though I’d happily sign up to a 5 game Flexi membership if they were sold at the start of the season.

[johnno cpfc]

Well after long discussion with Mrs Johnno we have relented and will now sit in Blue, we have been members since the beginning and we were both not happy with opting out so there it is in Blue for next season.

[mjake1234]

1 hour ago, johnno cpfc said:

Well after long discussion with Mrs Johnno we have relented and will now sit in Blue, we have been members since the beginning and we were both not happy with opting out so there it is in Blue for next season.

See you there

[jw1739]

2 hours ago, johnno cpfc said:

Well after long discussion with Mrs Johnno we have relented and will now sit in Blue, we have been members since the beginning and we were both not happy with opting out so there it is in Blue for next season.

Good decision Mr and Mrs Johnno if I may say so. You won't regret it.