Scottish Cup Crowds - Season Tickets

[glasgow sheep]

Some pretty terrible crowds yesterday:

 

Pittodrie: 6918

Tannadice: 4041

New Douglas Park: 1054

Easter Road: 6056

Caledonian Stadium: 2808

Links Park: 1030

New St Mirren Park: 2312

 

Now obviously a number of factors are involved:

• declining crowds in the game in general
  
• declining interest in the early rounds of the cup
  
• poor weather
  
• even poorer recent form of some of the home sides
  
• the fact that almost all games were Big Team v Small Team - an away game at an infrequently visited ground will always be more enticing to fans of "Big" teams than the reverse fixture
  
• price of games and the economy in general
  

 

I wonder however if one of the biggest effects over the last few years has been the removal from Season Tickets of cup games.  Clearly a balance has to made between the financial commitments of cup games where profits are split and encouraging good crowds to these games but surely something should be done.

 

How about something like adding £20 to the cost of a Season Ticket.  With that you get, say, the first 2 Home Cup games included.  Now some seasons we won't have any cup games, but then there will be others where we have several.  This way decent crowds are more likely for the early rounds and then hopefully in the later stages a decent crowd would be encouraged out anyway. 

 

I certainly wouldn't be averse to such an idea (our STs are as good value as any in the league) but I suppose ultimately it will depend on whether the numbers added up for the club.

 

So, in principal, would you be happy with a small increase in ST prices to cover a couple of Home cup games?

Or indeed any other ideas to boost Home cup crowds.

 

As an aside, interesting to think if yesterday we had been away to United we would probably only had a few hundred less fans at Tannadice than we could muster into Pittodrie.

 

 

[zander]

Don't we have the auto-cup scheme or whatever but all that does is automaticly buy your ticket for a game. I'd put that down to who we were playing yesterday and also it was cold probally put a lot of fans off. Had we been playing an SPL game yesterday I reckon we would have 11-12000.

 

 

[glasgow sheep]

As you say auto cup just means you buy a ticket (or not) automatically rather of having to go to the ticket office or pay at the turnstile, not really the same thing. 

[tsr]

I agree that it is entirely down to the removal of cup matches that crowds have dropped, as you still see good away followings at these games. That said I don't see why we should pay extra when season tickets are already over priced.

[mizer]

I was surprised at the sub 7k figure yesterday, Didnt seem that low but obviously the shutting of the RDU had a masking effect.

[dave_min]

I was surprised at the sub 7k figure yesterday, Didnt seem that low but obviously the shutting of the RDU had a masking effect.

 

Same. I thought it was much bigger.

 

We'll never give away free tickets to Scottish Cup games with season tickets as we'd have to give half the money for everybody who has a season ticket regardless if they come or not to the other team.

 

Also - as i'm not a season ticket holder - I think it's a bad idea 

[Ajja]

Its just not workable to ask people to pay extra without the guarantee of a home game in the cup. Its easy to suggest that it would work itself out over seasons, but it might not and there might be people who would buy one year and not another. They simply wouldn't do it.

[jmo]

I didn't go. That is partly due to the fact I don't live in Aberdeen any more so it means I'd have to travel up and spend more on train tickets to Aberdeen than the ticket itself. Normally that is a bit frustrating but my own choice for not living in Aberdeen and I put up with the extra expense. However that added to having to pay another £15 for a ticket just means all told It is a lot of money.

 

When It is a league game it doesn't seem that bad as I have already paid for my season ticket so all I'm paying for is travel.

 

The idea of having to spend however much to see Aberdeen play at such an early round (for SPL teams) of the Scottish cup just doesn't seem worth it.

[14Fosters]

I think Dundee United have a cup top up scheme, which gives someone the option to pay more to guarantee entry to any home game in the cup for the season.  They barely get any though, so they have probably made a shitload of money over the last few years.

 

I didn't go yesterday.  Just some slight apathy coming in on my part this season that is struggling to make me go to more games than I have to this season (all 4 away games has been a defeat for me this year), and I thought Aberdeen would win in a dull straightforward manner.  Don't think there would have been much that could have convinced me to go and I imagine a lot of people would have been in the same boat...

[jmo]

The Dundee United game only had 4,000? I would have thought that being a replay of last year's final that there may have been quite a  bit of interest in that game. Any idea of the average attendance at Tannadice?

[14Fosters]

There average is just short of 8,000 so it was just a little over 50% their usual.  I guess Ross County wouldn't have had much of a travelling support whereas United's average attendance will be boosted by away supports from us and the Gruesome Twosome as well as the Edinburgh two and perhaps St. Johnstone just now.  Even then, it does seem low given that they are holders and they have had a lot of games cancelled recently, but it can amount to a large cost at this time of year which many just don't see worthwhile spending or don't have to spend.

[tsr]

The freezing weather isn't helping either, if you've got kids its ridicolous taking them to games in this weather, as I found out by taking my 3 year old to Easter Road on Boxing Day 

[glasgow sheep]

Most folk have voted "YES they would be happy to pay a bit more and get a couple of cup games on their ST", which seems to go against the views expressed in the posts.  I would think that we are now at a stage where those with ST aren't going to suddenly stop renewing because of an extra £20 or so, thus would sign up for this deal, whether new ST holders would be enticed to sign up is another matter.

 

Wonder what the economics of it are for the club?  Is it worthwhile having crowds of 6000k for a cup tie?  Would they lose out or gain from having some cup games on a ST?

 

The whole splitting the gate thing is obviously a sticking point but is important for the integrity of the competition and it shouldn't and will never be even consider for abolition.

 

However after all that, and all the crap crowds at the weekend there is due to be 12k at Ibrox tonight.  Weather, Monday night, cooncil TV are all clearly to blame for this but the OF must be getting nervous at how fickle and fluctuating their crowds are these days, esp Celtic. 

[Ajja]

Crowd at Ibrox tonight is a disgrace. Entire stand closed and still it looks like the last 10 minutes of a game when they are losing. the fact that the OF base all of their superior stance on the fact that they get full houses every time they play has all but evaporated. Utter joke.

[mizer]

Crowd at Ibrox tonight is a disgrace. Entire stand closed and still it looks like the last 10 minutes of a game when they are losing. the fact that the OF base all of their superior stance on the fact that they get full houses every time they play has all but evaporated. Utter joke.

 

13,215 attendance at Ibrox, with a health Killie contingent of at least 800.

 

If a season ticket holder is going to get in on their season ticket they are more likely to go and in turn its more likely that one of their friends/family will go along too and pay in.