I won't accept that Aston Villa's season ticket price rises are needed

In a cost of living crisis, Aston Villa have pre-announced via the Fan Consultation Group that they will be rising season ticket prices.

For many, it's a like-it-or-lump-it issue (like most issues in Britain), for others it is a pisstake. You know which camp I am in.

There's a few things to get out of the way right at the top of this mammoth newsletter issue:

• I understand that Villa want to raise ticket costs to help with revenue.
• I understand that relegation, quick promotion, quick rise, and the COVID attendance ban play a huge part in this.
• I support sensible rises that are fair to fans.
• I understand that Villa are a business, and its owners have played the role of their primary economic lever thus far.
• I understand that Villa have a new stand to pay for, and a fairly expensive squad to build.
• I also understand that the primary benefactors of an improved Villa Park and squad will be Villa's ownership, who have a stake in Villa Park, Aston Villa and its sporting/economic success.

When tweeting about these things, I've been met with a lot of common sense arguments. Common sense arguments are hard to argue against because they are inherently very easy points to make. They are robotic logic - if this, then that.

They are also a bit of a cop-out, and are absolute strawman - but you can win a common sense argument just by its nature. It is an easy thing to say and support. You can make fairly logical points that are inherently flawed - but cannot be dismantled in reply as quickly as they can be made.

So I get it. I don't need it explained to me why Villa are rising prices. I just find it hard to chew up and accept, sitting down.

Villa's ticket prices have risen in recent years. Excuse my #shitgraph, but here's the deal:

With another sharp rise expected for 23/24 tickets, the cheapest Villa Park season tickets have almost doubled since Villa's return to the Premier League. In actual fact, the cheapest ST next season might only be around £70 cheaper than 19/20 & 21/22's most expensive ST seats. Year-on-year this is fairly dramatic.

Villa aren't evil. They have a massive waiting list that matches the amount of season ticket holders. If they wanted to make every season ticket a grand, straight, they would be lapped up. If they wanted to make money hand over fist, they could. They aren't, but the sharp rises still hit hard - and makes the freezing of prices in the past seem almost pointless.

Villa's price rise - as noted by My Old Man Said - was cynically timed. It's an April announcement for a May/June/July business operation. It's a bleedingly obvious PR move, Villa are performing unprecedently brilliantly in the league, and bad news for fans isn't going to be met with uproar if the team are doing well.

If we were playing like absolute dickheads, under a manager who cost the club around £20m in hiring/firing, then there would be more uproar. It's simple - and the club were probably always going to do this. You don't simply think up a 15% rise on the spot.

It might seem simple business, but business in sport is incredibly predatory - and downright selfish - usually. You as a fan, are not in consideration and I'll prove that.

Firstly, Villa's location cannot change - and that is a factor in costings/ticketing/income. Villa are a West Midlands club - and they are incredibly rich - which is economically at total odds with the makeup of their fanbase, and their catchment area in general. However, they will always be a West Midlands club. English Football does not have, as a feature, club relocation bar a few extremes.

American sports, on the other hand, are a closed shop - and teams do relocate if executives do not get their way. They almost always want new stadiums, to fill up so that they can cash in. If a crumbling stadium isn't renovated or rebuilt (on the cities' dime), they will quite literally fuck off and live the city behind.

In the 90's, Cleveland Browns ownership demanded a stadium to replace their aging one. They did not get it. They uprooted to Baltimore. New ownership (Hello, Lerners) got what the Browns originally wanted and a 'new Browns' were formed. The current Las Vegas Raiders have had both Los Angeles and Oakland over a barrel in terms of stadium construction/renovation. Stan Kroenke moved the Rams from LA to St Louis and back again. Baltimore lost the Colts to a new stadium in Indianapolis. If one city council does not play ball with sports greed, another city council will. It is blisteringly simple for a sports owner to get what they want in America by leveraging the popularity of a team against a city. It is the perfect model, because a team's ownership simply cannot lose out. It reaps in money from the fans, it reaps it from the city.

Read it again. The perfect example of when business principles truly work in sport is when a team uses a supply/demand argument to depart the city overnight for wealthier climes. If execs do not get what they want then their team will move. That. Team. Will. Move.

They aren't your mates. Singing songs about Christian Purslow and sharing beers with him won't put you in the front of the 'Fernando Torres of Finance's' mind. Sports execs will fuck you over. They do this constantly.

However, there are different examples. American sports ownership is socialism for billonaires. It's locked in, they spread the vast wealth, they reap rewards. German sports ownership has its pitfalls - but they are at the other end of the argument. Cheap tickets. Club culture. Great atmosphere.

The American menace of the stadium move is not a mainstream issue in English football. Owners have to find alternative means to fund stadiums. But man, you know that cool clubs in poorer areas must hate that fact, sometimes.

There is no doubt in my mind that Villa's location may rankle with club leadership. London clubs can charge more, because London is a 'rich' city. Clubs from further north than London, don't really have that lever to pull.

A sore point for clubs that aren't based in London is that they don't have the same wealthy catchment area to bleed dry. That goes for Villa.

A Brummie worker earned about £619 a week according to the media from 2022 data, which according to the ONS isn't entirely bad - but the average has a long snout/tail dominated by the extremely wealthy in the City of London, and the extremely poor elsewhere. That 619 sits in the middle of the 'general earnings' as you can see annotated in the top left corner of the image below.

And here's the general area of London:

It'd be disingenuous to imply that every Newcastle, Stoke, or Villa fan is penniless, whilst every Chelsea, Fulham, and Arsenal fan is loaded - but Londoners, in general, earn more money. It's a talent drain for the country, loaded with companies and corporations that attract 'the best and brightest'. It is a city where the richest person in existence can walk past a person with nothing.

However, in general, matchgoing fans of Aston Villa, Birmingham City and West Bromwich Albion may well have significantly less yearly incomes than fans of Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Brentford based on those stats. It's a simple image, but the idea is there. It also doesn't mean that because Brentford are London-based, they will be more expensive - they aren't. On the other hand, Fulham are charging three grand (three grand) for a season ticket. Swings 'n' roundabouts.

Still, you can perhaps get more from Tottenham than you can from Villa, simply because of the residents of the catchment area and their incomes.

This is why the statement given to the FCG pisses me off a little. It is data-driven, but what context has been used?

Here's what Purslow said on the increase:

Our analysis demonstrated we are towards the lower end of Premier League when comparing the price of an Adult Season Ticket. Increasing Season Ticket prices will enable us to continue aligning our pricing more closely with our Premier League competitors and to help bring our revenues more in line with the costs of competing in the upper reaches of The Premier League, while remaining compliant with all the required financial regulations. The meeting was informed that the Club intends for the majority of Adult season ticket prices to increase by 15% and our 23/24 season ticket prices will move us into the top 8 of the Premier League benchmarking.

In recent seasons, excluding an enormous disappointment in this campaign, Leicester City has enjoyed competing in the upper reaches of the Premier League. They won a Premier League title, they won an FA Cup. They have played in European competitions. In some instances, it has been cheaper to watch Leicester City succeed than it has been to watch Villa flounder. The clubs aren't separated too far in terms of distance, and Leicester's King Power Stadium is smaller than Villa's Villa Park.

I'm sure that at some points, Leicester fans have paid more than Villa fans due to cup runs, but last season our priciest ticket was more expensive than Leicester's.

In the Championship promotion season for Villa in 18/19 it'd have cost £65 more for the most-expensive ticket at the King Power than at VP.

Excuse another #shitgraph (I am bad at data presentation, please help) - but the fact Leicester can freeze prices for so long, while Villa seemingly cannot strikes me as odd.

Leicester's wage bill is about £3m more than Villa's. Leicester has the 7th highest bill in the Premier League. Villa has the 8th highest.

Benchmarking against a number of London clubs, as well as the historically successful Liverpool and Manchester United as well as the footballing behemoth of Manchester City is going to break the date. Villa are not successful in the same way as those clubs. Villa are not currently winning loads of titles. Villa do not have a team of elites. Villa are not based in a rich area. Looking at the top 8, saying you want to be there and charging as such is secondary-school.

I mentioned clubs such as Union Berlin, Bayern Munich, Freiburg in my Twitter argument against price rises. German football has the veneer of supporting fans, largely in part to the 50+1 ownership model. The Premier League uses its fans to market clubs, so that vision can be sold. German football has at least got - in general - cheaper tickets. I was told about the Bundesliga, Qatari sponsorship and all sorts by a lot of 'German Football Experts' only for that to be shot down by people who actually work for the fucking Bundesliga.

The thing is, I see some clubs in other countries succeed and celebrate fans. Union Berlin strike me as that. I do not see Villa doing that. It saddens me deeply.

What saddens me more? The mention of the cost of living crisis. As mentioned by the Villa Trust in their explanation of the FCG notes:

'Christian Purslow explained to the meeting that he is acutely aware of how everybody is experiencing the effects of the cost of living and inflation increases, however the Club itself is not immune to those economic pressures.'

Last season, cost of living was also mentioned when ticket prices were upped:

“The club is conscious of the rising cost of living and for this reason we have limited these price rises to levels which still keep us in the lower half of Premier League benchmarking. We hope and believe that this balanced approach enables us to keep football at Villa Park affordable while addressing the obvious need for us to be sustainable in the long run as a Premier League competitor.”

The cost of living crisis is a crisis. People are struggling. Energy, drink and food are growing in cost. Low-income families have 'heat or eat' debates. Middle-income families are squeezed. Cheap kitchen staples like milk and bread have risen 30% in price. Demeanor and morale are very poor. The Joseph Roundtree Foundation who report on UK poverty state that 75% of the bottom 20% of low-income families in the country are going without essentials (food, clothing and toiletries). According to the Institute for Government, 2021 living standards are unlikely to return until around 2027/2028.

What's more, while many may have experienced a pay rise in recent months, in real-terms, it's actually a cut due to the impact of inflation and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis in the UK. It was a 2.6% drop for full-time workers when considering that according to the ONS.

Aston Villa are not immune to the effects of rising bills. However, they are certainly more immune to it than their fans. Villa have a vaccine, it's called the Premier League (prize money for 6th place - double what the title winner in Germany gets). Villa fans are making masks from socks.

To reference cost of living is a sting. "We know, but we don't care."

Villa limited their rises in 22/23 and referenced the cost of living as a cause. Villa raised again for 23/24 and reference cost of living once again. It's tone-deaf.

The 'moaners' won't go, the waiting list will drop, fans will pay more money to watch Villa. Cool.

There's a stadium renovation to pay for. A squad to build. PR spin thanks to Unai Emery's brilliance will frame this as an excellent business decision.

The truth is, for Villa, a price rise is a drop in an ocean. It will help with Financial Fair Play and revenue considerations in the same way that putting a Lego brick beneath a collapsing house 'helps'. If Villa breach FFP at all, then the main issue is expenditure - NOT income.

If Villa want to make serious money, they need to do more on their commercial front. The club shop is full of the same shirts, over and over. There's no special or must-buy collections. The offering for a 'big club' is shocking.

If they want to make more money, they also need to sell players and stop paying massive sums in wages for players that are not making the starting XI. They need to stop the decision-making process that led to Steven Gerrard (and his staff) joining the club for £10m, before being sacked after a disastrous stint.

Leveraging fans against the waiting list will earn them some money, and sure - it may help - but the idea that prices can simply keep rising while wages stagnate is ridiculous. Villa's core support faces being priced out within the decade.

The stadium and success? The argument is that if you want it, you have to pay for it. Villa aren't a charity.

But neither are they supporter-owned. Supporters have no stake in Villa Park. It is owned by Villa's owners - I don't believe it is owned by the club itself. The people who stand to benefit the most from a Villa Park renovation aren't just fans - new stands will change Villa's income dramatically in my stupid eyes. More seats, more experiences, better concessions is a recipe for more money. Villa fans, funnily enough, do not earn money from the club.

As for success? Supporters enjoy football anyway. We loved it at points before relegation. We loved it at points after relegation. We love it now. Villa's best games at Villa Park were arguably when they were shit and pulled off a madness. Somehow. Again, success economically benefits the club. European football increases matchday and TV revenue. There's more prize money.

Football clubs should never forget they are community assets. I believe Christian Purslow is in danger of forgetting that. Years ago, when he retorted to the idea that the Premier League should send more money to the EFL - he questioned if Tesco would help out the corner shop.

A football club is not a supermarket.

To simply trot out the supply/demand argument and huh-duh over revenue and costings is better fit for managing John Lewis. Tesco and John Lewis cannot capture the minds like football clubs can.

The reason a club makes money is because it is a community asset with massive entertainment value. It makes money because it is loved.

I pray that Villa never take that for granted. It feels like they are beginning to.