The new ticket prices won’t shift the needle too much in terms of making a huge jump in revenue for Manchester United, certainly when we are talking about a club that is tracking at around £600-700m in revenue, they are still in that elite club bracket despite on-field performance.
So it won’t shift the needle too much but it does shift it and that is an important consideration. If you can get a little bit more out of everything, you are squeezing that margin and there are a lot of clubs going down that road.
The argument from the clubs is that unless we build a new stadium, and United are looking at that, we have a set number of seats. If we charge a little more for those seats, we make a bit extra.
That is the aspect from the club but the tricky thing is the fans and we are in a cost of living crisis, there are challenges with ticket prices and it is a significant expense.
The reality, especially for a club like Manchester United, if somebody chooses not to take up that seat, somebody else will fill it and that is the ruthless thing. It hurts the fans but if one person chooses not to go, someone else will.
Raising ticket prices is always going to be an option that clubs look to do, even if it is fine margins, it is always there and it is not going away. There’s a chance that could happen (if United don’t reach Europe) but there is a limit that clubs will know internally where they will want to go to because it could blow up in their face.
If you have not got European football, ticket price increases will be considered to make up some of the shortfall as will looking for new sponsorship partnerships.