SKY high pricing By Steve Bond
Hello fellow 1st Division football fans. A few thoughts&.OK, lets be controversial and state the obvious. Are any of you surprised about the start of a backlash about the beloved Premiership? I suspect not. In fact, should it be a surprise at all when you have to pay £45 for a ticket to watch a game where fear-of-losing and efficiency are the bywords instead of silky skill and flair. For the average wage earner + standard number of offspring, that can make the afternoon's overall package around the £200 mark. Why is anyone surprised? Not only is this entry price laughable, but you then have the same kiosk food at commensurately inflated prices and the 'brochure' (not programme?) at a fiver. The apologists who run The Premiership will tell you that it's the same price as a ticket for the opera. That's OK then? You only have to think about that statement for a nanosecond before you see the gaping holes in the argument.
The target audience is now the armchair fan - hence the Sky millions, but the effort of twitching the remote is now becoming too onerous when the game on view is a 0-0 between a couple of the Premiership survivalists. Audiences are dropping. I think the backs are definitely to the wall when you hear the pundits constantly 'telling' the mug audience how exciting the game has been, rather than letting the images speak for themselves.
The money has polarised to the top. Unfortunately the trough may not be refilled quite so readily now. The leech that attached itself to the game is now full, satiated and will drop off very soon. I'm quite pleased with that metaphor having just watched Bill Oddie stick one of the charming creatures to his arm on BBC2. The consequences may be dramatic for those concerned. Maybe some of these supporters that fall by the wayside may come back to Saltergate and Vale Park and again become part of the lifeblood of the game. Wry smiles all around when the whinging starts from the top six - but, obviously, bags of sympathy. Not !
A brief analysis will tell you that this situation is not unique to The Premiership. Italy being the obvious example for similar issues. Last month only' 33000 were at Juventus v Inter, one of the season's big games. The stadium was half full! In fact, Italian football is in disarray. Torino and Genoa were both relegated for financial reasons, dodgy and otherwise. The fixtures only came out two weeks before the season kick-off and featured Treviso and Ascoli - two small teams who didn't think they would be there and were very ill prepared. All is not well.
Is any country bucking the trend? Yes, and its Germany. The World Cup is there next year and the build up is beginning very nicely. There is an array of stunning new grounds of 60000+ capacity and Bundesliga attendances are soaring. The grounds all had a dummy run with this years Confederations Cup and came through with flying colours - or, at least, with time to fix leaky roofs. Public transport is a joy after England, tickets are very reasonably priced, enthusiasm is mounting already and I think we can all look forward to an excellent summer of football. I mean The Ashes were good, but the 3 months without football in the summer is a bit of endurance test, isn't it?
A few weeks ago Holland beat the Czech Republic to ensure England could relax in their final qualifying game against Poland - so look out Brazil here we come&&. But with no great confidence.
