Are fans being ripped off?

When the European Super League launched (briefly) in 2021, one of the main arguments for tearing down football’s status quo was that fans were being deprived of exciting matches between elite teams.

Evidence this week suggests that argument was built on sand. When Liverpool visited AC Milan in the opening game of this season’s Champions League, one of the main talking points was of empty seats inside the San Siro. While the Italian club had an average home attendance for league matches last season of just under 72,000, local estimates put Tuesday’s turnout at around 60,000. So what’s going on?

Milan have started the season slowly — and lost the game against Liverpool 3-1. But more than 71,000 showed up a few days earlier to see the Rossoneri host Venezia in an Italian league match. The main culprit for Tuesday night’s empty seats appears to be rising ticket prices — seats in the lower tier of the San Siro began at more than €120.

The issue of rising costs for football fans has been creeping up the agenda across Europe in recent months. This year 19 of the 20 English Premier League teams announced increased season ticket prices, while some did away with certain discounts for concessions.

At Nottingham Forest, for example, a child’s ticket in one part of its home ground more than doubled. Fans of Wolverhampton Wanderers urged the club to reconsider price hikes in order to “preserve the very lifeblood of this famous old club”. Fulham supporters held up yellow cards to protest against the £3,000 rate for a season ticket in some sections of the new Riverside Stand.

“Ticket prices are a ticking time bomb and club executives have their hands over their ears. Something has to give”, the Football Supporters Association said last month. And it’s not just ticket prices. The cost of replica shirts has also been rising fast. The new Manchester United home shirt starts at £85, but will set you back over £100 if you want a name and number on the back, or if you want an exact copy of the match-worn version. (Although that’s still some way off the £900 options outlined in this weekend’s HTSI.)

Price rises are being propelled by various factors. Inflation across the globe has driven costs for everything from electricity to wages and food. Ticket prices are a quick and easy lever to pull in response — effectively passing on rising costs to the end consumer.

But there are other pressures at work. Tighter spending rules both at European and domestic level are pushing clubs to focus relentlessly on maximising revenue. The globalisation of the game also means there is a growing pool of football-mad tourists only too willing to pay whatever it takes for a chance to see a top team in the flesh, especially in holiday hotspots like Rome, Paris and London.

In the Milan example, it’s hard to ignore the influence of institutional investors. After private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners bought the club in 2022, revenue generated on matchdays rose to €73mn from €33mn a year earlier and €34mn pre-pandemic. Commercial, TV and sponsorship income all rose considerably too — helping the club to its first annual profit in 17 years.

Tuesday night’s empty seats may prove a one-off. The issues could also be specific to club and competition. But as the pull from new regulation and the need to generate investment returns leads more clubs to raise prices wherever they think they can, executives will face increasingly tough choices — and less forgiving supporters.

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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