Ticket price pain: rising costs measured in the Football Price Index

The past few months have been marked with a series of price hikes across almost the entire Premier League and a wave of anger from the FSA’s member supporter groups.

But how do top-flight prices compare with previous decades and other consumer goods? We did a little number crunching to find out and the numbers are stark.

But where to start? With the range of clubs and tickets it’s impossible to define an average so we looked for one solid data point, and where better to look at than Anfield’s Kop? Home to supporters from a traditionally working class city who don’t have fortunes to spend but can create an atmosphere which, at its best, is arguably unrivalled.

And when to measure from? We decided on 1990 as it feels like a turning point in when the game started to modernise (Italia 90, Gazza, Pavarotti and all that). The Premier League was just around the corner so it’s also the last gasp of the old league system before hyper commercialisation of the game really took hold.

1990 also offers reliable data as the Office for National Statistics’ inflation index goes back that far meaning we can rely on official data for consumer prices.

With all that we can start comparing prices and we created the Football Price Index (FPI) which tracks a product’s price at the same percentage increase as a football ticket.

How much would a loaf cost if your local baker was Fenway Sports Group? Read on…

(Data collected June 2024)

Summary:

• The Bank of England’s inflation calculator says that a ticket costing £4 in 1990 would be £9.59 in 2024. The cheapest ticket on the Kop in 2024 is £39.
• The cheapest football tickets have increased astronomically compared to other “products” and are now 875% higher, using Liverpool FC as a data point.
• If shops followed football’s pricing model your loaf of bread would cost £4.88 and a pint of lager would set you back £11.80.

The 1990 Taylor Report, released in the aftermath of the Hillsborough Disaster, made a series of recommendations relating to safety standards in UK grounds which football embraced enthusiastically (e.g. all-seater stadia). The Premier League followed a couple of seasons later and with it came ever-increasing prices.

However, even Taylor himself suggested that a fair ticket price would be around £6 saying “it should be possible to plan a price structure which suits the cheapest seats to the pockets of those presently paying to stand”.

Adjusting for inflation £6 in 1990 is £14 today. Lord Taylor died in 1997 but he would surely be astonished that some clubs are charging ten times that for a standard seat while the cheapest tickets on the Kop cost almost three times his recommended rate.

Record price hikes

From Arsenal to Leicester City, Nottingham Forest to Fulham, Manchester City to Chelsea and Wolves, fan groups are kicking off as clubs push tickets to record levels. We could namecheck almost every Premier League club, as only Crystal Palace have frozen prices.

Many fans have simply concluded that clubs are working in cahoots when raising prices – they hold hands and jump together, hoping that they can all hide behind the same excuses.

Billionaire owners with few ties to the real world see the bottom line and nothing else – remember their absolute cluelessness as to how people would react to a European Super League.

They are blinded to the future as loyal fans are priced out in favour of the quick buck which a one-off visitor brings. People happy to pay £160 for a run-of-the-mill game, buying all their pre-match food and drink in the stand, while spending above-the-norm on club shop merch.

That’s much better for your bottom line than relying on your regular supporter who never misses a game, drinks in their local pub and watches the match spending comparatively little in the stadium on food, drink or club trinkets.

But the regular supporter turns up when times are tough, the tourist doesn’t. 

Not only that, but new policies have targeted concessionary pricing for old and young at many clubs. Despite being the eighth richest club in world football, Spurs’ hierarchy announced that, unless you’re already eligible for a “senior concession” by 2025-26, you’ll never be offered an OAP season ticket discount at all. They’re gone forever.

By raising ticket prices 6% and putting the squeeze on pensioners Spurs will generate £3m extra next season – which is the same amount they’re giving chairman Daniel Levy as a bonus. It has fuelled a lot of justifiable anger amongst Spurs fans.

Pricing out pensioners and doing next to nothing to ensure football is affordable for younger fans – who will fill their stadiums if kids grow up thinking football is something you experience on a screen?

Get kids in when they’re young, make tickets affordable through the teenage years when they’re students, apprentices or on the minimum wage and you have a supporter for life. You won’t get that loyalty from someone you’ve priced out in those formative years.

What about ordinary supporters?

“The game has become less accessible to the working classes. The prices are too heavy, particularly for a family wanting to go. All clubs must have their commercial side, but there has to be a place for ordinary supporters.”

Great points by Kenny Dalglish in his 1996 autobiography when football was nowhere near as expensive as it is now.

Fast forward to 2024 and Liverpool FC are ignoring their own supporters to bump up prices and lock out the very people Kenny Dalglish was talking about.

And where is this happening? Anfield’s very own Sir Kenny Dalglish Stand where adult tickets cost £59, OAPs £44.25 and young adults £29.50.

The irony is not lost on supporter groups. Ticket prices are a ticking time bomb and club executives have their hands over their ears. Something has to give.

• By fans, for fans – join the FSA here…