The Telegraph reports that Manchester United has sold 50,000 season tickets, with the Premier League campaign beginning in under four weeks. After an aggressive summer marketing campaign the total falls 6,000 short of last season’s total. The club confirmed that this figure does not include executive seats sales.
Last season’s total executive seat numbers of 7,500 were added to season ticket sales of 56,000. United’s current shortfall of 6,000 tickets represents a drop in sales of just under 12 per cent on standard season tickets.
The club also said that executive seats are “tracking in line with last season’s sales,” although the Independent Manchester United Supporters’ Association (IMUSA) reports more than 1,000 seats were downgraded ahead of the new season.
Even if executive sales have held up, the drop in standard seats is significant given the aggressive push this summer, which has involved email and tele marketing to current and former season ticket holders, One United members and even those who have not bought a membership during the Glazers’ tenure at the club.
The club then launched a glossy ‘Season Ticket Waiting List’ brochure, which was pro-actively sent to the club’s marketing database after the 13 June renewal deadline.
Moreover, the club’s stance on a potential organic boycott, which has not been officially organised by either of the supporters’ groups, included the claim that thousands of fans were on a season ticket waiting list. With seats still available, the wait is now negligible.
Whether the shortfall in season ticket sales is compensated by One United members buying match-by-match tickets is as yet unknown, although gaps in the stands were noted at some of United’s less glamorous matches last season.
Whatever the reduction in sales, however, it is now clear the Glazer family’s ownership has eroded United’s core support, with the blended average season ticket price increasing 48 per cent over the five years the Americans have been at the club. Whether the family sells up in the short-term or not, a generation of United supporters has walked away from the club.
The club will reveal more details on the financial impact of season ticket sales on 27 August, when Red Football Joint Venture Ltd publishes its end-of-year accounts. The accounts, which show the financial year to 31 June 2010, will almost certainly still show a healthy cash surplus.
However, with no transfer business done by the club this summer more than £100 million cash is likely available for Glazer family to remove in dividends this financial year, with the interest rate on the Payment in Kind (PIK) debt rising to 16.25 per cent in August.
The end of year accounts will, of course, allow the club to claim that the Ronaldo money is still available, and Sir Alex Ferguson to continue his line that there is no value in the market. Until the club publishes its Q1 2010/11 financial results in November that is.
Whatever the season ticket sales by the time United take the field against Newcastle United on 16 August it seems unlikely that green and gold protesters will be placated by United’s summer dealings in the market.
Indeed, anti-Glazer banners were removed during United’s match against Celtic in Toronto last week, mirroring aggressive action by stewards at Old Trafford last season.
Fans can expect more of the same in the coming season, no matter how many have bought season tickets.
I would have bought a season ticket a few years ago but not now. It has gone too far. the last 2 years I have had the membership, but this year I haven’t renewed. I got sick of it last season (not the football/players etc) but the amount of foreign (including London) fans in the stadium. It puts me off because I want to feel passion for the club – I don’t want to feel embarrasingly out sung by the away supporters and then hear the stretford end reply and then people around me look confused at all the singing.
Anyway, I’m not going back this season (certainly not as often) and I won’t be buying anything in the ground or buying the replica kit.
We need change at the club (and not just the money type of change)
So what sort of change would you like, Rob ?
I suppose not winning a trophy for 30-odd years and playing in wishy-washy-blue, perhaps ?
Sounds like you’re the type who wouldn’t be happy with red carpet complimentarys every week.
I wonder, were u one of those who changed your club every week when u were a kid ?
I mean, do you really think that your ilk help support the club by NOT supporting them at all ??
What do you mean foreign fans? Surely you mean fans that buy jerseys, watch matches on TV and haven’t stayed in Manchester? Now that sounds like something a Citeh fan would say…. You may have been lucky to have a family member who has been going there for decades, hence helping you pick up the atmosphere that is OT, people like us would be thrilled to watch a single match over a lifetime. Affording big players means depending on more revenue streams including us “foreigners”….
The only way to take the club back is by force. It’s all those yank sharks will understand. Road blockades, violence, vandalism of the megastore etc. Imagine if 50,000 people stood up against the evil glazers! I renewed my season ticket this year but starting to regret it. The glazers and gill know that they can emotionally blackmail supporters. Thats why they took over in the first place.don’t give me this shit about supporting the club through thick and thin. That’s what the glazers expect of us. to them all we’re doing is showing brand loyalty for nothing in return. 75000 capacity ground, a small fortune for ticket sales, worldwide merchandise sales, no investment in the squad. All of that income is going to them! WE ARE ALL MUGS! I hate the glazers and want them to die.
It is, as Capt-Fletcher says, all about brand loyalty. In football this loyalty extends into the fanatical and this is what the Glazers are banking on. They want the sense of commitment and dedication to supercede the feelings of anger about how the club is being run. It would seem their entire business empire is quite literally dependant on the unwavering support of loyal fans.
There is certainly an inner turmoil in fans, not wanting to do anything which will hurt the club no matter how the owners are running things. It is just a question of whether or not this zealous support will ultimately bring the club to more harm in the long term.
“the amount of foreign (including London) fans in the stadium”
Numbers; 1 x Adult + 1 X Child (from Dublin to United & back)
Tickets; £55 + £45 (season ticket cards of people who can’t make the game)
Travel from Dublin; £100 + £ 90 (cheapest)
Spending Money min £150
Gifts for fans / friends back home £50 (obligatory)
Ferry Money £120 (incl rip-off breakfast, child’s arcade game hush – money and cabin on the night ferry home)
Taxi to Dublin ferryport £25 + taxi home £25 (after getting off the all – night coach
Day off work -£193
Total cost £893 ( €1,062 for a working man to bring himself and his son to Old Trafford for a single game; (not a game against a top 4 club))
The feeling you take away with you : priceless!!!
You local f**ckers don’t know you’re born; you don’t know how lucky you are are to live in the greatest football city on Earth; it’s wasted on you!
And then you have the cheek to complain about “foreign” fans clogging up the ground.
I understand local passion; we’ve got it here in Tallaghtfornia with Shamrock Rovers; but whereas people in Dublin are proud of the international interest in their local teams; local Mancs are insular, basic and lacking in manners;
Where precisely do you think the majority of mancs hail from? Perhaps names like Rooney, Keane, O’ Shea and Neville will help you figure it out!
Complain about the Glazers if you want to; complain about the lack of money if you want to; but don’t ever complain about the “foreign fans” whose money gave United the chance to usurp Liverpool; who kept the team going under Martin Edwards, John Magnier and the Glazers;
And who more than likely will end up owning the club someday; we’re not the enemy; we’re the real “Red Knights”; not the phoney Lancashire Knights who run away at the first sign of trouble;
So when you turn around in your seat and hear funny languages and funny accents; those people are not made of plastic; they’re made of sterner stuff than you are; because they’ve had to work much harder than you ever have to get there; their passion for the club is equal to and most probably greater than yours; their expensive seats subsidise your cheaper seats; and one day one of them will be the boss.
Now let’s not hear anymore nonsense about foreign fans taking over the club; heaven forbid, we should pull the plug someday!
Hear Hear!
Passionate defence there EddieTheRed. I’ve no problem with people coming from all over the world to watch United – the players do. But guests should learn all the songs and join in. Otherwise United is little more than a West End show in Manchester – for the tourists.
Would love to! Thing is it takes a while to get around to it. Forget chanting along with the Stretford end, hell, getting to one game a season would be amazing in itself. I may not know all the chants but i still get goose bumps just hearing them on the telly! There are millions of United fans who dream of making it to OT once in their lifetimes, their only way of expressing their support in their home towns is more often than not those Jerseys. And pray that United will at some point make it here so we can be as lucky as you lot!
agreed…its the plastics that need outing…..
Have to agree with that anybody who is willing to travel XXX hundreds of miles to watch a match does deserve a little respect and will more than likely be one of those who sings his heart because you don’t travel that far if your a plastic or don’t care.
Biggest problem methinks is the corporate thing where Firm X buys a block of seats for whatever but put people on day in the seats who don’t know and don’t care.
Ed, you should start up a Chants and Songs section so us foreigners, if and when we can make it to OT, can familiarise ourselves and join in and sing to our hearts content.
Visiting OT for a Man United game is on my bucket list so hoping to give it everything if i do make it there.
Excellent suggestion, I always hoped one of the popular United blogs would have one by now! Thanks to GHTT on RoM, I have heard quite a few chants.
captain-fletcher sums up the muddled mess many fans are in. On the one hand he launches into a violent tirade against the Glazers, mutiny etc, then slips in he has renewed his season ticket! But already regretting this decision. Well you cant have your cake and eat it. If you want the Glazers out, starve them out by a boycott. Short term pain of missing your football fix for the long term gain of getting back a club where the revenues generated go to improving the squad and the facilities, and not hoovered off to Florida for the sole benefit of a single greedy, parasitical family.
I’m sorry my post was misleading in what I actually meant. I don’t have a problem with people coming to support United, wherever you are from and whatever your language. All I meant was that it annoys me when I hear people (more often than not it is Londoners) screaming at the players (so I know the accent) and then don’t sing or support the team at all.
I know people have travelled far and paid good money but it doesn’t harm to sing for the team and create a unique atmosphere. With 76,000 seats Old Trafford should be a fortress, a deafening atmosphere but it can’t happen at the moment.
I didn’t mean to offend anyone “foreign” it just makes me sick when for example, I was at the United v Chelsea game last season and Joe Cole scored early on. 5 men to my right had been silent all game and then suddenly I heard them screaming in London accents at the United defence. I thought – are these Chelsea fans?? Because they only reacted when United messed up or Chelsea did anything of note.
So, sorry to anyone who I offended, and I know I am privilaged to go regularly to games but still, a little passion and singing wouldn’t go a miss. Thanks.
Fuck the singing.
The future is the VUVUZELA!!!
I’m sick of all you knobheads that are wearing the Green and Gold and then coughing up your money to keep the Glazers in power. Starve them out or shut the fk up! Ja – spot-on. Short term pain. It’s pathetic to hear the constant bleating of the stupid people who just won’t give up their seat for one season. You deserve what you get, Fight from within? GTF! You can’t even give up your halftime pint.
Manchester United has been rated by Forbes as the most valuable franchise in all of sports, reports euFootball.BIZ
Forbes released its list of the world’s most valuable teams, with the Premier League club top of the list and valued at $1.84 billion.
Also in the top 10 in Forbes list are Spanish giants Real Madrid and Arsenal.
Manchester United’s owners Glazer family have insisted it will not entertain offers for the club, which has around $1 billion of debt.
NO WAY THESE CUNTS GONNA SELL NOW
United advertising season tickets on the official site http://www.manutd.com/default.sps?pagegid=%7BB4CEE8FA-9A47-47BC-B069-3F7A2F35DB70%7D&newsid=6650612
So much for the “waiting list” Gill wanked on about
Im from Dublin, living in London, have a season ticket for 5 years and travel up the road all the time. Before that i travelled across the water for games at least once a season. I know most if not all songs. I sing my voice horse every game. I sit in north stand tier 2. Theyre are plenty of local mancs who sit around me every week that dont sing at all. So what do you call them? To blame ‘foriegn’ fans is laughable and ignorent to the facts. Some people just dont like to sing.. And ‘Ed’ you dissapoint me.
@loftyhouse How so? Think my point is valid enough in context of the previous comments in this thread. Old Trafford had a unique atmosphere that has been eroded over the years. I blame the commercialisation of OT for that so it’s good if people join in.
Ed, now that we all agree more fans need to raise their voices in support….. so how’s about that Chants section? 😀
yeah not sure a chant section is strictly required, there’s thousands of vids on YT – this channel seems to have all the basic ones: http://www.youtube.com/user/Fatwillytv#p/u
Good idea of the chants section. However youtube is your friend as it has loads of chants with lyrics.
@ Rob
You have nothing to apologise for; I realise that your complaint was made out of the passion you feel for the club; I just wanted people on here to realise that most fans who travel long distance to Old Trafford regard it as a pilgrimage; the highlight of their football year.
Catholics go to Rome; Muslims go to Mecca; Red Devils go to Old Trafford; it’s like a little taste of heaven for 90 mins.
FFS
Main problem with atmosphere at OT these days is
1) spread of singing fans amongst a larger attendance than ever
2) design of roof over Stretty and East Stands.
Where I have sat mostly for some 40 years now, near Stretty Tier 2, sound volume is as high as ever sometimes.
However if I have had the ‘honour’ to sit amongst the moaning South Standers on occasion – well that’s all I hear – whingeing (often Mancs) characters who quell any sound that may have escaped from the goal ends under the eaves.
Hardly any surprise, then, that Fergie and the media are always on about the atmosphere, methinks.
Solution.
Well given that it will cost enough to build South Stand up to accommodate even more moaning Mancs and given that is likely to be low on Glazers shopping list, I can’t see cantilevers over West and East getting an overhaul.
So group all those dedicated chanters in Tiers 1 and 2 of Stretty and let it blast in unison like the good old days.
Nice apology from Rob, by the way.
Gill and Glazer cunts have been lying to us again
Man Utd put 4,000 season tickets up for sale http://www.iantomlinsonfamilycampaign.org.uk/
There is no “waiting list”
I was shocked to see on the Red Cafe website that there are a couple of ‘United fans’ defending the Glazers.
Now, how sad is that?
You come across as somebody who’s never been to a game in his life and doesn’t realise what it means to go regularly over several years….who doesn’t get the emotional connection. Do you think it’s really that easy for someone to just give up their ticket? And then what? When the Glazers have fucked off the club will hand our season tickets back?
I applaud those who give up their season tickets precisely because it is the difficult thing to do. Some do so out of cost, others do so because of the Glazers. There are lots of reasons. But don’t denigrate those who can’t bring themselves to give up their tickets – because it’s not an easy decision to make.
The big problem with giving up your ST for just one season is the uncertainty of getting it back.
Suppose that 50,000 had boycotted this season and Glazers had sold up to some Knight in Red.
Then what next year ? More than ever stampeding to get in.
The fact remains that United mean more to most fans than just who runs the club.
And if you want to guarantee your place at the Theatre where History is continually being made – you hold on to your ticket.
@ real red – and that’s how the glazers do whatever they like – price inelasticity. Or in laymans terms the fans are grabbing their ankles and the glazers are giving it to them. Sans lube!
So what you both seem to be saying is that making sure you hold onto your season ticket is more important than the long term future of the club. Pretty selfish outlook if you ask me. Surely securing the more stable long term future of the club is worth the risk of losing your season ticket for.
The main point that RedAlert260599 was making that if you want to continue handing over your money that’s fine but don’t then yap about how the Glazers are running the club. By continuing to fund them financially you forfeit the right to complain about them.
Personally I don’t yap about the Glazers.
As Ed knows, from long tirades on this site, my view is that all financial tykes who are able to stump up the means to run a club like United are all of the same genetic make-up.
I wonder, dear Liam, if you actually put your hand into your pocket and handed over some of your hard-earned dosh to have a nominal shareholding when they were available before the Glazers took over ?
Or, if you didn’t, was it just a useless bit of share certificate paper to you ?
Had you done so, together with the 160,000 others who have now signed up to MUST, we would not have been in this situation as of today.
But then it probably didn’t bother you about the ‘long-term future’ a decade or so ago.
Me, being selfish, did put what I could muster on the table.
The reason being exactly to avoid what has come to pass now.
Unfortunately only a relatively small number of like-minded fans did the same, so the inevitable came to pass.
So please, spare me the patronising about caring for the future.
I just want to support from the terraces the lads on the pitch who play for my club.
Not moan from a TV armchair.
Yep and I bought what I could afford too and made the Glazers force me to sell. But I don’t buy the retrospective argument that it’s fans’ fault for not buying in 1991. How could people know it would turn out like this? Being smug after the fact doesn’t add to the debate.
This was a key stage though. People handing money over to the Glazers now are supporting their continuing ownership of the club – that’s beyond doubt.
Liam, it’s very very easy to moralise against people who still go to the games and criticise them as selfish. However, when you have been going season after season, it’s much easier said than done, believe me. We all hate the Glazer regime, yes? If giving up a season ticket was so easy everyone would boycott the games. A sizeable number have stopped going – not necessarily because of the Glazers, there are other reasons such as cost. But not every season ticket holder, not even a majority, have stopped going.
And this is what fucking irritates me about certain people who moralise. Unless someone goes regularly, they surely can’t begin to understand why it’s difficult to boycott. They may think they understand, but they just don’t get it. This is why I admire those who do so out of principle.
I guess it’s a fair point, though, that those who fund the regime cannot then complain about it. I once made an observation that you see Green and Gold protesters at Old Trafford who walk around with their purchases from the Megastore. There is a hypocrisy there, I agree.
I was not trying to moralise or preach at anyone. I’m not a season ticket holder, never have been and am unlikely to ever be due to geographical constraints. I don’t know how hard it would be (well I have an idea but that probably pails in comparison to the reality) to give it up. What I took an issue with was the idea (or what I perceived the idea to be) that holding onto seasons tickets is paramount over all else.
If a holder doesn’t think attempting to take part in a mass refusal to renew season tickets will help get rid of the Glazers then I certainly don’t begrudge them holding onto their cherished ticket.
If they do think it would help then it is for themselves to ask whether or not they are willing to risk their ticket for the long term good of the club. I would like to think I would be magnanimous enough to do so if I was in this bracket.
Fair play to you Real Red for buying shares at a time when you could. Tbh, only until perhaps a year ago could I have ever entertained the idea of investing in shares. Due to monetary constraints before this time it would simply have been the stuff of fantasy.
Well I don’t feel smug. Just the opposite in fact.
I only wish I had had the guts at more than one AGM to give voice.
Not that it would have made that much difference given my small holding.
For that, I apologise to the likes of Liam and others.
Still let’s do some simple math.
50K STs already sold (minus execs). Remainder now on open market.
I’ll wager at least 1/2 of those get snapped up.
That leaves possibly 5K extra tickets, at most, for each match compared to last season.
Now look at fixtures (minus Euro and League Cups).
First homes Newcastle, West Ham and Liverpool.
Most of tickets will still go for them.
Then we have a run of West Brom, Wolves, Wigan type mediocres.
I agree it’s possible that we could see an attendance of less than 70K for one of them – but what happens if United are back on top ?
And then Spurs, later. Arsenal, the Xmas games followed soon after by City in New Year.
Will Mr Drasdo and his chums still be boycotting those if we’re pushing top ?
(I mean, I assume HE gave up HIS season ticket this year).
Or will he be sneaking out of his MUST office during dark, dreary, winter afternoons down the back streets of Elton and Railway Road over the Stretty bridge and into the Ticket Office ?
I wonder.
The net effect will be a possible loss of 2,000 or so ticket sales average per match – at most.
What’s that? Around 1.6 million ? Wow. Glazers will still be smirking.
(OK I admit I have not taken full effect of any large Exec boycott – but they will still recoup a lot of that by selling packages just slightly short on last year’s ‘deals’)
So, boycott the Megastore you may say.
Well apart from upsetting Little Johnny on his first game from Northern Ireland, the only one you’ll hurt is Nike who have already bought out the franchise and sponsorship, paying up front for the privilege to sell their over priced kits and suchlike.
That leaves TOTAL boycott – which would be 2011/2012 season now at earliest.
Can you see that ?
Ironically the only thing that would bring that on is a lousy -very lousy – team performance on the field.
And none of us would want that now … would we ?