There is a school of thought that believes, in summary, football fans are little more than sheep, blindly following the club’s will ‘support’ of their team. Fans pay a huge price premium over similar sources of entertainment: films, music, plays and so on. Meanwhile, supporters willingly spend £50 or more a season on ‘official’ shirts that cost a fraction to produce.
Indeed, economists describe this behaviour as price inelastic: demand for tickets and other commercial goods associated with football does not fall in line with price rises. Like cigarettes and heroin, football is a drug that supporters will not easily give up.
Yet, thousands of Manchester United supporters have done just that in the past five years. Walking away from the club and their season tickets as the impact of more than 50 per cent price rises took hold. So much so that for the first time in memory United failed to sell all available season tickets for the 2010/11 season. The once mythical waiting list simply vanished in a summer; the Glazers having eroded an estimated 30,000 supporters from the base.
Why then does the club persist in pendling the tired ‘waiting list line’ in its marketing, which has begun in earnest for the 2011/12 season? Why? Because we are sheep…
The phrase “waiting list” suggests there is massive demand which helps persuade fans to cough up their hard earned in case tickets sell out
What pisses me off is the way the club do not consult fans when they make drastic changes. They just run with it and expect you pay.
And Gill thinks this is perfectly reasonable behaviour http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/9419127.stm
Gill is full of shit as he has proven the other day with his net transfer spend bullshit.
It’s sad, the email was a joke. perhaps when they start buying some players worthy of the shirt, things might chnagte. anyone think fergie is on a profit share too? just going through the motions of a season that promised nothing and will end up with nothing. i love the club, but it’s all based on ridiculous emotion and a great history. glazers out!!!!
The yanks have killed the heart off manutd but no yanks will ever stop me going to Old Trafford thats why they want sell cause they want sell but I have stoped buting thing from speending around 1000 a year on T-shirts and otger things like that
Gill and Ferguson are a disgrace, and fans allow them to bully them, and are nothing but sheep party liners. Because Man United fans won’t stand up and be counted, and it is the FAN sheep at OT that have finished up getting exactly what they deserve – AN INFERIOR PRODUCT of football on the field, and a hoop through their noses saying pay pay pay or we will sell the tics off to the corporate one day travel visit merchants. I’ve loved United like my family all my life, but they can feck off if they think I am coughing up any longer to watch Fergie’s snooze football every week. Our team have become so bland, that Man United will soon not be able to do their BRAND marketing. All the excitement has LONG GONE from our beloved Man UNited.
The whole lot of them are a disgrace…
During his House of Commons speach, he defended the Glazers, saying that, yes they need £40mill odd, to service the debt, but the Glazers have increased revenues to nearly £100mill… so that was proof of their positive contribution to the club.
Well where the fuck did all that extra money come from Davey? You twat…He makes it sound like the Glazers have applied hard graft and ingenuity to make the club more profitable… he didn’t bother to mention how they’ve squeezed the common fan till his eyes pop.
He also said…
“Not everyone hates the owners,” Gill said on Sky Sports News. “They’re well-organised. They’re very domestic.
“We’ve done studies that show we have 333million followers from around the world. We get thousands of emails, we got 36,000 phone calls last month.
“(Look at) the success we’ve delivered on the pitch in the last five years – seven trophies since they’ve taken over.
“A lot of the fans want to ensure that there’s money to be spent on the team, that they come to a safe, modern stadia, that (United) play exciting, attractive football. And I think we’ve delivered on those accounts.”
Gill also defended the owners’ choice not to communicate directly with the fans, insisting that task has been delegated to the board and to manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
What a load of manipulated horeshit… Manchester United has 333 million fans… it has fuck all to do with the Glazers… thousands of e-mails and phone calls… I wonder how many of them call just to tell Gill he’s “a cunt and should fuck off”… the success on the pitch has been in spite of the Glazers, not because fo them… and how he can call what we’ve been watching this season “attractive football”… ffs…
That’s wht he earns the “big bucks” though… proper company man is Gill.
Gill = Kenyon part 2! Corporate monkeys all of them!
Kenyon was a cunt
Glazers are cunts
Gill is a cunt
Ferguson is in danger of becoming one. We shouldn’t forget that it was him arguing over a test-tube of horse spunk that triggered the sale of the club which allowed the Glazers in. Magnier and Mc Manus sure got the last laught there.
As much as I loathe Gill… can you imagine if Kenyon was the lap dog that fronted for the Glazers???
Kenyon makes Gill look like “one of us”…
“Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabrón and ching’ tu madre! Come out from that shit-hole of yours. I have to speak to you.”
I vowed never to knowingly give the Glazers a penny. And am entirely happy with that decision which becomes increasingly vindicated for every season of lies that continues. Until those parasites are gone, and I include Gill in that description, I will never set foot in Old Trafford.
I see Man City are trying to snatch Douglas Costa from the hands of Ferguson. Mancini claims he is interested in signing the playmaker and will put in a bid. Gee, I really hope not because this will be a big plus for Man City. Costa has stated that he was waiting on Man Utd as there had been some talk between his agent and United. Shakhtar Donetsk had agreed to sell him for 14 million pounds and Fergie was satisfied with that but Fergie takes too long to close deals and then he complains when someone else comes along and snatches the player. But money talks and Man City has lots of money to spend. If we can get Douglas Costa and Gareth Bale, we will be rocking next season.
Herbs, the Costa thing is hardly new.
And how can you say Fergie takes too long, when we see how quickly he moved to secure Bebe?
It was my understanding that no fee had been agreed and no official approach had been made.
so gill reckons one in every thirty or so people worldwide supports utd?
good advert though
Don’t see how we can go in for Costa – he’s basically a impact sub for Donesk!!