This week saw the release of season book prices for the new Spurs stadium and whilst we all know that the London economy bears no resemblance to the rest if the UK, prices starting at £795 are quite eye watering. It did get me wondering about our own prices for the coming season and whether we would take advantage of the Brendan factor and a season book waiting list to raise our prices towards the lower end of EPL levels or continue with the pricing strategy which began 10 years ago when we introduced the £50 child season book.
According to the BBC Price of Football 2017 report out last November adult season book prices for this season started at £376 through to £609 and our kids tickets were priced as follows;
- Under 13 £50 (£2.63 a game) rising to £5.23 a game to include the two Glasgow derbies against Them
- 13–16 Season tickets are from £105 for 19 games and £165 for all 21
- 17–18 Season tickets start at £159 (£8.37 a game) up to £219
In reviewing pricing I suspect Celtic are no different to many businesses that are seeing cost bases starting to rise at levels above inflation. With customer salaries still only marginally rising the decision on whether to pass these cost increases on to customers is a delicate balance. Football inflation continues it’s ridiculous upwards spiral as the greed and avarice of the world’s elite players continues to illustrate that these guys have no shame and despite the increased revenues of last season’s Champions League campaign, if we want to try and compete above the level we have in the last 2 seasons our cost base is only going to go in one direction and with dreadful TV revenues from domestic coverage it will always be the season book price that is looked at to bridge that gap. So what are we going to do?
I understand that the detail will be out in the press by Monday however it looks like price increases will be minimal with kids’ tickets frozen again.
The £50 child season book introduced 10 years ago will remain meaning that again Celtic will again have one of the lowest priced tickets for kids in British football. I also understand that prices for the 13–16 year old and 17/18 year old season books will also remain frozen. For the rest of us it looks like Celtic have decided to benchmark increases to inflation and prices will rise just under 3%.
