Originally Posted by browna
Not excuses, an economic strategy in their minds which they are sticking too, shockingly, after a whole 2 home games. They didn’t pull a number out of their butt to price tickets, I’m sure they had some market research as to what numbers they’d get people wise, willing to pay the prices they are charging and have it for thier economic model.
Again, what’s the sweet spot for supply and demand given expectations of a new team in the city? Theyre gambling on to go high for a certain number of core group of people in this 1 million person city who want to watch as many of these these soccer games as they can first and foremost, and aren’t as concerned about a potential $20 ticket price premium, secondarily.
Will they get 20% more people, game in and game out, if they priced all tickets 20% less? Or the same argument, using 30%? 40%? Or double...will they get twice as many people to come out if they cut the ticket prices in half? My guess is no on the last one, and they figure, and have done research, that they won’t get that elastic demand. Instead they’ll get a core group that will pay the (example 30%)premium. Having that constant group of people willing to be paying that premium amount, helps make up the of difference of instead pricing the seats lower by that amount and hoping to get that many more people out to generate the same ticket revenue and insulates against casual fan fluctuations.
Put to hypothetical numbers, they estimate that they will get 2000 people x60$ a lot more regularly and likely, than *hopefully* getting 20% more people paying 20% less, to equal out revenue, as the (again, researched based analysis) threshold for seeing significant gains in casual interest in the first year, is probably pegged at people willing to pay (example) 20$ tickets...and that’s only reached if all the factors align for those casual people align to feel like coming out, such weather is good, game on a weekend etc.
And, there are expenses to cover. Each team is different, but if when next year the Forge for example have to raise their prices and change thier pricing scheme for everyone, because they got a core group paying $35, but didn’t get enough casual walk ups paying the $19, to generate enough ticket revenue for their business model, and have to raise prices to $45 for the core people and $30 for the lesser seats, as an example, then they’re going to lose people from the core.
Cavalry can come down, if required, with a lot less concern then revising and then raising prices. As mentioned, the Storm (when Tommy came across and Mark McLoughlin and others owned the team) back when in 2002 charged $10 and $5 for kids in their first year at Foothills and got a maybe 1500 people for nice day games. It didn’t cover expenses, so the second year they charged $25 and $10 and got under half that for people per game and folded that season.
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