BORO should repay the fans loyalty and use next season's TV cashcade to slash ticket prices.
Bloated Premiership clubs will get an average of a £40m bonanza next season from new global broadcasting deals - double what they get under the current scheme. Given the crisis of faith in the game among the supporters it would be an act of suicidal arrogance to pour that money straight into the Armani trouser pockets of already super-rich players and parasitical agents. It would lead to widespread revulsion and speed up the defection away from the game.
The only moral, decent and sensible thing to do would be to use the jackpot to bring down exhorbitant prices and reward fans for their endless sacrifices over the years and make the game accessible to new generations of fans. If clubs waste the money by adding a nought to the wages of average players then the trickle of fans away from the game will become a flood.
Blackburn chief executive John Williams has already called for the clubs to consider the possibility of subsidising tickets - and when a man of his ilk makes such a proposal you know the crisis is starting to really bite.
Rovers are just one of a string of middling clubs that have pegged back prices this season in a bid to arrest the collapse in gates. They have let in season-ticket holders free to UEFA Cup games, staged a string kid-a-quid games and cut the price for less attractive games - Boro's visit was rated at £16 and Teessiders travelled en masse.
Other clubs have followed suit, including Boro who smashed their long established system of categorising matches when they demoted Liverpool - normally a top whack A game - to a cut-price £24 a ticket. They also tried an innovative package for the Charlton game allowing adults who bought a full price ticket to take up to four kids at a fiver a shot.
Just as clubs have followed Blackburn down the discounting route so they must back their call to utilise the goggle-box bonanza to prop up the market and restore a sense of integrity. It is a supreme irony that while the Premiership is raking in unprecedented cash abroad, domestically the product is in trouble. Fans are alienated from the millionaire mecenaries, the cheats and the smooth talking charlatans acting as agents. They are disenchanted with an uncompetitive league where 16 teams are cannon fodder for the big boys. With spin and scandal and soulless atmospheres and kick-off times moved at the drop of a hat. So they are walking away.
Outside Old Trafford, gates are down everywhere, even Newcastle, and especially in the cups when the extra expenditure really hammers home how an expensive a hobby it is. Home TV audiences are down too as even the real square-eyed saddoes are recoiling from an endless diet of uninspiring matches every night of the week. And on Saturday the traditional fan-base are all down the boozer 'watching it on al-Jazeera' instead of in the ground, having a few pints and enjoying the game with mates where they won't be told to sit down by over-zealous stewards and don't have to queue for beer, the toilet or the underpass in the rain
The game is at a watershed. The lads from the estates who once formed the heart of the crowd are gone. Now the matchday demographics have changed. Fans are older and richer - but have big demands on their leisure time and money: wives wanting holidays, new cars to buy, second families and houses and expensive divorces to finance, kids at university... the rival demands are many and the temptations to walk away are great. The game can not afford to give them that little nudge that will see them wrap it in. Anacdotal evidence suggests that the extra cash being squandered on players wages and agents fees while asking fans to still stump up for such a tarnished product could spark a mass exodus.
Meanwhile, Teesside's youth, the kids in first jobs - often not much above the national minimum wage - paying through the nose for their first car, saving to get on an ever steeper property ladder, having to choose between a social life and a hobby, they just can't afford the prices that have been pushed upwards on average by 7% a year for decade, far outstripping inflation or the rise in incomes.
So clubs like Boro are being squeezed by two trends that are eating into their market and have suddenly been given a massive windfall. What does a sensible business that values its links with the community, values its customers and has a long-term strategy for growing its market share do? It's a no brainer really.
We have long been told by boastful businessmen in the game how fantastic they are to have engineered a wide range of exciting new revenue streams to boost their coffers: small screen cash, websites, matchday hospitality, shirt sponsorship, merchandising and a host of other devices to separate the loyalists from their hard earned.
In fact, they have so successfully tapped these streams that gate money is now a small part of the spectrum. Keith Lamb said a year of so ago that ticket income constituted less than 30% of the club's income - and that is about to get a hell of a lot smaller with the new wedge.
Now with the financial pressure eased by the new TV deal the club must start to use ticket prices less as a way to bring in cash and more as a marketing device to boost the product and stimulate demand. The only logical thing is to reduce prices. Drastically. The clubs could now afford to lop 10% - what the hell, 20% - off as part of a loyalty dividend to season ticket holders as a reward for the years of sacrifice. It would also head off any complaints from Red Bookers when they also use the opportunity to try more creative pricing initiatives.
That would not compromise the club's ability to operate in the transfer market, and besides, we have made a much-trumpeted strategic turn to youth and the academy. There could be increased investment there too with more coaches, scouts and centres so there is a tangible long-term benifit for the club if the Far Eastern bubble bursts five years down the line.
There could be a new supporters club, some satellite shops in Redcar and Stockton, an overhaul of the ticketing operation, a membership scheme, subsidised club travel for big away games, investment in The Twel12th Man and other set piece supporters initiatives to improve relationships and boost the atmosphere. Almost anything is possible if there is a meaningful dialogue with fans as to what they want from the club and a willingness to act on good ideas that can help cement a solid base for the future.
There will never be such a fortuitous moment to make a symbolic gesture to the fans and let them finally get a small share of the riches in the game that they have all made such a massive personal financial and emotional investment in. To waste this opportunity and give all the money to players and agents would be a calculated kick in the teeth.
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