Camp Nou

[Ubermensch]

Then those season tickets holders are really spoiled. At such cheap price to watch world class football week in week out, what else do they want. Need a limo to drive each of them to the stadium and leave with a signed jersey of Messi every match? I really question how much Barca means to those spoiled crowd.

For me this is the number one problem the board should solve no matter how. Can't stand Messi and co only play a few matches a season in full house.

 

[frog-fcb]

I suppose realisticley quite a few of them season ticket holders who dont appear every game could be from overseas an its not viable to travel every week. I think pep is a season ticket holder to

 

[Kerrybai]

I suppose realisticley quite a few of them season ticket holders who dont appear every game could be from overseas an its not viable to travel every week. I think pep is a season ticket holder to

A man has wealthy as Pep surely has no need for a season ticket. Either way if you live abroad and can't attend a certain number of games you should have your ticket revoked. We should be at 98-99% capacity every week like Bayern, Dortmund, United etc.

 

[Ubermensch]

I suppose realisticley quite a few of them season ticket holders who dont appear every game could be from overseas an its not viable to travel every week.

I do want to look at the breakdown of the season ticket holders to see what you said is true or not. But we are talking about over 10000 of them in average didn't turn up every match.

Anyhow, no matter what are the reasons behind, the fact remains pathetic. Take Dortmund for example, even in the last disastrous season their average attendance was over 80000, almost always full house. And this Barca team for the last 7 years at the peak of the history of football have only been able to draw an average 75-80% full stadium? Absolute failure for the club. From the board above down to all fans below, including me, should be ashamed of that.

 

[Kerrybai]

I do want to look at the breakdown of the season ticket holders to see what you said is true or not. But we are talking about over 10000 of them in average didn't turn up every match.

Anyhow, no matter what are the reasons behind, the fact remains pathetic. Take Dortmund for example, even in the last disastrous season their average attendance was over 80000, almost always full house. And this Barca team for the last 7 years at the peak of the history of football have only been able to draw an average 75-80% full stadium? Absolute failure for the club. From the board above down to all fans below, including me, should be ashamed of that.

No you have it slightly wrong here, last season we averaged 77k with 87k season ticket holders. Say 10k of those 77k were match day goers, that means 20'000 season ticket holders stayed at home... unless I'm completely missing something here?

 

[Ubermensch]

No you have it slightly wrong here, last season we averaged 77k with 87k season ticket holders. Say 10k of those 77k were match day goers, that means 20'000 season ticket holders stayed at home... unless I'm completely missing something here?

Yep, you are right. the absent rate of the season ticket holders should be much higher than 10k. Anyway, the whole ticketing system must be flaw. And those holders always absent should be sent to Old Trafford to pay half of their monthly income for each match to witness the most exiting rendition of modern football. Messi and co are simply not enough for them.

 

[frog-fcb]

Also another point is could it be the same 10000 odd people missing every game or different ones each game etc

 

[Flavia]

Some of those season-tickets are sold too. Makes it hard to estimate how many don't go, but also don't sell their tickets.

 

[Luftstalag14]

We need to institute a system like Bayern's which I believe specified that if any season tickets holder attends less than 8 games each season their season tickets will be taken away, something like that.

 

[NvanMJ]

But don't forget, every season ticket holder who doesn't go makes it a little easier for foreign fans like us to get a ticket for a match, . Even the RM matches.

 

[4candles]

I think it has to do with how cheap season tickets are compared with matchday tickets, apparently you can get season tickets as cheap as 74 British pounds http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ices-compare-to-those-in-europe-a6695931.html

Don't believe that article. I can't find this season's prices, but last season (2014/15) the prices were between 133€ and 1097€ for a full season ticket (25% discount for league-only):

http://www.fcbarcelona.es/socios/detalle/ficha/pago-abono-estadio-palau-y-parquing-temporada-2014-15

Plus a season ticket holder has to be a member, and that's a separate 170€ (approx) charge per year. So a minimum of about 270€ for a league-only ticket, not the £74 claimed by the Independent.

Also, don't also believe attendance figures - e.g. Arsenal equate attendance with "tickets sold" (including season tickets), and not the actual attendance:

http://aisforarsenal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/arsenals-actual-average-attendance-last.html

I don't think Barcelona's attendance "problem" (I'm sure 99.9% of other clubs would kill for an average of 75K+) is only down to season ticket holders. General ticket prices have always seemed exhorbitantly expensive to me, mostly bought by tourists. But then I always try to buy a decent seat for decent opponents.

And I don't think the renovation of the Camp Nou is in order to increase the seating capacity - that's just a positive side-effect of the design (levelling out the top tiers all round the stadium and installing a roof). The main reason is that it's old, cramped, lacking in internal space for facilities (thereby reducing matchday income) and in need of repair.

 

[Ubermensch]

I'm sure 99.9% of other clubs would kill for an average of 75K+

The problem is 99.9% of other teams didn't play football as good as we did in the past 7 years. This Barca will go down to history as the best team ever and Messi the best player yet for this pinnacle of footballing feast the stadium was almost always not full: A blasphemy to the greatest era of the club. This is intolerable. One would have imagined people would be dying to find a seat to watch this team even they were banging an amateur team.

Actually, when most of the time the stadium is only 75% full, it's beyond any flawed ticketing system or expensive ticket prices or something else can explain. The only disheartening reason probably is the demand is simply not enough. The local fans are truly spoiled. Do they really think this team will last forever? Messi will play another 50 years so that they can go to watch him as long as they want to? By what divine right they have not to treasure the best era of the club they support? Do they really support the club at all?

If this Barca team is truly to be remembered as the greatest for ever and ever by anybody who has the slightest glimpse of their genius, then, astonishingly, the attendance figures of Camp Nou for all these glorious days are likely to make an absurd mockery of it. Is it a joke? Fucking pathetic.

 

[Ritchie]

Then those season tickets holders are really spoiled. At such cheap price to watch world class football week in week out, what else do they want. Need a limo to drive each of them to the stadium and leave with a signed jersey of Messi every match? I really question how much Barca means to those spoiled crowd.

For me this is the number one problem the board should solve no matter how. Can't stand Messi and co only play a few matches a season in full house.

They sit in silence anyway so they're no miss (and voted Rosell).

 

[Xtroverto]

The problem is 99.9% of other teams didn't play football as good as we did in the past 7 years. This Barca will go down to history as the best team ever and Messi the best player yet for this pinnacle of footballing feast the stadium was almost always not full: A blasphemy to the greatest era of the club. This is intolerable. One would have imagined people would be dying to find a seat to watch this team even they were banging an amateur team.

Actually, when most of the time the stadium is only 75% full, it's beyond any flawed ticketing system or expensive ticket prices or something else can explain. The only disheartening reason probably is the demand is simply not enough. The local fans are truly spoiled. Do they really think this team will last forever? Messi will play another 50 years so that they can go to watch him as long as they want to? By what divine right they have not to treasure the best era of the club they support? Do they really support the club at all?

If this Barca team is truly to be remembered as the greatest for ever and ever by anybody who has the slightest glimpse of their genius, then, astonishingly, the attendance figures of Camp Nou for all these glorious days are likely to make an absurd mockery of it. Is it a joke? Fucking pathetic.

It is to easy without proper data to flog all season ticket holders. FC Barcelona is very complicated to analyze because a lot of season ticket holders live beyond the metropolitan area. So they stay home when games are played on inconvenient hours, like 22:00 on a Sunday, that means you won't be home until 1:30-2:00 in the morning when you have to get up 3 hour later to go to work. Also, many season ticket holders are old, they have been to Camp Nou for 30-40-50 years and are used to only go when it is convenient for them, during the Cruyff era average attendance was even lower than now despite 120,000 capacity up to the end of 1993/94 season, and that team was considered playing the best football the team had played for at least 30 years.

Also, remember, the board can't just raise the ticket price as it please, this is a member owned club and if the members don't agree the board will be kicked out in a vote of no confidence. So hiking the season ticket price has always been an issue since the owners of the club are the ones paying for the tickets.

 

[Kerrybai]

Don't believe that article. I can't find this season's prices, but last season (2014/15) the prices were between 133€ and 1097€ for a full season ticket (25% discount for league-only):

http://www.fcbarcelona.es/socios/detalle/ficha/pago-abono-estadio-palau-y-parquing-temporada-2014-15

Plus a season ticket holder has to be a member, and that's a separate 170€ (approx) charge per year. So a minimum of about 270€ for a league-only ticket, not the £74 claimed by the Independent.

Also, don't also believe attendance figures - e.g. Arsenal equate attendance with "tickets sold" (including season tickets), and not the actual attendance:

http://aisforarsenal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/arsenals-actual-average-attendance-last.html

I don't think Barcelona's attendance "problem" (I'm sure 99.9% of other clubs would kill for an average of 75K+) is only down to season ticket holders. General ticket prices have always seemed exhorbitantly expensive to me, mostly bought by tourists. But then I always try to buy a decent seat for decent opponents.

And I don't think the renovation of the Camp Nou is in order to increase the seating capacity - that's just a positive side-effect of the design (levelling out the top tiers all round the stadium and installing a roof). The main reason is that it's old, cramped, lacking in internal space for facilities (thereby reducing matchday income) and in need of repair.

Match day tickets are very expensive, I paid over 150 for Barca PSG in the CL group stage, but it does appear to be the season ticket holders who are letting us down. From what I can see we still sell plenty of match day tickets to tourists.

I forgot about the 170 charge per year but even after that a total of 270 is damn good. Surely at higher prices those people would be more inclined to attend all games, although as mentioned above the board can't change this.

Most teams record tickets sold vs 'bums on seats.' I think it has something to do with taxes, Spanish teams appear to be an exception, but even at 54k Arsenal areat 90% capacity, far above Barcelona.

You are right about the renovation, its main purpose is adding more premium seats and boxes while also adding a roof.