Dirty TackleScottish club offer fans ‘pay what you can’ ticket deal
Albion Rovers, a Scottish League Two side situated ten miles outside Glasgow, have adopted a new ticket pricing strategy for their home match against Montrose on Saturday. Inspired by the likes of Brentford and Radiohead, The Wee Rovers will let fans pay whatever they can for the game. (And yes, Wee Rovers is their real nickname.)
Fans will be able to watch for a minimum of £1, but will be encouraged to pay exactly what they believe Scottish fourth tier football is worth to them. The Guardian reports:
[...] Chairman John Devlin believes greater numbers will be attracted to Cliftonhill this weekend. "We're trying to appeal to new fans and stimulate a dormant support in our home town of Coatbridge. It's hopefully the perfect time to do this for people who are cash-strapped after Christmas and new year," said Devlin.
The chairman goes on to explain that the club's home town of Coatbridge represents a catchment area of 50,000-60,000 people and that such an enticing offer may create new fans. However, he freely admits that the good people of Coatbridge aren't very likely to pay more than they absolutely have to:
"I'm expecting quite a lot of people will pay just the £1, we're kind of budgeting on that basis. We hope a lot of people who haven't seen Albion Rovers before will come along just out of interest. That was the objective."
Albion Rovers usually attract around 400 fans to home games and charge £10 per ticket. So, this weekend they risk making £400 when they could have made £4,000. However, for a small club like this, an "honesty box" style of ticketing might improve attendances in the short term, encourage repeat attendance in the long term and create the potential for a Jock McMoneybags to drop by with an extremely generous valuation of the price of the entertainment.
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