Finance 'hole' for Yorkshire after Test match

[Owzat]

EXTRACT ONLY, FULL STORY = BBC News - Finance 'hole' for Yorkshire after Test match

Chief executive Stewart Regan said the club had missed out on about ?750,000 after failing to attract the five-figures attendances it was hoping for.

The club has warned that poor ticket sales could lead to redundancies.

Pakistan completed their first Test win against Australia for 15 years at Headingley on Saturday.

Mr Regan said: "Clearly with a capacity of 18,000 we would have hoped to have had certainly into a five-figure attendance.

"We've ended up with 4,000 on the first two days, around about 6,000 on the third day. Financially it leaves a big hole in our cash flow.

"It is quite a hole that we're going to have to find elsewhere."

Mr Regan said when the club won the chance to host the match it expected it to be a "huge success".

Perhaps a bit of naivety on the part of YCCC, expecting 10,000+ to go to a match not involving England without massive incentives. I'd say their marketing team needs a good kick up the rear, or out the door.

PAKISTAN v AUSTRALIA Test Match 2010

2nd M.C.C. Spirit of Cricket Test Match - Pakistan v Australia - Headingley Carnegie, 21st to 25th July
Tickets for this game are available now. Prices are as follows:

East Stand & Pavilion Stand

These concessions only apply to Yorkshire CCC members:

?30 members
?10 junior members
?40 non-members
?15 junior non-members

Family Stand (alcohol free)

?35 adults
?15 juniors

North Stand

?30 adults
?15 juniors

Other Areas

Main Stand: ?50
North East Upper Stand: ?40
Carnegie Lower Stand: ?40
West Stand: ?30

Sorry but up to ?50 for a ticket not involving England?!??!!? Do they think people are made of money? They should have done promotions like :

Five day adult pass = ?130
Five day adult & child pass = ?150
Adult & child = ?35 a day
Family of four (2 adults, 2 children) = ?75 a day
Extra child = ?10 a day

Their price structure is too wooden for a non-England game, they should have been throwing the doors open with package offers and filling seats. They finally woke up to marketing when only 40 runs were needed to complete the match, ?5 and adult with kids for free. My above is just off the top of my head, I don't get paid whatever their sales and marketing team do although I may have spent more time thinking about it than they did!

Maybe they just overestimated their product full-stop, I mean ?750k short when expecting over double the attendance is like a massive c*ck up.

 

[riz7khan12]

lol at yorkshire, overestimated really badly, i mean the prices are stupendous $100 for one day?? thats just . to make it worse it was a test match.

 

[angryangy]

I remember the joke was passed during South Africa vs England that the prices of taking your family to see the cricket at Lords and flying over to see the cricket in South Africa were fairly equitable.

I suppose if the game had gone on for 5 days, they would have been closer to the mark, but any time an English ground hosts a game which will not sell out any of the first 3 days, the price immediately seems extortionate.

 

[Themer]

Yorkshire have made a complete cock up there to be honest. Were they really expecting to get full attendances with a game involving two neutral teams?

I thought the crowds were pretty decent as well considering its was neutral and all.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I agree with that, no one is going to shell out 30-50 quid for what would essentially be a bit of curioso.

 

[MUFC1987]

The Counties with the Test match grounds just don't seem to be the cleverest bunch really. A few Counties are run within their means, without International cricket, yet these lot seem to expect a few International games to make up 90% of their income for the year which is madness. Some serious thought needs to go into how these Counties are run. Relying on a Test a year is not good in my opinion, as there's no guarentee that it's going to make as much money as they expect.

 

[ali_ed2001]

Another thing is that it was a test match. Even though there is a huge Pakistani population in that area, they barely watch test matches. If there 5 T20's in 5 consecutive days, I'm pretty sure every game would be a near sell out.

 

[pcfan123]

Which is a crying shame,

anyways they deserve it. A friend of mine just got back from England and he told me the prices for the cricket (England AUS ODIs, the dead rubbers) its even more expensive than box level seats at NFL games.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

100 $

That's too much for a test

 

[Owzat]

A friend and I went to Lords to watch West Indies and England scored about 400 in the day (1st day) - it cost about ?45. I looked at tickets to a day at Lords when I was due to be off work one day and it was cheapest ?75. I could spend ?75 on a ticket, but with their ridiculous refund policy re rain and me objecting on principle to the silly pricing, I decided to take a stand rather than buy a seat in one.

Maybe they simply don't understand the impact of general ticket prices on mr average who probably resents paying ?40+ for a ticket to watch England play Tests and certainly won't pay that to watch a neutral match.


Oh and on a slightly different note, has anyone else noticed how the ECB manage to put so many days of England cricket (Test/ODI) on at the same time as another major sporting event? eg 27th June, England vs Germany and England vs Australia - England vs Australia (1 wkt) was the closer and better game. They just have a knack of poor scheduling, including having one match over a bank holiday weekend when they might have squeezed in one on the Saturday and one on the Monday. Although they did manage to avoid putting a match on the same day as the last day of the Premiership, one wonders if by luck or judgement

 

[khalek]

So how can they reduce the prices of tickets all over the world for test matches? Test cricket does not attract too many people to stadiums all over the world so what are the ways to reduce these ticket prices?

 

[angryangy]

That's a very vague question.

 

[Themer]

Plus the fact that in England people do pay the prices that is stated at the top.

But Yorkshire should have realised that people would be less than willing to pay full price when the two teams are neutral.

 

[RobinHood]

?50 really is about double what I would consider fair, so I have no sympathy for Yorkshire on this one.

2 Neutral teams I dont know what they were expecting, I thought the attendances were actually pretty good considering the circumstances.