Noticed today the return of the BBC article on the price of football with updated figures for 2014/2015. The article also includes a calculator for you to see how much you spend following ICT. 

 

It's really pleasing to see we offer the cheapest day out in the whole of the Scottish Premiership! 

 

 

Link to article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29527838

Edited October 15, 201411 yr by ICTRoughi

The cheapest season ticket at Hibs is £355!  I wouldn't go if I was paid £355!

That's good to hear, well done to everyone at the club working hard to keep it as affordable as possible.

There's also the 10% discount on shirts for st holders

£2.20 for a cup of tea! Is that really what it costs? I had no idea...

I read that Elgin charged 60p and though that was probably about right and that paying over a £1 for a teabag and hot-water would be over-priced.

But £2.20. What makes a  cup of tea served in one ground more expensive than exactly the same product at a lower league ground? I assume Elgin's is in plastic cups while ours is in fine china cups with silver spoons to stir it? I'd at least expect a saucer!

I don't think it's the club that set the prices for the tea?

£2.20 for a cup of tea! Is that really what it costs? I had no idea...

I read that Elgin charged 60p and though that was probably about right and that paying over a £1 for a teabag and hot-water would be over-priced.

But £2.20. What makes a  cup of tea served in one ground more expensive than exactly the same product at a lower league ground? I assume Elgin's is in plastic cups while ours is in fine china cups with silver spoons to stir it? I'd at least expect a saucer!

 

Apparently Kidderminster charge £4.50 for a single pie!

Edited October 15, 201411 yr by ICTRoughi

Perhaps you would rather drink this instead, being a small club I wonder how much they sell.

 

http://www.lerwickbrewery.co.uk/shop/

With it being lunch time kick of at the last game I had a Steak Pie £2.30 and Tea £2.20    Next time I will just have a late breakfast and get dinner when I get home.

 Gentlemen ==you should try the inverness Museum. 6 years ago I entered and had:
1. A plate of soup
2. A cup-of tea  and a bun
3. and my companion had a cup of tea and a croissant or something similar. Total 6 pounds.

This is an eye opener I=CT offers best value for money on and off the field.

 Gentlemen ==you should try the inverness Museum. 6 years ago I entered and had:

1. A plate of soup

2. A cup-of tea  and a bun

3. and my companion had a cup of tea and a croissant or something similar. Total 6 pounds.

This is an eye opener I=CT offers best value for money on and off the field.

Bit of a long walk at half-time SP.

Noticed today the return of the BBC article on the price of football with updated figures for 2014/2015. The article also includes a calculator for you to see how much you spend following ICT. 

 

It's really pleasing to see we offer the cheapest day out in the whole of the Scottish Premiership! 

 

 

Link to article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29527838

 

Not when you include air tickets!  (haha), but seriously that's good! Also puts our league performances into some sort of perspective given the size of our crowds and the cost of going....points per attendance spend must put us top of the table!

Edited October 16, 201411 yr by Eagle4Caley

It puts it into perspective though when you see that Scottish football as a whole is paying more for tickets than many of Europes top teams. No wonder crowds are falling.

You can't pin the problem purely on cost.  ICTFC have not increased prices in the past 4 seasons, and have actually made it cheaper for many over that time...yet numbers have dropped!!

Agree with Caley D here. It's not just a cost thing, and although our crowds have fallen this year, as a proportion of the population attending they aren't too bad. Inverness's population at the last count was 72 000, and our average crowd 3 500 representing 4.86% against a Scottish average of 3.86% Reducing the average attendance to 3 000 still draws 4.16%. So we are actually holding up not too badly against the national picture and, given that our prices have actually fallen in real terms as CD says, the problem for us must lie elsewhere. We can't really complain about the quality of the product at TCS , given where we are in the League on our budget (although it's a budget we really need to increase) So what actually is the problem?

 

I honestly think that people stay away because there is a central belt media agenda that has a vested interest in promoting negativity in our game in order to continue to sell newspapers to Billy of Armadale and Partick of Springburn. According to them anything and everything from stadia to stewarding is downright awful.But that's all it does, sell papers - it has no interest in the welfare of the game.Too few teams? The top League can't support more realistically because the population base isn't there in Scotland to supply fans and in any case, those new clubs would rapidly become the same old same old. Match day experience? according to the stats, not that many people (20% or so) are that excercised about further improvements to grounds. They just want better football. Other stuff to watch? Let's move out of the way of the rugby etc. Weather? well, here's my point. Maybe it is time to move to summer football. Interestingly the last Scottish Football survey defined the social demographic of people attending the game and it's not the working class pie & a pint after working saturday morning then go to the game that it used to be. We don't all head off on trades fortnights holidays any more so what's the deal? I'd rather watch football in July with an average temperature of 15 degrees than January with 4. You'll still get rain but it won't be solid! It might even increase our perception of difference from the EPL, and increase the standard of football as well as making last minute postponements a thing of the past. Look at scandinavia if you want a bright, vibrant domestic football scene played in decent weather. Look at Eastern Europe iif you want to see how to avoid playing in winter but still make a fist of playing in europe.

 

It can be done, it would bring people back to the game.  It just needs a bit of radical thought that might have the added, brilliant benefit of sinking the central belt media certainties once and for all.

Edited October 17, 201411 yr by davie

whilst I agree with Davie perhaps a partial winter shut down would be better

ie only 2 games played over the festive break 27th December and 2nd January.

Most families are skint over December and January but with the return of exiles for the festive season this may boost the festive season crowds.

If we got a league sponsor there may be enough money to negotiate with SKY so only 3pm games are shown and each  club having a max number of TV games  in  a year

Agree with Caley D here. It's not just a cost thing, and although our crowds have fallen this year, as a proportion of the population attending they aren't too bad. Inverness's population at the last count was 72 000, and our average crowd 3 500 representing 4.86% against a Scottish average of 3.86% Reducing the average attendance to 3 000 still draws 4.16%. So we are actually holding up not too badly against the national picture and, given that our prices have actually fallen in real terms as CD says, the problem for us must lie elsewhere. We can't really complain about the quality of the product at TCS , given where we are in the League on our budget (although it's a budget we really need to increase) So what actually is the problem?

 

 

I'm just not too sure how scientifically reliable it is to assess football crowds as a percentage of the population of the town/city in which they are based and possibly the best counter example is Ross County. Clubs also tend to draw support from outwith so how many people there are within 10, 20, 30 etc miles is a further factor.

Then there's the prevalence of people in the community who support "big" clubs. I think that the factors contributing to attendance levels are many and varied and probably fall into four categories - those directly related to any club and those related to wider societal factors, with both of these then subdivided into those which something could or could not have something done about them.

The price factor is an intriguing one and I am interested to note what Donald said earlier which suggests that demand in this market may not actually be very elastic.

Have you noticed that the number of posters on here seems to have diminished considerably over the past few years as well?

People are becoming disinterested in football. Thats probably the long and short of it. Yesterday I was surprised to find there are still plenty tickets available for Scotland v England. A few years ago they'd all have been taken up by SSC members. We can all provide reasons of varying degrees for this but I think money is the primary factor.

People are becoming disinterested in football. Thats probably the long and short of it.

I fear that you are right Alex. This is something I have been concerned about for some time, although I still think that a considerable interest and willingness to attend remains at the highest profile level such as the English Premier League and people also watch a lot on TV. But at other levels, including the Scottish Premiership, interest does appear to be diminishing.

This tends to be a cyclical thing because there was a slump in attendances in about the 80s before an upswing a few years later.

An online report I read this morning states that in Britain the increase in ticket prices for football has outstripped the accumulated inflation rates since 2011.

People are becoming disinterested in football. Thats probably the long and short of it. Yesterday I was surprised to find there are still plenty tickets available for Scotland v England. A few years ago they'd all have been taken up by SSC members. We can all provide reasons of varying degrees for this but I think money is the primary factor.

Money a big factor for this one as it is a huge game for pride but that it as it it a friendly and would you pay 60 quid for that

People are becoming disinterested in football. Thats probably the long and short of it. Yesterday I was surprised to find there are still plenty tickets available for Scotland v England. A few years ago they'd all have been taken up by SSC members. We can all provide reasons of varying degrees for this but I think money is the primary factor.

Money a big factor for this one as it is a huge game for pride but that it as it it a friendly and would you pay 60 quid for that

Money is the main factor 2 big games in 4 days that's £100 plus beer and travel and accommodation if you are from out with the central belt.

In my view it's globalisation and it's irreversible. Satellite TV and ease of travel mean that nobody punches above their weight any longer.

I first became aware of this when I made my first trip to North America in 1998 (also the last time Scotland reached a major finals).

I went to see the Blue Jays take on the Yankees at baseball and enjoyed it so much I went to another game in the minor league at Kitchener.

I realised that the major league played to full houses in magnificent stadiums and pitchers were paid about $3m even then.

Meanwhile, just below this level, the minors played to crowds of about 100, just like our Juniors or HL.

So just as everything that happens over there, follows here about 10 years later, we have the elite such as the Champions' League and the Premiership, where the rich just get richer and people such as Wayne Rooney no longer breathe the same air as the rest of us.

In the 70s you had a fair chance of bumping into a top player from the Scottish or English League on the High Street or in a pub, and top English sides sent up a strong team, not a reserve side, to play the likes of Rangers or Hibs, and as often as not they lost.

By the same token, when I was at school, people got annoyed at seeing Old Firm scarves instead of Hearts/Hibs ones.

When I started teaching in 1981 I started to see the odd Liverpool or Man U scarf.

By the time I finished teaching in 2012 the boys tended to have a 'big' team from outside scotland, such as Chelsea or Barca, and didn't really take Scottish teams seriously any more. I have a friend in his mid-thirties who has QOS as his wee team as he comes from there, but he has a season ticket at Anfield.

As for the national team, I used to tell the boys in my class that I felt sorry for them as they had never lived through the days of Scotland expecting to qualify. They just assumed that we had always been rubbish, didn't believe that we once qualified for 5 tournaments in a row and couldn't relate to watching legends like Law and Dalglish rather than Scott Brown and Alan Hutton.

After yesterday it simply brought home to me that referees have simply ruined some of the games this season. If I see Gollum listed for our future games I will definitely consider missing out.