Just The Ticket

Ahead of assessing a game at the end of last year, I registered online with a club. They’ll remain nameless, but they are in the WSL.

And while this isn’t in any way unique to the WSL or women’s football, as I’ve seen a number of EFL clubs do the same or very similar, this was more extreme and points to one of the reasons that WSL attendances haven’t made the jump that many possibly expected after the Lionesses retained the Euros in Switzerland last summer.

After registering, I received fifteen emails from the club telling me that tickets were available. On social media – and I only use a couple of platforms for assessment purposes – I saw a further fifteen posts over two or three weeks that again pointed me towards ticket availability. As well as this, on several of the website pages I looked at for information, there was either a static advert on them for tickets, or a pop up as I was browsing.

So in all, almost forty separate attempts to get me to buy a ticket.

They needn’t have worried. I was assessing the club’s matchday experience, so it was part of my job to buy a ticket. And it was relatively easy to do so when I went to that part of the club’s website.  So, in that sense, they were doing things right by sending plenty of reminders across a variety of channels.

But, in that comparatively high number of contacts, there was not one email, post or advert that told me why I should buy a ticket for the – or indeed any – game.

In fact, there was nothing beyond an image of a player, the date and kick off time of the game and the opponents. And I’d expect these details as standard. It’s pretty difficult without them.

But the lack of anything beyond that is concerning. The club – and it’s not an isolated case – are basically putting the onus on the recipient to work out if it’s worth their time and money. That might work in the Premier League – where demand can often outstrip availability – but not here, as the attendance was well below the stadium’s capacity.

That approach simply won’t work for genuine new people. They need a compelling reason. I was getting paid (and all my expenses covered) to go, which was a pretty compelling reason to be fair, but why would someone pay their hard-earned money, and use up at least half a day of their weekend, without a very good reason?

The simple answer is they wouldn’t.

Assumptions

Part of this is down to laziness on the club’s part, although maybe sub-consciously. It’s expecting someone to make the connections, join all the dots and reach the conclusion that the game is worth going to, but then, many football clubs have always done it that way.

It, of course, assumes that people already know the club well and will go for that reason alone. That their passion for the club trumps anything else.

And that only really applies to people who are already a fan, have their details on the club’s database and aren’t attending games at the moment. The emails, social content and ads are giving them a push in the right direction, but still don’t address the why.

Yet there are lots of things that they could have said in that regard.

Firstly, the ticket prices. WSL games are incredibly good value for money and are priced well below that of tickets for men’s games at any level of the professional game. It can cost an adult less than ten pounds, with concessions making the total for a family very affordable in today’s market, and certainly comparable to similar leisure pursuits like the cinema or other sports. But no figures were listed.

The club could also point to what could be found in addition to the football. There was a fan zone – albeit a very wet one on the day thanks to horrendous weather – with music, a merchandise stall and activities for younger fans. They could have sent me a video or at least some images of fans enjoying themselves at previous games, invoking my FOMO.

The game itself was no slouch either. The visitors ended up going top of the league after a hard-fought end-to-end victory that went right down to the wire, so this was no mid-table bore. Of course, they didn’t know it would be a good game when they were flogging the tickets, but they could have hyped the match up. ‘Can we stop XXX from going top?’ for example.

Yet none of this was mentioned; not unless I either asked or was prepared to dig deep with some online research. And let’s face it, how many people do that? I spent over an hour on the club’s website and socials for the assessment, but the average time spent on there by others would be minutes, not hours, and single figures at that.

As well as a top-tier game of football, with several star names and internationals in the teams, there was so much more that deserved to attract a bigger audience.

So why don’t they tell us this? Why does this club – and any other – think that the bare minimum when it comes to information and promotion will be enough?

It’s quite hard to pinpoint. And the reasons may vary from club to club. And as I said, there are men’s clubs who fall into exactly the same trap.

So maybe the easiest place to begin is the culture.

Culture Club 

On the day itself, and in pretty poor conditions, there was an overbearing sense that the club was still doing the bare minimum. Three quarters of the stadium had the shutters down, including the main club store, and the merchandise stall felt like an afterthought with just a few items being sold from a tiny mobile kiosk.

Put it this way, there is no EFL club who would have the main club store closed on a match day, yet the attendance for this game was higher than eight EFL attendances that week.

The fan zone too just scratched the surface. Activities were thin on the ground, and the one they did have was unsupervised and completely taken over by the junior girls club that had been invited to play a part in the day’s proceedings.

There were very few club staff or volunteers outside the stadium, and barely any more of them inside, so – despite their overt friendliness - creating a memorable matchday experience was always going to be a stretch. I understand there were some activities for kids in another stand but, again, these didn’t get any air time and I only discovered they were happening because I dug into the online pages and found out about it myself.

At the Fan Experience Company, we have a saying that ‘good marketing might get you to a game, but only a great experience will make you want to come back.’

We could debate whether this resembled good marketing. Or even marketing.

But marks for perseverance. At least they pushed the game and tickets. It’s a start and something to build upon. Better than not even contacting people at all.

But a great experience it was not. And again, it’s not unique. Two weeks later, I wasn’t even sure I had gone to the right ground on arrival at another club, and the large ‘Next Game’ sign was only focussed on the men’s team.

Back to the aforementioned match. As I drove away – in damp clothes –at the end, they’d not done anything that would have made me go back and spend more time and money at the club. I’d not felt valued, or even particularly made to feel especially welcome.

That didn’t stop the emails coming afterwards though. Or the social posts.

Not a thank you. Or one asking me what I thought. Instead they said this.

The next game is against such and such. On this day. At this time. You can buy a ticket by clicking here.

But sadly, still no compelling reason for why I should.

And, like it or not, attendances aren’t going to go up significantly until this is addressed.