Season Ticket Discussion 2024/25

[Johnny75]

Sorry, I meant we don't generate enough to cover certain things. Whatever it is I don't think Fosun are finding ways to put money in their own pocket from us, not say like the dick that owned WBA. Their use for us right now is our badge/name as the look to keep the Government in Beijing happy with investments in eSports. Outside of that, no real interest so on our own, not going to chuck money at us and we having pissing idiot in charge that can't even see what is crumbling around him (in every aspect of crumbling).


Might change again if we have a Lage start to next season and they think "shit, we might get relegated and people in China don't follow the Football League" or we discover the Chinese Messi and their Government loves football again. The only thing really possible from that is the Lage start to the season.

So, really need someone who wants to throw money at football whilst holding around 25% of the ownership...don't think many of this type exist

Ah yes, completely agree with you.

 

[Trips]

That piece of work Jane Stevenson can fuck off.

Voted against feeding poor kids, claiming now she's spent 8 years on the ST waiting list.

Really Jane because here were our gates 8 years ago, in the early months of 2016/17.

Reading 20,425
Ipswich 19,991
Burton 22,049
Barnsley 18,668
Brentford 20,367

If you couldn't get a ticket then you weren't trying very hard.

Utter rubbish from her. I moved back to the Midlands around October 2017, attended quire a few games buying individual match tickets, and then bought a half-season ticket for the remainder of the promotion season. There was no waiting list

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Utter rubbish from her. I moved back to the Midlands around October 2017, attended quire a few games buying individual match tickets, and then bought a half-season ticket for the remainder of the promotion season. There was no waiting list

As late as Nov 2017 we played Fulham and had a gate of 24,338.

Why she would put that out on Twitter and expect no-one to challenge her on it, the mind boggles.

If you joined the nascent waiting list in early/mid 2018 then you would also almost certainly have been offered a ticket at some stage in the last six years.

 

[Tony Towner]

Naive question on my part, but if the club has cash reserves built up could Fosun effectively knock that off the asking price? "You can buy the club for n, but we're taking the cash with us"?

So the buyer pays Fosun 50m and then Fosun take 30m worth of cash out the club just before they sell? So Fosun effectively get 80m for selling and the buyer doesn't have to stump up quite as much (all hypothetical values ofc)

Other way round, the money in the bank would be a club asset so Fosun gets it back by putting that on to the price, the new owner keeps the cash.
There's ways they could get money out relatively easily though.The club paid agents/ Mendes £13.4m last year for the pleasure of selling our players. So x goes to Saudi, we give Mendes £10m in fees and that then goes wherever

 

[Boozad]

 

[Jack Regan]

As late as Nov 2017 we played Fulham and had a gate of 24,338.

Why she would put that out on Twitter and expect no-one to challenge her on it, the mind boggles.

If you joined the nascent waiting list in early/mid 2018 then you would also almost certainly have been offered a ticket at some stage in the last six years.

Yep complete bollocks, I had the 16/17 season off having bought a house (and with the whole awful end to the previous season under Jackett). Got my ticket back the following season with zero problems whatsoever.

 

[Boozad]

Utter rubbish from her. I moved back to the Midlands around October 2017, attended quire a few games buying individual match tickets, and then bought a half-season ticket for the remainder of the promotion season. There was no waiting list

I didn't even get the half season ticket the year we went up, just got two season tickets straight away first season up.

 

[Aikiwolf]

Utter rubbish from her. I moved back to the Midlands around October 2017, attended quire a few games buying individual match tickets, and then bought a half-season ticket for the remainder of the promotion season. There was no waiting list

I know at least 2 other people who also bought half season tickets then. No waiting list for them either....

 

[Tredman]

We got our season tickets, 3 together, in 2017. There were loads available.

 

[Del Woppio]

Yeah but there may be several people on here who can say and prove one thing, but that means that a Conservative MP has lied, which I just can't see happening. You're all full of of shit

 

[AndyWolves]

Other way round, the money in the bank would be a club asset so Fosun gets it back by putting that on to the price, the new owner keeps the cash.
There's ways they could get money out relatively easily though.The club paid agents/ Mendes £13.4m last year for the pleasure of selling our players. So x goes to Saudi, we give Mendes £10m in fees and that then goes wherever

They still own a % of gestifute as far as I know

 

[Tony Towner]

They still own a % of gestifute as far as I know

That was what I was alluding to

 

[The Bear]

There's no underlying motive behind it. They just thought they could get away with it again after the last 5 consecutive rises. They badly misjudged the amount of the rise and how much people will take though.

I hope there are protests at whatever home pre-season game we play.

 

[Squeak]

Why now though?

Why not when we were promoted or in Europe?

Why are they screwing the fans hard, but not selling every player that has any value?

I just don't understand the logic of all this - because there isn't any.

I'll give this a stab.

Back then they were still, relatively, the new kids on the block establishing their way and wanting to win plaudits from the fans, the media and the football world. They achieved that plus some.

Sadly, that's also where complacency sits. They allowed a football agent to broker deals that were ridiculous and because of that, they have come to understand that the football business isn't so easy. They've also come to realise that they cannot compete at the top without year on year investment of capital. In fairness, that's something they have always said they will not do.

The stark reality is that the top clubs are now paying 100M on transfer fees for the top players. In short, the market has moved on from when they first took over. Again, Fosun, IMO, don't see that as a wise move and frankly, I don't blame them.

So we are left with the new reality that they have little ambition left in football. Some of this is market forces, some of it the nature of football and some of it their own Government scaling back investment overseas in football clubs. We're still important to Fosun but simply not as important.

None of this excuses the fleecing of the Wolves supporter base, of course, but in all of this, we should remember that this is always possible from an investment company with no real ties to our area, our supporter base, our history and indeed, our country. They have got this badly wrong. I would have thought some price conditioning would have taken place over the last few months rather than doing what they have done but I'm not entirely surprised.

 

[nimrod]

The money has to be going somewhere and it doesn't seem to be going into the club. I know people have said before that Fosun can't take money out of the club but something feels off regardless.

i could be wrong but I'd thought the last loan to share conversion was pre the Cunha transfer, meaning anything spent in that window in excess of Wolves own resources went in as a loan. As such any cash from sales since then could have been used to repay those loans. I don't know if that happened but it would have sort of made sense given they were probably spending over what was intended in order to get Lop and his deals in.

 

[b3h]

They were literally awarded a surprise £5m windfall last week when Leicester won promotion. I can't believe nobody looked at that and thought "actually, why don't we take some of this unexpected money, and use it to offset against these price rises". Like they've seen the stick they get when the increases are 5-8%, and it's generally 50/50 between the pissed off and the supportive. The fact they held off on the announcement until after the season proves that they knew for a fact there would be heavy pushback. It just seems like the easiest thing in the world to do, and they could even spin it. "we were going to increase by x, but we're using this money that's come in and wasn't budgeted for to offset most of that".

Thick as fucking shit.

And for the sake of what, £3m? That makes no difference. It won't make the difference between signing a player or not. Or investing in infrastructure or maintenance of the stadium. Even over the course of three years, that £9m will not be the difference between a 'pass/fail' on PSR. It will achieve nothing. Nothing except making your customer base implacably angry at best, or lose - forever - a massive chunk of them at worst..

They've hung their hat on two things.

a - the historic renewal rate, despite an unjustified run of consecutive increases
b - the misplaced belief that members = season ticket waiting list.

Our renewal rate his historically mid 90s%, regardless of price increase and reduction in quality on the pitch and ambition off it. They believe that their customers love their club so much that there is nothing Fosun can (or won't) do that will change that. I believe we'll be looking at a renewal rate in the 70s this Summer. We'll never know, because they'll never publish an embarrassing figure like that. But we'll know. We'll know because of the pre-match drink groups that go from 12 to 8. We'll know because we'll see how many new faces there are around those of us that do renew. We'll know how far season ticket offers go down the 'waiting list'. We'll know because we'll read and hear of the heart break of fans who are forced to give something up that they've been part of for years. We'll know of the conversations that our friends have to have with their children, because unfortunately season tickets just aren't viable any more.

And we'll know that it was all so unnecessary. It didn't need to happen. It achieved nothing positive. It didn't help the club survive. It didn't make the club competitive. It didn't help us sign a player that would've been otherwise unattainable. It didn't make the difference between a points deduction or not.

Three million fucking pounds. "Ah, but it's repeat revenue", Jeff will think. "It's £3m a year, in perpetuity". Well, you fucking cretin. You want to know what else lasts forever? Absence. Once people stop going, they stop going forever. They might make a handful of games, especially if a mate lends them a season ticket or what have you, but you've lost that customer. They're still a fan, they're still a supporter, they still love the club and share the highs and lows and excitement and frustration. They're still a fan, and they know more about this football club, and care more about this football club than you ever will. Fuck, we probably spend more time a week thinking about this football than you do, and it's your full time fucking job.

We are still fans. But you've lost a customer forever. You've lost somebody that was happy to pay a thousand pounds a year on a ticket and a pint and a shirt, because you wanted an extra couple of hundred quid off them. You've not just lost them forever, you've lost their children too. You've literally alienated generations of customers, because you wanted to rinse the one that was spending a larger chunk of their disposable income than any other fans from any other time in history.

You've absolutely fucked this, Jeff Shi. I genuinely hope that renewal take up is around 50%. I hope the 'waiting list' tells you to fuck off. I hope you're forced to put season tickets on general sale - could there be a more embarrassing thing for a football club that's spent the last few years felating itself over its renewals and waiting lists? I hope that, come the first game of the season, there's fewer than 25,000 people in that stadium. I hope the atmosphere is poisonous, and there's a protest, and a walk out, and that you lose your job. I hope that whichever clueless Fosun drone that gets parachuted in replace you undoes this madness, partially refunds those that renewed, and reaches out to those that you have hurt with an offer enticing enough to get them back before it's too late. Because once you've lost the people of this City, you're absolutely fucked. That would do irreparable, permanent damage to this club, to the community.

Three million pounds. You absolute fucking weapon.

Maybe tweak this a bit and send it to DW. Only as it's quite long

 

[C.L.D]

Yeah but there may be several people on here who can say and prove one thing, but that means that a Conservative MP has lied, which I just can't see happening. You're all full of of shit

https://twitter.com/x/status/1794074776807383100

 

[Kenny]

Had to throw in a Putin caused this shit comment. Surprised Corbyn didn't get a mention.

 

[Del Woppio]

I can only imagine how expensive they'll be under a Labour government. That's if the ground isn't turned into flats for immigrants of course

 

[Del Woppio]

Maybe tweak this a bit and send it to DW. Only as it's quite long

@Deutsch Wolf you're more than welcome to use any/all/none of my little rant. Feel free to edit, tweak, chop and change as you like