Quote: MadDogg "I completely agree that the club cant be criticised for prices when fans are buying tickets at those prices. The Good Friday derby will be a big money maker at a time when all RL clubs are hardly cash rich. Fans obviously have the choice not to pay but the demand is clearly still there for this particular game and it looks a safe bet to sell out (not a scenario RL finds itself in too often)
The issue comes when the demand is lower for games of lower stature. Having spoken to a director of the club about this - the club is keen to incentivise season ticket and membership purchases as much as possible. IMO though £30 for an adult match ticket and £22 for a child is too high for games and occasions of lesser quality. It doesnt make sense to me that prices are not set according to the stature of game and quality of occasion - finals are more expensive as they are a bigger spectacle and have more significance. I would have thought the same should apply to regular league games - Saints, Warrington, Leeds for example could be Band A matches and thus have higher prices. Prices could also be scaled according to where you are seated within a particular stand - it doesn't make sense to me that a seat on the front row in the corner of the East Stand is priced the same as mid way up the central block.'"
Good points. It's fine to charge high prices if the demand is constantly there. But the knock on effect of this pricing is that both clubs will likely see a reduction in ticket sales for the next game. If you're a family spending £120+ on tickets for the derby, are you going to the next game, or missing that? A lot of people will be the ones who don't get season tickets as they can't afford them or can't make enough games to make them worth it. If the prices were more reasonable they'd go to more games, which in turn drives more season tickets if things go well. If Wigan have done the maths and are confident that extracting so much for one game is workable then that's one thing, but in an age where Premier League clubs are capping away prices, paying more for RL does seem odd. The big crowd will be great for Wigan, but it's also contributing to the games where three of the four stands are largely empty and the club announces a suspicious 10,000 gate which sets off a tidal wave of Latics fans laughing at them.
