Super Rugby Television Ratings 2014

[Pfitzy]

I am sorry to beat on about it BH I am not having a go at you but when peope defend mediocrity then NSW have a problem.

Fuck, seriously? Who is defending mediocrity? We're all mighty pissed off that NSWRU and the Waratahs haven't been capitalising on this.

BH was pointing out that crowds have increased - and actually on a steady flow which shows the dedication is coming back rather than just the flash-in-the-pan wagon jumpers who will piss off again soon.

You think the last decade of utter rubbish can be fixed with a few marketing gimmicks? In a market that is about five times as competitive as Brisbane?

Maybe if the ticket sales get stuck around 50k or so they can do some special promotion along these lines.

Risks alienating those who already bought tickets in that section.

I'd suggest they have level 6 locked off for now, and will open it if they need to. There is still a minimum cost for those tickets to the Waratahs and that can't be changed.

 

[Braveheart81]

The cinema.

$36 is reasonably cheap for people that have an interest in rugby, but I don't think it's cheap enough to get the somewhat curious with tight budgets to go along in the same way $15 or $20 would.

The match should be a sell out. It would almost do as much for the Waratahs as winning the title. So I'd be pricing those worst 20k seats at the very top of the stands to sell.

It might still be possible. I notice on the venue map on ticketek that the top of level 6 on both stands is not marked as any categoy (i.e. not bronze). It could be a good marketing/PR strategy to announce a new category of tickets at $15-20 bucks each on Thursday or so.

I think you're on another planet if you think that the Super Rugby final is competing with people deciding whether they should pay $36 to go to watch Waratahs vs Crusaders in the final or go to the cinema instead.

Those people might be interested if it was free but I don't think $15 difference in an adult ticket is making fuck all difference to people's decisions.

If someone isn't going because $36 is too much to pay, then I really doubt they'd be attending at $20.

 

[Omar Comin']

Risks alienating those who already bought tickets in that section.

I'd suggest they have level 6 locked off for now, and will open it if they need to. There is still a minimum cost for those tickets to the Waratahs and that can't be changed.

That's what they've done. I don't mean they should change the price of a section where tickets have already been sold.

But I don't think they should necessarily wait to open it only if all the other sections are full. You could sell those tickets for a lower price. The top of level 6 is worse than being behind the goal posts (which is bronze) and should be a different section IMO.

 

[Omar Comin']

I think you're on another planet if you think that the Super Rugby final is competing with people deciding whether they should pay $36 to go to watch Waratahs vs Crusaders in the final or go to the cinema instead.

Those people might be interested if it was free but I don't think $15 difference in an adult ticket is making fuck all difference to people's decisions.

If someone isn't going because $36 is too much to pay, then I really doubt they'd be attending at $20.

I think you're on another planet if you don't recognise live sport is in the entertainment industry and competes with things like the cinema when it comes to peoples budgets. But we can agree to disagree because IMO it's simple supply and demand. $20 is a 44% discount on $36. It is significant. It's not so much a question of whether someone can afford to pay, it's the value they assign to attending. A lot of people would see going to watch the final in the worst seats as equivalent or worse than seeing a movie at the cinema.

$20 is a significant price point. You pay it with one note that everyone has in their wallet. It also has promotional value...$36 does not.

 

[Braveheart81]

That's what they've done. I don't mean they should change the price of a section where tickets have already been sold.

But I don't think they should necessarily wait to open it only if all the other sections are full. You could sell those tickets for a lower price. The top of level 6 is worse than being behind the goal posts (which is bronze) and should be a different section IMO.

The stadium will not start selling those areas until there is the requisite demand.

They have to provide the staff and catering for each area that is in operation. It doesn't work from the stadium's perspective to have every single area of the ground open but the stadium only half full.

That's why for really small events they only open one side of the ground.

 

[barbarian]

I think you're on another planet if you don't recognise live sport is in the entertainment industry and competes with things like the cinema when it comes to peoples budgets. But we can agree to disagree because IMO it's simple supply and demand. $20 is a 44% discount on $36. It is significant. It's not so much a question of whether someone can afford to pay, it's the value they assign to attending. A lot of people would see going to watch the final in the worst seats as equivalent or worse than seeing a movie at the cinema.

Mate it couldn't be further from 'simple supply and demand'.

If the solution to these issues were simple they would have figured it out years ago and people would be queuing up to get in. They are, in fact, incredibly complex, and suggesting the silver bullet is simply lowering price by $15 or giving away free tickets is laughable.
.

 

[liquor box]

I think you're on another planet if you think that the Super Rugby final is competing with people deciding whether they should pay $36 to go to watch Waratahs vs Crusaders in the final or go to the cinema instead.

Those people might be interested if it was free but I don't think $15 difference in an adult ticket is making fuck all difference to people's decisions.

If someone isn't going because $36 is too much to pay, then I really doubt they'd be attending at $20.

I would go for $20 but not $36.

If the ticket is $20 I can still have a beer before the game, in the first half and one in the second half and possibly even have a pie at half time and still only spend about $50.

With spending there come price points where you start to consider the value of an item, whether it be small things like is $5 too much for a loaf of bread or $15 for lunch.

I think a lot of people would think in multiples of $50, can I go with my wife and only spend $100?

 

[Braveheart81]

I would go for $20 but not $36.

If the ticket is $20 I can still have a beer before the game, in the first half and one in the second half and possibly even have a pie at half time and still only spend about $50.

With spending there come price points where you start to consider the value of an item, whether it be small things like is $5 too much for a loaf of bread or $15 for lunch.

I think a lot of people would think in multiples of $50, can I go with my wife and only spend $100?

Really?

Is this a hypothetical seeing as I'm guessing you live in Brisbane?

Did you go to the Super Rugby final in 2011? If so, how much did it cost
you?

Have you gone to Reds games this season?

 

[Lindommer]

Righto, righto, boys and girls, back to the game. You know, rugby, not contemplating our navels about crowd numbers. All WE can do is buy our tickets and roll up.

 

[Pfitzy]

I would go for $20 but not $36.

If the ticket is $20 I can still have a beer before the game, in the first half and one in the second half and possibly even have a pie at half time and still only spend about $50.

Have dinner and beer before and after, and avoid missing game time through queueing up for overpriced crap.

$20 is a significant price point. You pay it with one note that everyone has in their wallet. It also has promotional value.$36 does not.

You can pay $36 with a note everyone has in their wallet and get change. I see what you're saying in that one lobster is mentally a good exchange for a ticket. But it doesn't change the price that the minimum cost for an event like this isn't just decided by the Waratahs.

The Tahs stand to make around $800K from this game, less the $175K they have to pay the Crusaders. That assumption is probably based on 50,000 tickets at the pricing established, and isn't all based on ticket profit, because of catering contracts etc.

But let's pretend it is: $625K over 50,000 tickets = $11.36 profit on average per ticket after we pay the Crusaders. Not unreasonable if we consider $36 the base price through to $110 for Platinum; in fact those big tickets are subsidising the smaller tickets you'd have to say, so let's identify the $36 as $1 in the black, meaning cost price is $35.

If we then sell another 20,000 tickets at $20, we're now throwing away $15 a ticket, which is $300K you're in the hole for. You don't make any money on the food because the caterers have paid for their contract rights, and the stadium is going to charge you for those seats because they need cleaning staff and facilities open.

Profit for the game goes from around the $600K mark down to $300K.

Which sensible organisation is going to take that?

This isn't about what you consider reasonable; its about what is reasonable for the entire organisation. Same as the people who won't go to Homebush to support their team because they're too stuck up.

 

[Omar Comin']

Pfitzy, that's not how it works. The tahs will already be in profit for this match. The marginal cost per seat after break even would be tiny. Most of the costs are fixed.

To say that selling another 20k tickets at $20 would reduce the profit from 600k down to 300k is ludicrous.

 

[Pfitzy]

It was an example. If you've got a better one, or know the exact break-even figure for a given seat, go right ahead.

Note though that the Tahs get ahead on Olympic park because of the contract to take games out there twice a year. This one is different because its outside the regular game window. They'll get a base guarantee but its ticket sales after that.

And the onus is on the Tahs to play as attractively as possible to pick up the extras

 

[Sir Arthur Higgins]

on this whole 'brisbane pulls 40k so sydney should pull 100k"
let's keep things in perspective. Sydney has 12 professional teams covering the main winter codes (excluding soccer). these teams are relatively well dispersed throughout the main populations of sydney.
that works out to 1 professional team per 400k people.
Brisbane has three for a city with 2.25M people. that works out to one team per 733k.
that is 85% more people per professional team. therefore if the waratahs average 20k per game, the reds should average 37k per game.

sydney and melbourne would easily be the hardest sports markets in the world. melbourne has 11 teams, on par with sydney on a per capita basis.

adding in soccer will only skew the stats in favour of melbourne and sydney who each have two soccer teams to brisbanes one.

does that mean its an excuse? no. waratahs rugby and admin have been woeful since i've been in aus. they started to turn things around last year and have done so this year to the point where i am flying up to see the game saturday when i would never have done so in the past few years.
there is a long way to go off the field and i think a fair bit to do on the field yet as well. so they aren't without fault.
but, SFS is a nightmare to get to. I would have loved for a new stadium to have been built as part of barangaroo or elsewhere in that easter precinct that is more accessible for public transport.
ANZ is a disaster, but it helps get western suburb people out so it's not all that bad. personally i think the tahs should try to sell a lower drawing game to pirtek stadium instead of homebush, at least you'd get the atmosphere.

 

[Omar Comin']

It was an example. If you've got a better one, or know the exact break-even figure for a given seat, go right ahead.

Note though that the Tahs get ahead on Olympic park because of the contract to take games out there twice a year. This one is different because its outside the regular game window. They'll get a base guarantee but its ticket sales after that.

And the onus is on the Tahs to play as attractively as possible to pick up the extras

Well I don't know the marginal cost per seat after break even is achieved, but I'd bet it's under $10. At a guess I would say they passed their break even number during the members sale alone. There are plenty of NRL matches played at ANZ stadium where general admission seats are around $20 and they're not losing money. And that's without the best seats selling for $100+!

I just got an email from a friend in Sydney, who's a casual fan. He's on the bandwagon but when I said he should go he replied that the tickets were too expensive. He's not poor, he could afford $36. But he doesn't value the tickets that high. If I was still in Sydney I reckon I'd have at least 6 or 7 more mates I could drag along to the game if they could pay $20 for a ticket. It's a real sweet spot for a lot of people.

 

[wamberal]

It will flabber my gaster if there is not a final sale of cheap seats at very affordable prices. Indeed, at the end of the week there will probably be some McDonalds giveaways, buy a burger, get a ticket, in Sydney's west. If not, why not?

 

[Braveheart81]

If someone thinks paying $36 for a ticket to the Super Rugby Final isn't worth the money they are not a person you're ever going to win over.

It's ridiculous to suggest that you need to find a price point to attract that person.

You can't attend most regular season games in any Australian sport for $20. Why would the Waratahs be trying to target the pricing at that level?

Discount tickets at the last minute are possible but it also pisses people off who paid full price and is damaging to cash flow because it conditions punters to wait until the last minute to buy tickets because they know it will be cheaper.

It's often done fairly subtly in the music industry for tours that are really struggling but it has less knock on effect because it only affects the reputation of the touring artist, not the promoter.

A sporting team would be very hesitant to start doing that because it cheapens their brand and makes it harder to sell full price tickets in the future.

 

[Omar Comin']

Every person you can get to the game is a potential fan for life Braveheart. And for a lot of people there is a big difference between $20 and $36.

$20 is a standard general admission price for NRL games played at ANZ Stadium. And those are for seats behind the posts or in the corners, not at the top of the stand.

And I don't see who would feel alienated. I'm talking about tickets that aren't yet on sale, in a worse area than those that are currently. At the moment the bronze tickets are behind the goals. These are better tickets than the top of the side stands. I would like to see them try to sell a section of tickets that will otherwise not be sold. Even if there's no or little margin it's better for those seats to be full than empty.

 

[Tangawizi]

I don't think there'll be any discounts this week.

This isn't the middle of the year when those Bledisloe packages went on sale valuing the Tahs tickets at 33 cents a match.

This is the fucking Grand Final!

 

[Pfitzy]

I just got an email from a friend in Sydney, who's a casual fan. He's on the bandwagon but when I said he should go he replied that the tickets were too expensive. He's not poor, he could afford $36. But he doesn't value the tickets that high. If I was still in Sydney I reckon I'd have at least 6 or 7 more mates I could drag along to the game if they could pay $20 for a ticket. It's a real sweet spot for a lot of people.

That's their call; clearly not on the bandwagon.

The NRL can't charge $36 at ANZ because the local grounds like Brookvale and WIN Stadium would never be able to justify a comparable price. So they take a hit on ANZ and pick up money on the other grounds through the club system.

Furthermore, Super Rugby is an international competition playing one game a week in Sydney tops, while the turf humpers have at least three. Not comparable.

 

[Braveheart81]

Every person you can get to the game is a potential fan for life Braveheart. And for a lot of people there is a big difference between $20 and $36. .

Are you seriously suggesting that someone who won't pay $36 to go to the Super Rugby Final but would possibly go if it was $20 is potentially going to become a fan for life?

I think that is ridiculously unlikely.

I also don't get how the Super Rugby Final should be as cheap as a standard NRL game. Every sport in the world prices their finals at a higher price than the regular games because if you do it the other way around you make it very difficult to sell tickets week in week out.