Never to the dark side Posted April 28, 2023 Report Share Posted April 28, 2023 German club Fortuna Dusseldorf will be "happy" if other sides follow their "completely new concept in sports" - free tickets to all home matches. The Second Division side will be offering free tickets to all fans for three matches next season. But they are aiming to make attendance free for every game in five years. "We might have identified a very good concept of football business for the future," the club's CEO, Alexander Jobst, told BBC Sport. The club is working with sponsors who will cover the estimated 45m euro (£39.72m) cost of match tickets over five years so fans can attend for free. Jobst explained the idea was to attract more fans and help sustain the club in the Bundesliga top flight. "We said, let's think completely new and let's have the courage of identifying something which is fitting for our club and city, with the strong belief that our club belongs to our fans," he added. "This is a fundamental change of a business model of a professional football club. "Football is for everyone and we believe that something could be changed for the future." Dusseldorf's home stadium, Merkur Spiel-Arena, holds 54,600 fans and their average crowd is 28,000. "We believe the demand will be even higher than before and a full stadium is a fantastic football experience and, with a 90-minute football match, it will be even more attractive than before," Jobst added. The club has spoken to the league and various stakeholders about the plan and, while it is tailored to the city of Dusseldorf, Jobst accepts others may sit up and take notice. He said: "It might influence others in the way of thinking further, which we'll be happy about, but our job is to our Fortuna, our city and our fans who love this club." "It is a unique concept for football and I am confident it will take Fortuna forward," added Dusseldorf mayor Stephan Keller. "You can feel that something new starts today. That could ignite a potential revolution in football." 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welcome To The Jungle Posted April 28, 2023 Report Share Posted April 28, 2023 I'm a huge advocate for dramatically reducing ticket prices in football, and I'm interested by how this pans out. Probably not viable at City as we don't have 20,000 empty seats each week, but this is one to keep an eye on. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65417291 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrs Court Red Posted April 28, 2023 Report Share Posted April 28, 2023 I’m not sure making attending football entirely worthless is the way to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
22A Posted April 28, 2023 Report Share Posted April 28, 2023 Remember the Taylor Report? Apart from removing terracing and "Introducing the gentryfication of the game"; the report also recommended a maximum ticket price of £20.00. For some reason clubs did not take up that recommendation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W-S-M Seagull Posted April 28, 2023 Report Share Posted April 28, 2023 I don't think this is entirely the way to go. How do you reward loyalty? How do you allocate tickets for the big games? However the idea of sponsors subsidising tickets could be something to explore. Take out insurance with X provider and recieve X amount of discount on season ticket etc kind of thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Never to the dark side Posted April 28, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2023 rewarding Loyalty, Maybe a smart card that you tap in and out showing how many home games you have attended So if you have attended ten home games,there would be a cut off point of the amount of games that you have tapped in to gain entry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaverface Posted April 28, 2023 Report Share Posted April 28, 2023 I'd love to see something like this occur in the UK, or maybe something like a fiver entry etc... But already mentioned, it also requires the stadium to have the spare capacity, which we dont. However, it would probably require a rethink of things like FFP, because you'd be missing out on a mass of income to contribute to FFP (unless you can offset the loss of gate receipts with Sponsorship instead?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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