Two-tier Fulham

Why the club's season ticket prices for new customers should be a much hotter topic

These odd-year summers are always a strange time to be a domestic football fan. No men’s World Cups or Euros to sweep the nation, and let’s be honest, the Club World Cup has hardly made a dent in the UK football discourse.

It means that the focus on what Fulham are doing (or more accurately not doing) in the transfer market becomes even more intense. Predictably, Fulham are one of the last teams in the league to make a signing - business as usual it seems at Motspur Park. We wouldn’t want new players to be there for the whole of pre-season would we?

One bit of news though that flew more under the radar than I thought however was Fulham’s announcement that season tickets went on general sale a few weeks ago, with thousands of seats available dotted around all the stands. So much for that season ticket waiting list…

The prices though for new customers are eye-watering. My own season ticket in H5 (middle of the Hammersmith End) cost £695, but for a seat in the same section that cost jumps up to a staggering £921 if you’re new. A difference of £226.

So for the same seat, the same oven-cooked burgers, the same queue for a half-time beer and the same exceptional Hammersmith End toilet facilities, that’s an extra £12 per game.

Given recent price spikes in general life, determining what is ‘good value’ feels harder than ever, but £48 per game when you’re committing to purchasing a season ticket in a behind-the-goal seat feels extremely steep.

Sluggish sales by design?

Of course, the long-term impact on the fanbase is my overall concern here. When I was younger, having a Fulham season ticket was my dream, and when I turned 16 I finally managed to persuade my Dad to get us two. That moment where you get a season ticket after being ad-hoc attendees is a big jump, both in terms of time and financial commitment.

The friendly season-ticket prices under the previous ownership however feel like a distant memory. Long-term fans may still be benefitting from renewal prices that are competitive, but these new customer prices signal a change in ticketing approach that many have foreseen for a long time.

I don’t know the exact sales figures, but given that there is still a sea of blue on the image above over a fortnight after season tickets went on general sale suggests that they are hardly flying off the shelves.

Cynically, I believe this isn’t a mis-step by Fulham, but rather a calculated decision. It resembles the process when a tradesperson comes to quote you for a job that they don’t really want to take on. They won’t tell you that, they’ll just quote you a very high figure so that you don’t choose them.

It feels like Fulham’s rationale is that if somebody buys a season ticket at these prices, then great - but if not, then Fulham know that actually they will make more money off the individual match-by-match sales. They also know that one-off ticket buyers are far more likely to spend money in-stadium and in-shop than season ticket holders.

This is not a new theory, it’s been seen at football clubs all across the country and discussed widely on numerous podcasts.

Multi-tier pricing

As ever though, there’s a key difference between Fulham and other Premier League clubs that the decision makers at Fulham fail to understand. We don’t have enough fans overall to pull these kind of moves. Most other clubs in the league having season ticket waiting lists - and I mean serious ones. The kind of waiting list that takes more than a decade to get through.

As I have said before, Fulham should still be focused on growing their core fanbase - not trying to cash in before its fully formed. This season we’ll once again see Fulham away ends unfilled and multiple home games with empty seats, or worse, opposition fans occupying them.

The other thing that irks me about these season ticket prices is that these high costs aren’t just for one season. Under the current system, you don’t pay £921 one year and then drop down to what everyone else is paying the season afterwards. The 2.4% price increase for 25/26 that Fulham decided on was based on what you paid in the 24/25 season.

This means that having a season ticket at Fulham is becoming more like an airplane ticket, with everyone around you paying different prices for their seat. How long are Fulham going to operate this system for? It won’t be long until there are six or seven different bands of price depending on which year you bought your season ticket.

And what is the impact on long-term fans who may need to hand back their season ticket for a year or two due to personal circumstances? It felt like we used to be the kind of club that tried to help out long-standing fans in that situation, now I imagine they’ll just be told to get a new one at the sky-high costs.

None of this is new; we know that Fulham’s compassion as a club towards its fans disappeared long ago. No doubt Fulham will point towards PSR as its rationale for all of this, but lets be honest, this all started long before the threat of a points deduction came into force.

This is just anecdotal evidence, but more and more Fulham fans I speak to are feeling disillusioned with the direction the club is taking off the pitch, despite the success on it. Some have even chosen to not renew their season tickets, despite understanding the prohibitive cost if they ever choose to come back.

Given the lack of discussion, this latest move is probably not the decisive Jenga block that fully ignites fan rage, but it’s just another glancing blow against the image of the friendly, approachable club we used to know.