Brentford's 'Pay What You Can' Offer Is Back

One of the more innovative ticket offers of recent seasons was Brentford's 'Pay What You Can' iniative for the League One fixture against Stevenage last season when more than 10,000 tickets were sold at a minimum price of £1 (the actual attendance for the game was less as it was postponed due to bad weather first time around).

Now, for the game against Shrewsbury on October 26, the Bees are again offering all tickets except those held by season-ticket holders, for sale on a 'pay what you can' basis with a £1 minimum price.

Money will also be raised for charity at the same time as when more than £5 is paid for a ticket, 50 per cent of the excess, excluding VAT, will be donated to the charity Sport Relief.

It is the kind of offer that has been made at non-league level and Portsmouth did it for a per-season friendly this summer but to repeat it for a competitive League One fixture is of great credit to Brentford FC with the club having already made an innovative offer for their recent JPT game against AFC Wimbledon thanks to the support of a local businessman.

As a social experiment it is interesting too. At a non-league game, where you could perhaps walk in for free and then put a donation into a bucket, the amount you pay is anonymous.

Here, however, you have to go and get your ticket in advance. Will people pay just £1 or will the goodwill generated by the offer lead them to pay more than the real cost of the ticket? It would be interesting to know what the maximum price paid last season was.

The price of football has been a major talking point in a slow second half of the week after the release of the BBC’s major survey into the cost of attending games. There’s lot of interesting information in there although some of the headline figures can be a bit misleading in terms of how many of a particular ticket type are actually available.

What’s clear is the Premier League is still relatively immune to the pressures that are bearing down on clubs at all other levels and making them find ways to make football more accessible and affordable while still maintain a competitive level on the pitch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24052562

Affordable Football aims to bring you the special offers, reduced ticket prices and family deals that make catching a match anywhere in the country more affordable. You can tweet us @affordablefooty or email affordablefootball@yahoo.com if your club are doing something worth hearing about.