Time For A Championship Price Cap?

An exciting final day in the Championship, needing little in the way of persuading people to attend the matches that mattered, but I do feel it is time that the competition moved to address the situation whereby away supporters are paying more for some matches than they would in the top-flight.

An article from The Mag, a Newcastle United fanzine, highlights that Magpies fans will spend less on tickets for games at Wembley (Spurs), the Emirates, Old Trafford and the rest in 2017/18 than they have done this season at a number of Championship grounds.

I’ve written in the past about how money from television rights can and will distort the price that people pay to watch football, which is why I’m wary of headlines that simply contrast two figures without going into the detail of how important gate money is to clubs outside of the top divisions.

But that doesn’t mean that the Championship, which is a league that increasingly stand apart from Leagues One and Two and which the EFL constantly market as one of the most successful in the world in terms of attendance figures, shouldn’t then use its increasing financial clout to make moves on capping ticket prices.

The Premier League clubs have been extremely shrewd with their £30 limit for away supporters, coupled with individual initiatives from clubs which sometimes reduce that figure for certain matches or which subsidise travel. It means that the competition continues to play in front of full houses with vibrant atmospheres, which is attractive to television audiences (I write as someone with little love for what the top division of English football has become but also someone who is probably not the target audience for it).

With Championship matches subject to as much disruption for live television than games in the top-flight (there have been a number of Friday night fixtures this season for example) then it is surely in the interests of the EFL to avoid the unflattering comparisons that there have been with prices for away supporters in the top-flight.