Pay What You Want
matches have become a regular part of the footballing landscape over the past
few years, especially at Non-League level in England but also as far up the
pyramid as Brentford in the Championship and Inverness Caley Thistle in
Scotland’s top-flight.
Motivations vary for
making such an offer.
It can be tied in with a
fundraising effort such as Hitchin Town’s Floodlight Fund, which was launched
with a PWYW game to kickstart the bid to replace the ageing bulbs at Top Field,
or act as a piece of positive publicity to spread the word about a club to the
local population.
Albion Rovers enjoyed a
year of such publicity when they offered Pay What You Want season tickets for
the 2014/15 campaign, the media in Scotland and further afield taking notice of
the Coatbridge club who (coincidentally?) gained promotion that very season.
Pay What You Want can
happen in pre-season, a chance to get new spectators through the door and show
off the improvements to the ground that have taken place over the summer, or it
can come in the final match of the campaign, an opportunity to thank everyone
for their support through the year.
Timing is an important
factor, both in giving plenty of notice for the fixture to be publicised and in
making the most of a date that gives the maximum amount of people in the area
the chance to make your game.
International breaks are
the most obvious example and Non-League Day sees a host of Pay What You Want
matches up and down the country but it also helps if the nearest Premier League
or Championship side are without a match until the following day or are facing
a long away trip.
Publicity-wise, the
social media age gives clubs a huge opportunity to market their game in the
weeks leading up to it but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for a good
old-fashioned poster or leaflet run in the local area.
And it is not just
football where you can Pay What You Want.
It has been applied to
theatre productions, new music releases (most notably when Radiohead made their
‘In Rainbows’ album available on such a basis in 2007) restaurants and cafes.
The difference when
eating out in such an establishment is usually that people hand their money
over when they have finished, based on what they felt the meal, or whole
experience, was worth.
So, will the next
innovation in football be PWYW as you head out of the ground, dependant on how
entertaining your 90 minutes has been? That would put some pressure on the
players to come up with a 5-4 thriller!
