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?
Well, Hadley FC of the Essex Senior League tried just such a scheme for their final two games of the 2018/19 season, allowing spectators to donate after the final whistle.
