Magazine Issue 7 - Spring 1998
Commercialism United FC...

Supporting a football team is a matter of intense tribal loyalty. But what if you can no longer afford the price of a season ticket? Mark Lynas counts the cost of the commercialisation of football.

Manchester United is nine points clear at the top of the league. David Beckham is marrying Posh Spice, and Ryan Giggs has been playing some of the best football of his career.

The sound of tills ringing can now be heard miles from United's ground at Old Trafford, and the noise might even be in danger of drowning out the church bells on Becky and Posh's happy day.

But as MUFC rakes in record profits, fans are feeling the pinch. Much of United's revenue comes from merchandising. To own the latest kit can be a big boost to a schoolboy's struggling ego, and pressure on parents is intense. Adults feel it too - but if you want to look like goalie Peter Schmeichel, you'll have to shell out £59.99 for the top, £34.99 for the shorts and £8.99 for the socks. [I]
Football merchandising is the ultimate in planned obsolescence. And although premiership clubs are discouraged from changing their strip more than once every two years, Manchester United plc gets round this by having four variations of each kit - so a United supporter who wants to keep up to date has to shell out anew every six months.

A fanantical fan's irrational support for a team - year in year out - is the kind of brand loyalty marketing men have wet dreams about. In the last five years, Newcastle United has changed its strip nine times.

"There's a loyalty and an addiction towards football that's exploited by people in the business now," says Kevin Miles of the Independent Newcastle United Supporters Association. 121

The Television Revolution
When the BBC and ITV made deals with the Football League for television rights in the 1970s and 1980s, the money was shared equally. But with the coming of Sky, the financial temptation for the top clubs was just too great.

In 1991 they broke away from the revenue sharing Football League to form the Premier League (run by the Football Association, which wanted to kill off the rival Football League). The rights to Premiership matches were sold to Sky for £ 305 million. This contract was renewed in 1997 for _670 million - bringing vast wealth to the top clubs.

The results have been dramatic - improved stadiums and an influx of foreign players, paid for with massive transfer fees, and attracted by a huge inflation in player wages. These changes have made the Premier League one 6f the best in the world, and televised matches can attract massive domestic and international audiences. But as salaries spiral, so do ticket prices.

According to the Liverpool-based Football Supporters Association, ticket prices have gone up by an average of 11% a year since 1989, and "large sections of the population are being priced out of the game - people on low incomes, the unwaged and young people". The price of the cheapest Chelsea season ticket for the next season will be a massive £ 525, and the most expensive an extortionate £ 1250.

Newcastle United has stopped selling single match tickets at all. [3] Supporters who can't afford the £300 cost have little choice but to either watch games on TV or in a specially converted cinema in the city centre. As the BBC's Panorama put it: "It's cheaper, virtual soccer for football's new underclass.

Although Qnly in his mid-twenties, Daniel Trickett has been a Leeds United fan "for a good 16 years". From a working class background, he grew up in the suburb of Beeston - only a short distance from the Elland Road stadium. Re remembers fondly the days when he could go from school with a bunch of mates "for a bit of a sing-song" - then a mere _2 was enough to get you thrqugh the turnstiles. Now "you have to queue for three to four hours for single tickets - it's a nightmare". That's if you've got the money. Trickett doesn't go to games anymore because he can't afford to - "and it's not just me, it's my friends as well." These days Leeds United has a different kind of clientele - the stands are full of middle class families with children. "The atmosphere is completely different now," he says. "I don't know if its better or worse, but they've priced people like me out of the game - and who else was football for?"

Top clubs can almost afford to ignore the concerns of their less well-off fans. Ninety-five percent of supporters never attend a single match in a typical season anyway. The Premiership clubs have fan bases which are many times larger than their stadium capacities. Manchester United has 3.29 million supporters, but only 55,000 can fit into Old Trafford. Liverpool is second with 2.18 million, Newcastle third with 1.42 million. [4]

With markets like these, television and merchandising income are a vital part of these clubs' revenue. Now Manchester United plc is set to exploit its television potential even further. MUTV - a collaboration with BSkyB and Granada - will be launched in Autumn 1998 and transmitted via satellite and cable. Although it will be pay TV, it will not even show Premiership action. Instead MUTV will show a lukewarm diet of youth and reserve matches, friendlies and 'classic games from United's glorious past' - as well as lifestyle programmes such as quiz shows with United stars. Other clubs are scrambling to get in on the act. Newscastle United, Leeds United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Southampton are all considering setting up their own channels - despite the fact that they will be struggling for interesting material within days of launching, according to industry insiders.

The drive to establish pay TV channels is all about positioning - if the collective Sky deal is not renewed when the contract ends in 2001, all the rights to home games will revert to the clubs themselves.

The Football Business
David Conn is author of 'The Football Business' (published by Mainstream). "The time of the greatest ever wealth in football, after a century 6f struggle, is the time when the game's money is least fairly distributed," says Conn. "In the age of market forces the FA has forgotten that money should be made to serve the game, not the other way round."

Those at the top are raking it in. Sir John Hall, Chairman of Newcastle Uaited, made _100 million when the club floated on the stock market in April 1997. Martin Edwards, Chief Executive of Manchester United plc, bought into the club in 1978 for _600,000. He has recently made _33 million in cash from selling some shares, while still retaining _60 million worth. [61

At the bottom end of the game, things aren't so rosy. "Semi-professional clubs are going bust. School and youth teams are dependent on overworked volunteers. Sunday football is declining," reports Conn. Clubs outside the Premiership lost _90 million in the last four years. As the Premier League clubs prosper, many of the schools' leagues - soccer's true grassroots - are falling ever further behind due to a shortage of cash. Manchester Schools FA, despite being entirely volunteer-run, is in danger of going bankrupt.

Although scouts from the big clubs continue to watch the youngsters for tomorrow's big stars, extra money to fix dilapidated facilities or to improve the pitch is nowhere to be seen. Current Manchester United star Nicky Butt used to play for Manchester Schools FA - but when United signed him they gave the Association a miserly donation of one hundred pounds.

Younger supporters are being neglected, says Shiela Spiers, vice-chair of the Football Supporters Association. "There's very little provision in the Premier League grounds for young people to go on their own. It's hall price for kids in family areas only, so 15-year- olds don't go together anymore.

Hillsborough
Part of the problem is that the all-seater stadiums introduced after the Hillsborough disaster are eroding the atmosphere of the game. Not only do you have to sit down, but you may end up sitting miles away from your friends. "It's a different social mix," says Spiers, "you can't go on a casual basis and meet up together anymore.' The FSA wants every fan to have the choice to Sit or stand. "It's perfectly possible to have safe terraces," says Spiers, who was at the 15th April match in 1989 when 96 Liverpool fans died. "People died at Hillsborough not because they were standing up, but because they couldn't get out."

The Glory Game
Back then Hillsborough seemed to symbolise all the worst aspects of football. Fans were treated with contempt, and grounds were dilapidated and badly run. But nearly a decade later, many fans are beginning to wonder if all the changes that have taken place since then have really been for the better. Most people would agree that more skilful - and beautiful - football is being played now at many top clubs than ever before. And as the game soars to new heights of popularity, Premiership clubs can hardly be blamed for cashing in while the going is good.

But football has always been primarily a working man's game. If that sometimes made it dangerous, it also made going to a match exciting and unpredictable. Now, as the football establishment rushes headlong towards a future of mega-buck merchandising and television deals, much of the game's raw edge is disappearing. And the people who stood on the terraces, who followed their clubs through thick and thin, are being excluded.

CONTACTS:
Football Supporters Association, P0 Box 11, Liverpool, L26 IXP. Tel: 0151 737 2385. FSA have contact details of independent supporters associations around the UK. A full list of fanzine contacts is published monthly in When Saturday Comes magazine in newsagents or call 0171 490 0800 for subscriptions.

Footnotes: [l]Guardian 1 Nov 1997 [21 Panorama Money Game, 8 Dec 1997 [3] Guardian - 18 February 1997 [4] Financial Times 24 Sept 1997 [5] Guardian ,1 No', 1997 [6] When Saturday Comes, January 1 998.