Chelsea must be more aggressive with ticketing policies
The wave of success following England's Euro success will soon crash if clubs don't add energy
On the face of things, Chelsea’s announcement that they had sold out of season tickets for a second consecutive seasons was a positive, carrying on the feel good feeling that had followed from England’s European Championship win the previous day.
Chelsea have the biggest following in the WSL, and the best travelling support in the division, on every game, you can hear Chelsea supporters over the home fans (helped of course by the booming voices of Greg and daughter Sariya no doubt).
However, there’s clearly a demand for more, and in my opinion, settling to sell out the same numbers as last year is simply not enough.
The entirety of the 2021/22 season, the east stand was vacant, with the exception of the bumper crowd on the final day against Manchester United.
That day of course, Chelsea were on course to win a title, and United also have a strong following, so they had a dedicated away section, something I hope to see for every game next season.
If you have a dedicated section for away supporters, it will encourage the opposition clubs to try and get as many supporters in their as possible. So they will spend more on advertising the game and getting coaches laid on for supporters, continuing the circle of growth.
Of course things like kick off times and dates must also be looked at, clashes with the men’s first teams also don’t help the cause, but even if we can’t solve every problem right now, solving one or two of them will do.
Chelsea also have the issue of underselling themselves. A season ticket in the West Stand costs just £49, less than a ticket for a single match anywhere inside Stamford Bridge.
For kids, it’s just a fiver. Yes the game must continue to be affordable so that families can come and watch matches, but at those prices, people are buying and only attending one or two matches and still feeling like they’ve got their money’s worth.
Raising prices even slightly, will put off part timers, who will look to buy tickets on general sale for games they can attend, and those who want to watch every game can be given the option to buy a season ticket.
There’s also an issue with the amount of sponsor tickets available. The far end of the West Stand sits empty almost every week, and with Three deciding to ditch Chelsea during our sanctions era, I’d hope they’d take those tickets away from sponsors and given them to supporters.
Kingsmeadow has been a fantastic home to Chelsea’s women’s and academy teams, but we should be looking already for alternatives, because the plan should be to outgrow it.
Stamford Bridge will remain the ultimate goal, 40,000 spectators every week is an achievable dream, if, and only if, the wave of euphoria from the Euro’s is ridden properly.
It’ll be interesting to see how they market the game against West Ham on the opening day of the season. Three years ago they gave away tickets to the game against Tottenham, and it was revealed in the recent YouTube documentary that they expected 40,000 to show up, but just 25,000 did.
Lessons must’ve been learned from that day, and they will need to market aggressively to sell out, following in the footsteps of some of their European rivals and the European championships.
We’ve already seen Sam Kerr and Erin Cuthbert make the announcement, we’ve had a 5th Stand live with Niamh Charles, and I’m sure plenty of opportunities when our triumphant Lionesses return from a well deserved break.
Other clubs have also looked to maximise the impact of the England Euro win, match winner Chloe Kelly was introduced to the crowd at her local club Queens Park Rangers, whilst her Manchester City teammate Lauren Hemp was welcomed home by her local team Norwich City.
But, this must not be the focus for a one time event, it must be the focus, every day, every week. Create a waiting list for season tickets, create more opportunities to get life long supporters in watching the team.
Growth is best attained gradually and more importantly consistently.
This also means being bold with our ticketing policy, spending money to make a workable and user friendly ticket exchange so if people can’t attend games they can pass their ticket on to someone who can, so we avoid situations where the club is announcing a ticket sold number as the attendance, when everyone can see that the true attendance is far less.
Using positive data to save face doesn’t do the game any good, nor does it put emphasis on those in charge to force positive change in plans/policies.
Emma Hayes and her backroom staff have done an incredible job building one of Europe’s best teams, and they deserve sell out crowds week in, week out. They deserve big capaticty stadia to play in.
We’ve all got our parts to play in making that happen, but right now it feels as though the club are acting rather timidly, when in fact, the timing has never been better to make bold aggressive steps forward.
Perhaps it’s down to us having new owners and they haven’t wanted to rock the boat, and Todd Boehly has allowed Paul Green to carry on as in, Boehly himself has been busy acting as a sporting director for the men’s first team, so perhaps his influence, especially commercially, will come later down the line.
For now, supporters must continue to push for more. Selling out the same number of tickets is not the positive it seems it is, because it means no growth.
We’re in a perfect storm for rapid growth to happen, but it will take the club to be bold and set the example for the WSL to follow.
Over to you Chelsea.
It is necessary to build stands around the perimeter of Kingsmeadow. Even if not big, the stadium will immediately become much more attractive and cozy. It won't cost much.
"The entirety of the 2021/22 season, the east stand was vacant, with the exception of the bumper crowd on the final day against Manchester United. "
I noticed it too. It was very disappointing. This is a fault of the club's management. It shouldn't be like this anymore.