Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. This is club 78/92. The best way to follow his journey and read all of the previous pieces is by subscribing here
A year or so ago, Brentford noticed something about their away followings: a gradual decline in the number of Under-18s in the crowd. They conducted surveys with supporters and got the following answers: the price of tickets and away ends that were jumbled up so children may find themselves amongst the more vocal supporters.
A plan was conceived. Brentford partnered with Ticketmaster to create a seat map and a family-friendlier section for those bringing children to choose to sit in if they wished. They then worked with Trainline to offer 20 per cent off travel for away games outside London.
The final piece of the jigsaw was to examine the pricing structure. The introduction of a £30 cap on adult away tickets in the Premier League was, and is, a fine initiative, but some clubs had subsequently increased the price of concessions; that’s not how it was supposed to work. Brentford had discussions about a price that they felt was reasonable, attractive and fair.
The result was Gen10. The maximum price of tickets for anyone under the age of 17 for any Brentford away game is just £10, subsidised by the club. Because Brentford wish to practice what they preach, they also charge £10 for supporters of the same age of other clubs when they come to the Gtech Community Stadium.
Brentford 1-1 Everton (Wednesday 26 February)
- Game no.: 72/92
- Miles: 184
- Cumulative miles: 12,912
- Total goals seen: 189
- The one thing I’ll remember in May: One cool thing about this project is seeing people again. I interviewed Charlie Adam as Fleetwood manager – now he’s a coach at Everton
The idea is to address the issue of children missing out on the live experience and thus becoming disconnected from the sport as a whole. Away games are magical experiences for young fans that can help to shape their love of watching live sport. If supporters of other clubs ask themselves why their club isn’t willing to do something similar, all the better.
Brentford rose to prominence through their use of data within effective recruitment processes, their ability to buy low and sell high, the exploration of the Scandinavian market for players and manager and their consolidation in the Premier League. But it’s another way in which they are truly leading the game.
Since their promotion, Brentford have increased their season-ticket prices once in five years. Despite being based in London, the most expensive regular season ticket at Brentford next season will cost an adult £605. The next cheapest offering in the Premier League this season is Everton at £740 and their new stadium will have a £900 regular season-ticket offering in 2025-26.
For those under 17, Brentford have a blanket season-ticket price in any regular section of the stadium of £135. That works out at just over £7 a league game. In the next cohort up, a 24-year-old will pay £17 a game. They come with an adult, they get hooked and then you make it easier for them to stay.
The club also take part in a shirt rollover: Brentford are rare in the Premier League because they previously have not changed their kits every season. Again, the ethos is to offer a more affordable option for top-flight football for the next generation. As the offer to away fans of other clubs demonstrates, it’s not just about Brentford.
“We have a fundamental belief of providing affordable football to our fans,” says Steve Watts, who is marketing services director at Brentford. “Our idea is to work in tandem with fans, to put ourselves amongst them. The idea is to reflect back to ourselves and think as human beings and as people who love football like them.”
“I think that starts with the owner Matthew Benham and the fact that he is a fan himself. It carries on with Jon Varney, the chief executive – he’s a fan too. We have this affordable football ethos because we think that it’s absolutely critical to put fans first. They’re fans, not customers, which has been forgotten in some parts of football.
“The alignment from the top of the business down over the last 15 years has been outstanding. The value that we have added from a recruitment and development perspective has allowed us to run the football club how we believe one should be run. We have a pole star in the boardroom: to build a better kind of football club. That sounds like a cliche, but it really does drive us.”
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Over the last two years, as Premier League clubs have routinely increased their ticket prices beyond the rate of inflation, a movement against accused greed has grown that has aimed to better organise supporters and persuade them to focus on what unites them more than divides. The Football Supporters’ Association’s #StopExploitingLoyalty campaign has seen joint campaigning outside multiple Premier League matches.
One of the responses of clubs who do wish to raise their prices has been to blame profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) for their actions. They claim that their hands are tied. If supporters want their clubs to be ambitious, and to spend in transfer windows to improve the squad, they need to put their hands in their pockets to fund it. It is emotional blackmail wrapped up as a truth.
Those same clubs might say that Brentford’s lower capacity means that they aren’t going to drastically increase revenue through ticket pricing and do not have large queues of people likely to take the seats of anyone who vacates. But then Brentford had the third lowest matchday revenue in 2022-23 – surely they have a greater need than most to increase that?
“We know that some clubs are blaming PSR,” Watts says. “We know too that, in a world of PSR, that all revenue is important. But let’s face it: across most Premier League clubs, matchday revenue is around 15 per cent of the whole.
“Whilst that is important, we have 85 percent of revenue coming from elsewhere and we prefer to focus there. We have a player trading element to our history and present. We have television revenue and we try to make the Gtech a great experience for broadcasters to operate from.
“You can just stick an extra five pounds on the price of every match ticket if you want. Or you can say ‘We’re going to do the right thing and try to create a better proposition for supporters’. Our model stems from that.”
Brentford’s ethos is partly based on history. This isn’t a club that has a record of top-flight title wins, European campaigns or major domestic cup triumphs, either recent or distant. Too many clubs play on that history to create a persona that they can monetise, whatever their present, as a means of squeezing more out of fans.
Brentford supporters were shaking buckets as recently as 2008 to ensure that their club would survive. That is their history, even after a reset to get into the Premier League. It’s something that Frank says often: Brentford want to be an asset to the Premier League. Watts says that can be achieved by being role models on certain issues and making changes within the ecosystem of football fandom.
The retort from some supporters – perhaps even some clubs – will be whataboutery. What happens if Brentford become more successful? What happens if the waiting list for season tickets grows? What happens if they want to sign an extra player in a transfer window and can’t? As you spend more time in the Premier League, is there not more chance of it changing you rather than you changing the league?
“We have over a dozen fan working groups across the club,” Watts says. “They appreciate being part of the process. Last year we got nearly 98 per cent season-ticket renewals and this year we’re tracking hopefully somewhere similar. This is what matters to us.
“If we maintain the status quo with our ownership and management, the people around the table, our long-term plan is to keep growing in the same way. Just because you have increased season-ticket prices once in five years doesn’t mean that you will never do it again. At some point you get to a point where inflation is so out-trended that you need to look at it.
“But we have grown deliberately, carefully and slowly over the last four years and we don’t see any reason why we can’t continue to do that. Of all the ways in which we would try to accelerate that growth, one of the very last would be to look towards the wallets of our fans.”
It goes without saying, but we should say it anyway: this is cause for great celebration. We have two options when presented with problems. We can, and should, moan about what is being done badly.
But we must also champion those offering a different example and urge others to follow them. The pricing out of existing match-going supporters in the name of avarice is the greatest issue facing the English game. Brentford are an example for others to follow. I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Daniel Storey has set himself the goal of visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season. You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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