LONDON - Europe's leading clubs will have to adjust
their ticket prices for corporate clients next season if they are
to preserve revenues, analysts say.
Clubs will be increasingly prepared to lower prices to retain
their prestige customers as the global economic crisis squeezes
budgets.
"It's a buyers' market, and at clubs where corporate capacity is
not sold out prices may be flexible," said Alex Byars, senior
manager in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte.
Some expect ticket renewal for next season to be even tougher
than in 2008.
"I see signs of contraction in corporate hospitality in 2009 and
2010," Marco Fassone, chief marketing officer at Juventus, told
Reuters.
Many premium seats are taken by small businesses who are closest
to the difficulties experienced in the economy at the moment.
"I expect corporate hospitality to come under considerable
pressure," said Paul Blakey, senior lecturer in sports management
at the Northumbria University.
Top European soccer clubs draw up to 40 percent of their
matchday revenues on corporate seats, according to the consultancy
group Deloitte.
About 10-15 percent of seating at modern stadiums, Deloitte say,
is reserved for businessmen and professionals, who pay up to 6,000
euros ($7,545) per season for benefits including exclusive seats,
car parking, special dinners and player appearances.
As a result of the crisis, English Premier League club Blackburn
Rovers slashed their corporate hospitality prices in January, while
there has been a widespread price discounting for some games.
MIXED SCENARIO
However, those clubs whose revamped stadiums reach above 95
percent of capacity are in a better position to weather the
crisis.
"On the corporate side, we are less challenged than others,"
Arsenal's new chief executive Ivan Gazidis said this week.
The London club largely benefits from sell-out league
attendances, averaging 60,100.
In Italy, where Serie A top flight league is second only to the
English Premier League in terms of total revenues, stadiums are in
desperate need of an overhaul.
"Italian soccer clubs have not yet developed an adequate
corporate offer," said Michele Costantini, marketing director at
Italy's travel agency Sport Incentive Travel.
Juventus -- whose matchday income accounts for seven percent of
the clubs' total revenues -- is trying to make up the
difference.
The Turin club is looking to increase its corporate fan base and
will offer 3,500 premium seats instead of the current 500 when its
new 40,000 seater stadium opens in 2011.
While general tickets prices will remain unchanged, premium
seats will cost from a minimum of 2,000 euros per season to about
6,000 euros, depending on the benefits included.
"From 2011 we expect to increase our revenues from the stadium
to about 30 million euros. We may still be far from British clubs
revenues, but this means a lot to us," Juve's Fassone said.