Ok

So going by the fans forum, the club have said they're freezing the price of season tickets for next year.

However, I don't think this is really much in the way of value for money.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the way league one is setup is that it's 16 teams which splits into two sets of 8 (Super 8s & Shield) after 15 games and everyone plays each other once. So that's a total of 22 games. So we're looking at maybe 11 home games across the season which means we're talking £13.55 per game for the standard ground entry price of £150. But if you want to sit down you're talking £18 per game

Given my (and probably a lot of other fans apathy at the moment) I can't say that I'm going to be first in line to buy a season ticket when they're released. In fact, I might not even buy one and will just pay on the gate if I chose to go.

To be fair they are freezing the prices because they are not sure how League 1 will be structured next season. With the League 1 Cup being scrapped the RFL are looking into extending the league season. If the current structure does stay with 15 games then the Bulls will probably reduce the prices of the season tickets.

But even if they do extend the league season and we have 15 home games and 15 away. Then it may work out cheaper than this season? However if it doesn't I can't see people paying the same amount next season to watch Hemel, Oxford and Coventry (no offense to these clubs).

Yeah, let's do it properly and end up playing some teams more than others. We will miss that structure. In fact can we please play the hardest team away at least one extra time? Thanks.

Not sure what your getting at here but I may just be having a daft moment! I meant that there are 16 teams in League 1 (including us) which would give us 15 home and 15 away games. Rather than just play each team once which is what the current structure is.

I for one am looking forward to next season. Don't know if I will be buying a season ticket like but I will be going to as many games as I can attend!

Well I'm not sure what price point I would call value for money right now. My decision will be regarding walk up prices anyway, I won't be signing up for a full season regardless. I've enjoyed the freedom of not feeling like I have to go to Odsal just out of habit.

The truth is that we simply don't know yet what the make up of League 1 will be next year, and hence the fixtures. All sorts of rumours about clubs maybe dropping out and/or merging. Is the League 1 Cup axed or was that just a recommendation? Who knows...

I wouldn't be surprised if they see the League 1 Cup as a way to get the Bulls into the Summer Bash (which will be hopeless without us and HKR) . Remember - the final is played at the Bash! So don't be surprised to suddenly see that 'saved'..

Until we know how the fixtures will be made up I don't see how can actually start selling Season Tickets. Hopefully it will be announced before they put on sale, but this being the RFL I wouldn't bank on it!

Very true! Which is why I am happy for the club to say they have froze them as they are not sure of the structure yet. Better than releasing prices now, people buy, then find out the structure has or hasn't changed. Resulting in a change of price.

I hope the RFL sees sense and scraps the League 1 cup in favor of a proper league season, what good is it just playing teams once? And I am a huge fan of RL and want every side to prosper so it would be nice for the lower clubs to get some of our away support too.

The only way I would like to see us play three teams is if we play Keighley! Love a local derby!

If no one actually knows the League 1 structure for next season then it seems a bit premature that AC has said the ST prices will be frozen, because that gives him zero room for manoeuvrability (up or down).
Surely they're not intending on selling the season tickets before the structure is actually announced - or maybe they are.
Just hope it doesnt turn into a another "shirt" fiasco.

The thing is, that it wasn't made clear whether AC meant the [iprice per match [/i would be frozen or this year's [ioverall price[/i would be frozen. The former would be the better strategy and fine, in my view, and the latter could lead to problems, given we have little idea what the exact set-up and number of games is going to be.

If there are fewer home games it will still cost approximately the same to run the club. Players will be getting similar deals. We need to pay the money and hopefully drag more people in.


I would hope one change would be to change the junior prices to a token amount. Try to get parents to bring the kids along and get their cash without it being massive initial outlay.
Bums on seats and a winning team is the way forward....

TBF, I will buy mine based on what sort of commitment is made in the playing / coaching department,
If it is a "new dawn" then i'm in regardless of price frozen or not.
it's one of those the company needs fans and the income they bring, as long as there isn't a Green and Ferres pulling down of pants.

IMHO they are going to have to show a big improvement in what they are doing in all departments to get people on board anyway.

The idea above of "bring a kid for a quid" with an adult and free Bradford schools season tickets did wonders in 1996 / 97..

We had a much bigger marketing dept back then and, to be fair, we spent quite a bit of money in young person centred pre-match entertainment as well. It would have to depend on budgets but, yes, getting the kids interested again really ought to be a priority. There are some things which, to be honest, you have to ask, can we afford [inot [/ito do.

It makes you sick seeing kids growing up in Bradford supporting Leeds Lol..

It makes me ill to think of anybody at any age supporting Leeds.

Players can't be getting similar deals unless we have a lot less of them or someone is gonna pump huge amounts of money into the club, that's just pie in the sky. Even if you guesstimated an average loss of income per month from reduced gates of £30,000 you can see the problem and that's without looking at the reduced ability to get decent amounts of sponsorship money playing in the stiffs leagues.

I'd have tended to start from the proposition that we are in a shiit league playing shiit teams and nobody much will be interested in most of the games, (home to Hemel Hempstead, anyone?)so I'd be looking at halving the prices and trying to keep the numbers up to try to avoid as many as possible simply getting out of the habit. I'd also be absolutely smashing kids for free with adult deals, that type of thing. . That isn't meant to be scientific BTW but I think the important thing is to sway the lukewarms into keepng coming, not to milk the diehards.

But that's just me, and frankly I can't see a way to make the numbers add up in 2018 anyway unless we end up with a Hemel hempstead standard squad so callme Mr. Pessimist, but we've been told (a) we have no money and (b) we are turning away epople with money, so it ain't rocket science.

I agree it doesn't add up unless we're really done well with the sponsorship or the amount of fulltimers is going to be an absolute minimum.

Otherwise we're looking at a 90% part time squad. We should find out one way or the other over the next 4-5 months. If it's a Hemel standard squad then those of us holding out to see won't be part of the 3000. Not sure where they're coming from.

I don't mind a ST freeze as long as we get a competitive squad.

However, if this is the start of the rebuild, we need the kids on board. Free season tickets for all Bradford school kids. I don't think we'll lose a huge amount of money by giving them away

Also i don't think kids get quite as hooked up on the fact we're playing Hemel as what we do. If they see us winning and scoring lots of tries every week they'll want to come everyweek.

Also they'll soon lose interest if we're scraping wins over Hemel so we need a proper squad that's intending to get promoted.

Over to you Chalmers!

Hope we do get some decent numbers because plenty of C1 sides sure aren't packing them in.

977 at Barrow
562 at Whitehaven
441 at Workington
333 at Hunslet
268 at Coventry
114 at Hemel
65 SIXTY FIVE! at Oxford.

660 at Swinton yesterday. Say if 300 were Bulls fans they're the definite hard core. Chalmers is aiming for 10 times that amount to sign up for a season ticket.

Why not offer ST at a cheap price if we sold say 10k. That worked in the past, we sold loads.

I genuinely don't know where they're getting 3,000 season tickets at the same prices as the division above from. It makes no sense.

Unless of course the conspiracy theories proved correct. Because aiming for 3,000 at the same price whilst in the same division, WOULD make sense.

I actually think it would a stretch in the Championship, given the general discontent and malaise around the Bulls these days

Perhaps, but it's much easier sold. "This season we won't start on -12 and we've had plenty of time to get a team together, instead of cobbling together all those who were too crap to get another club with a week's notice, so we must have a better chance in the competition than last year". I suspect they'd word it slightly better, but I'm sure that would be the subtext.

(Or at least they'd try and word it better, until the numb bugger in charge of the website had to type it up)

As I said earlier in the piece, I'm not getting hung up on the number of STs we sell, the overall attendance figure is the important one to me.

If there are positive vibes about the club, which is essentially a squad which looks as though it can hold its own and no bad news before the season starts.....then I think, given fair results, we can gradually build on the ST sales with some decent roll-up figures. As always, there too many things we don't know, too many things we think we know, but don't and probably too many things we don't even know we don't know.

1st game of the season at home to say Keighley, could see a reasonable size (for this league) crowd.
An opening win could kindle interest if we have free kids tickets - and that's what we need.
Most of us probably started watching as young kids - and once the bug bites - you're a Bulls fan for life.
I keep wanting to say the only way is up, but I'm not that confident yet