Well, what do you think of the idea on paper? Do you seriously think crowds will go up to 2500 a head at 5 quid?

This is a forum, i have said its stupid an idea and i still feel it is.

I.m.o. On paper a cracking idea but if it didn't work well and still only averaged the
crowds the club would be in the myre....... Maybe dangle the carrot of
half price @ £7:50with some sort of loyalty card system , for arguments sake lets say
Attend three matches at £15 get the 3 stamps on your card then you get
the next 5 matches you attend at £10 and get your card stamped 5 times
Then for the rest of the season it is £7.50 a match.
The idea is quite basic so everyo.e understands the more you come down the cheaper
it gets , easy to implement with some sort of dated secure rubber stamp on the turnstile ,
Hand over your money get your card stamped so it isn't holding people up for mor than a few
seconds.
And as it is a unique idea for a sports club , think of all the free publicity it would get in
the newspapers and calendar / look north type tv programmes....even some big company to
sponsor it to cover the cost of any cards / rubber stamps etc..
The Cougars could get some superb coverage with the right promotion with something like
this.
The only stumbling block I could see is the concessions pricing structure ,unless that
price was just capped at £8 a match all season like it is now.

Discuss.

A much better and more logical idea Burleycougar

I would like to know the fors and againsts on this one as on balance it could be a goer

The first thing that springs to mind would be the season ticket holders, maybe the club would guarantee that a season ticket could be bought at the least possible cost i.e first 3 games £30, next 5 games £50, balance of games (5?) 7.50 = season ticket costs £117.50, maybe include a free game for the season ticket holders friend during the season as an incentive

would like to hear the clubs views on this one

Unworkable. How could this be administered - apart from making keighley cougars a laughing stock in the internet age with bits of paper and rubber stamps

How much cash does the lady in the office expect from each turnstile? Now say a turnstile clicks 100 times, the operator has to hand in 100 x £15. With this idea, nobody would have a clue how much is due - poor control, and a temptation ...

Ok, so

McDonald's, subway and others all use this or similar systems and they work well

We have more than one turnstile, it's not rocket science, they even use different turnstiles for adults/children/concessions you know

With unworkable logic like that I'm surprised we fuel our cars, I mean, how can we get diesel/petrol and gas out of one pump trigger!?

Wow is this what level it's sunk to? Being patronising, really?

For my 2p worth I actually think a loyalty card system whilst conceived with the best intentions could be overly complicated.

Burley Cougar's proposal relies on 3 tiers of pricing within the loyalty card structure, then there's season ticket holders, children, those with out loyalty cards and other concessions. So we are probably looking at around 6 or 7 price categories every game. Theoretically this would be split across 4 turnstyles, general admission/loyalty card, kids, concession and season tickets. Every discount given by the loyalty card scheme relative to general admission has to be accounted for in order for the clubs books to be straight. Which requires a very high degree of accuracy from a volunteer turnstyle operator who at the same time is trying to get people in to the ground and take money. At somewhere like McDonalds they have advanced epos systems that enable this to be done efficiently however I doubt the club has the resources to install such a system.

The sad reality is that the club is haemorraging fans and something needs to be done before the club enters a terminal decline, if it hasn't already. It appears that the real core of the debate is pragmatic vs visionary with neither being fundamentally right or wrong just a different viewpoint. The status quo clearly isn't working, so all ideas should be encouraged no matter whether there based on what has worked before, are new and innovative or so outlandish that on the face of it they look crazy in the eyes of some. The very definition of logic is coming to a reason or outcome through argument.

You never know we might just hit upon something palatable to all of us.

As things stand at the moment, the entrance fee could be FREE and still the people would not come.

Not all of the reasons are entirely the current clubs fault, there are a lot of historical reasons as well. I would suggest that if a straw poll was held in the town and the question was something like "Can you name a professional sporting club in or near the town?", that the Cougars would hardly be mentioned.

The solutions are not entirely in the current clubs hands either, but reading what bits of information are available it seems that the present position is as good as it is likely to get.

The WHOLE system of Rugby League in this country, IMO, needs restructuring and reorganising, not just sticking plasters and hope & pray.

The actual game on the field needs very little change.

Great constructive thoughts to someones idea? Well done.

People come on here to suggest things and get shot down. They take the time to think about the club and whether the idea has merit or not who the hell are you to call it stupid. I'll tell you one thing, if I was a potential fan coming on here to see what goes on, I'd not bother going to the ground. The club needs to increase attendances to achieve it's goal, fact. It's going to have to do something rather than just advertise to converted fans to do that.

I bet some people could fall out with themselves..............?

Speak for yourself

Glad to see someone can see what the real problem is. Cracking post.

Just pointing out that the system proposed isn't as 'unworkable' as was stated

A Strong post posted, less of a strong reply posted back, nowt wrong with that, could have been a stronger but didn't see the point in creating something from it.

Maybe it's a prerequisite to joining on here.

Thank you for such constructive comments Mr Churchill , I presume you have
the gumption to come up with a more workable idea ???

Thank you. What do you think of the idea?

The opening post had it about right.

The opening post would close the club

haaaaahahahahhahahaha

The entrance price for the Challenge Cup 5th round tie between Huddersfield and Leeds was reduced to £8 for everybody and the attendance was by far the biggest of the round (more than double all but one of the other 5th round matches) - even though it was live on BBC TV.

The attendance was 11,000 which considering the price, and two clubs in good form, is pretty poor IMO.

We need to do something that will make people sit up and take notice, that means a big signing and winning games.

If you did a one off cut price on the back of this you might entice people down - Loosing to Doncaster and Dewsbury will not.

Respect to the person for caring and taking the time to suggest an idea. It may not work or be viable but I don't know the finances at the club so I'm not sure how much financial resilience there is to try things. I think Mike Smith on another thread has it right. The club has to be brave, but calculated. I'm not suggesting they break the bank, but IMO there does need to some speculation with a view to accumulating.

In answer to the bigger question:

There are possibly 2 ideologies here. One ideology is to "stack them high and sell them cheap" and the other ideology is for a fair market price to be paid for the product (Keighley Cougars match day ticket pricing is aligned with all the other Championship clubs). In order to justify setting the price at £5 we would have to have roughly 3 times the number of paying fans coming through the gate on that particular match day. The reason for this is because significant resources would have to be expended to promote the offer in the fear that 3 times as many fans don't turn up. As a result the club could lose around £4k to £5k on that day. Further, there is no guarantee that the people who attend the cheap match would re-attend on another occasion. Also, getting other outlets to sell £5 tickets would take an immense amount of effort to set up and the club doesn't have the resources to do this at the moment.

Having said this we do have a Ladies Day (where ladies are allowed in for free and get a glass of sparkling wine and we had a Bloke's day whereby a man would get a half price drink up to an hour before the game and a half price drink if they stayed after 5pm. Both offers were taken up but were fairly lukewarm .

My contention would be the crowds would be bigger if we were winning significantly more matches than we are at the moment AND if there was something to play for, i.e. promotion to a higher league. In Cougarmania days there were significant and revolutionary things done BUT the silver bullet was promotion and the drive to Super League. If it wasn't what else would have accounted for the drop off in crowds rapidly when promotion wasn't achieved?

In addition to this, Bradford Bulls, when they weren't doing so well instituted a very cheap season ticket to boost crowds and it ultimately led to administration. This is something the current Cougars Board would seek to avoid at all costs. Financial stability is the critical issue.

It would be very revolutionary to scrap season tickets. The Cougars tried a membership scheme last year but very few took it up. Some, not all, fans like season tickets so it would be potentially suicidal to scrap them. In terms of the junior season tickets our trial this year has proven we can print and distribute 40,000 for around £1,500 as we distribute through the schools. We estimate that it would cost about the same amount to promote 1 match at a £5 ticket price. Given that the strategy would be to get more children, and ultimately parents and grandparents, down to match days we feel that is a good use of the club's finite resources.

In summary, we will do promotions but we will be careful about it.

Good post TCV, cheers.