Topic: Anfield naming rights worth £100m

[Peter McGurk]

For the lower club level ranges, those are just the seat prices and access to the hospitality areas (with a halftime drink and programme, naturally). For the full works, add another £2.1k or £1.7k depending on whether you want restaurant or buffet but that's optional extra.

Would be interesting to see how it would work out. I'm presuming that one of the advantages of having them all in one stand (?) would be that you could just focus the facilities on that stand on them?

The prices at Anfield are what they are. There's a bizillion ways of structuring the hospitality. Ticket with a free pint, two free pints... table of ten and a night at the Hilton. Travel on the team plane (but any 'Diamond Club' at Anfield at £25k a pop is liable to have about two members).

It's already split and both ends of the halfway line are valuable.

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[Zeb]

The prices at Anfield are what they are. There's a bizillion ways of structuring the hospitality. Ticket with a free pint, two free pints... table of ten and a night at the Hilton. Travel on the team plane (but any 'Diamond Club' at Anfield at £25k a pop is liable to have about two members).

It's already split and both ends of the halfway line are valuable.

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There are certainly plenty of options. Do wonder how many would realistically expect to bring in £3k+ a year though.

[rob1966]

There are certainly plenty of options. Do wonder how many would realistically expect to bring in £3k+ a year though.

There is a corporate market out there that we are missing out on. Two examples I can give are the company I work for who has a box and about 70 season tickets at Old Trafford. We also take customers the races, golfing etc. No-one goes for the event, its the free food and ale they go for. Seeing as the CEO is a Liverpool supporter, then its not unrealistic to assume he would also get tickets at Anfield if we could. I've also got a mate who lives down south now. He has spent over £250,000 at the Emirates on his corporate seats since the place opened, plus he has corporate stuff at Wembley. He would buy at Anfield if he could, but it would have to be the right package, as its all about the entertainment.

They're only a couple of examples, but as we are a global brand, we have appeal and a lot of big companies would buy corporate, IF what we offered was impressive and gave the customers a big fancy day out.

[Zeb]

There is a corporate market out there that we are missing out on. Two examples I can give are the company I work for who has a box and about 70 season tickets at Old Trafford. We also take customers the races, golfing etc. No-one goes for the event, its the free food and ale they go for. Seeing as the CEO is a Liverpool supporter, then its not unrealistic to assume he would also get tickets at Anfield if we could. I've also got a mate who lives down south now. He has spent over £250,000 at the Emirates on his corporate seats since the place opened, plus he has corporate stuff at Wembley. He would buy at Anfield if he could, but it would have to be the right package, as its all about the entertainment.

They're only a couple of examples, but as we are a global brand, we have appeal and a lot of big companies would buy corporate, IF what we offered was impressive and gave the customers a big fancy day out.

It's kind of hard to translate that into hard numbers though - is that 7000 corporate packages? 10000? Any ideas on how many Manchester United sell?

[RJH]

There is a corporate market out there that we are missing out on. Two examples I can give are the company I work for who has a box and about 70 season tickets at Old Trafford. We also take customers the races, golfing etc. No-one goes for the event, its the free food and ale they go for. Seeing as the CEO is a Liverpool supporter, then its not unrealistic to assume he would also get tickets at Anfield if we could. I've also got a mate who lives down south now. He has spent over £250,000 at the Emirates on his corporate seats since the place opened, plus he has corporate stuff at Wembley. He would buy at Anfield if he could, but it would have to be the right package, as its all about the entertainment.

They're only a couple of examples, but as we are a global brand, we have appeal and a lot of big companies would buy corporate, IF what we offered was impressive and gave the customers a big fancy day out.

Problem is, part of "being the right package" is geographical location.
Doesn't matter how good everything else is, the corporate market isn't as big as Manchester, and a fraction of the size of London.

We might be a global brand, but if people are in London for business, most of them are either going to be unwilling or unable to travel to Liverpool and back.

We can do better than we currently are, but we're always going to be behind other clubs, for reasons beyond our control.

[MurfySmurfy]

It's a 2 hour train journey, that's not particularly long. I work for a media company in Liverpool and we have clients coming up from London on a daily basis - if corporate entertaining was more accessible at Anfield we'd no doubt use it. Who knows, geographical location could be used to our advantage too, maybe we could forge some kind of deal with cruise terminal which is going from strength to strength, not to mention marketing more packages at tourists who are usually willing to spend more and make a day of it.

[Zeb]

We currently have around 4000 corporate packages for sale every season and at the moment there are £4k and £5k packages still available for next season.

[oojason]

It's a 2 hour train journey, that's not particularly long. I work for a media company in Liverpool and we have clients coming up from London on a daily basis - if corporate entertaining was more accessible at Anfield we'd no doubt use it. Who knows, geographical location could be used to our advantage too, maybe we could forge some kind of deal with cruise terminal which is going from strength to strength, not to mention marketing more packages at tourists who are usually willing to spend more and make a day of it.

Completely agree - I do some subcontract work for 7/8 'well-off' families who support Liverpool who are based in the Midlands and would love to each get their hands on exec boxes for their families and suites for their guests at the ground for match days - as well as meetings and seminars on non-match days for their businesses etc.

Up to now they've reluctantly gone to other football clubs for this - hopefully soon they'll be putting their cash and business into us and not our rivals. The demand is and has been there for some time.

[Danny_]

There is a corporate market out there that we are missing out on. Two examples I can give are the company I work for who has a box and about 70 season tickets at Old Trafford. We also take customers the races, golfing etc. No-one goes for the event, its the free food and ale they go for. Seeing as the CEO is a Liverpool supporter, then its not unrealistic to assume he would also get tickets at Anfield if we could. I've also got a mate who lives down south now. He has spent over £250,000 at the Emirates on his corporate seats since the place opened, plus he has corporate stuff at Wembley. He would buy at Anfield if he could, but it would have to be the right package, as its all about the entertainment.

They're only a couple of examples, but as we are a global brand, we have appeal and a lot of big companies would buy corporate, IF what we offered was impressive and gave the customers a big fancy day out.

Agreed.  I think people just don't realize that we could do it.  United can do it and there is no reason why we can't emulate this.  The idea that only the London clubs can attract corporate fans is bollocks.  Any Liverpool fan would prefer to go to a Liverpool game than a United one obviously.  I don't see why people feel that this wouldn't apply to rich people also.   

[Something Awful]

Been following this thread without anything worthwhile to contribute, but a two hour journey is nothing to most North Americans. Most people over here will drive three hours to go somewhere, then three hours back that same night. My Mum used to stay over night anywhere over two hours.

The point being that if there are international businesses entertaining clients from over here (and for sure South America), the distance from London wouldn't be an issue. Anyone European would likely already be a fan, or at least know of the club's history, and already be willing to make the trip to see Liverpool anyway.

[Peter McGurk]

Been following this thread without anything worthwhile to contribute, but a two hour journey is nothing to most North Americans. Most people over here will drive three hours to go somewhere, then three hours back that same night. My Mum used to stay over night anywhere over two hours.

The point being that if there are international businesses entertaining clients from over here (and for sure South America), the distance from London wouldn't be an issue. Anyone European would likely already be a fan, or at least know of the club's history, and already be willing to make the trip to see Liverpool anyway.

Agreed.  I think people just don't realize that we could do it.  United can do it and there is no reason why we can't emulate this.  The idea that only the London clubs can attract corporate fans is bollocks.  Any Liverpool fan would prefer to go to a Liverpool game than a United one obviously.  I don't see why people feel that this wouldn't apply to rich people also.   

As a fan, I can understand how you're missing the point. City corporates don't take people to the match because they want to watch the game. It's a bit like Henley don'tcha know. There's some sport going on but you'd hardly know it. Which would be more cost-effective for them? Pop up to Ashburton Grove or get (first class tickets) up to Liverpool and 36 hours out of their busy week? Look, it will happen. Of course it will happen but just not the numbers of somewhere like London.

Liverpool will do well to fill the number of premium seats they need to make a go of the stadium and yes, not all of them or even the majority of them will come from Merseyside. But South America? Nah. Two a decade - or at the very least no-one in their right mind is going to build a baseline business case around them.

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[Zeb]

Liverpool will do well to fill the number of premium seats they need to make a go of the stadium and yes, not all of them or even the majority of them will come from Merseyside.

It's interesting that one of those to walk the plank this season just gone was the head of ticketing.

[Peter McGurk]

It's interesting that one of those to walk the plank this season just gone was the head of ticketing.

Never happy to see anyone lose their job but the there's a lot more invention could be applied to the ticketing system - different types of tickets, block sharing, mini-hospitality packages, travel packages, hotel packages, fan village tickets... everything that comes under the banner of a greater number of 'price entry points'.

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[Zeb]

Never happy to see anyone lose their job but the there's a lot more invention could be applied to the ticketing system - different types of tickets, block sharing, mini-hospitality packages, travel packages, hotel packages, fan village tickets... everything that comes under the banner of a greater number of 'price entry points'.

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Do you have the info on our pricebands, number of seats in each band etc. Peter? Beyond 27kish STs and 4k corporates, I can't find anything on it.

[Peter McGurk]

Do you have the info on our pricebands, number of seats in each band etc. Peter? Beyond 27kish STs and 4k corporates, I can't find anything on it.

No - and you won't find it either. Only way is to work back from attendance and published income. Bit of creative maths and subtract the number you first thought of. Then input 12% of capacity as premium seats on 60k capacity at today's prices and hey presto out pops £1200 revenue per seat over a 'standard' season (or £1170 if you listen to JWH...)

There is this though. The premium seat price list (v Chelsea last year):


Screen Shot 2012-06-20 at 19.04.59 by Peter McGurk, on Flickr

[Zeb]

Cheers Peter. Shame can't break down to number of seats in each band currently.