Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy the Jock View Post
Basically you/we are all customers , in a successful premier league side , expendable customers .
Tourists spend more money than life long fans , on their seats and in the club shop.
We saw it when we went to the chosen land in the lovely red strip .
Protest all you like , there were customers happy to sit in your seat adorned in red .
Its an entertainment business and YOU are a customer no matter what your standing.
Why sell the seat to a loyal OAP on discount when it can be sold to a tourist for a far better return.

The only problem with the business over anything model is when you slip back into the dungeon league and suddenly the
loyal fans have a value again.
Met a family from Audenshaw, Manchester on holiday over 30 years ago. He was a Man Utd fan who reckoned his club didn’t want him anymore even then. He’d stopped going to home games due to this, he described his match day experience before he packed it in as very much the same as mine, few pints with his mates, get in the ground about 20 minutes before kick off, straight off for a few pints after the final whistle. He reckoned the club wanted coaches from places all over, pulling into the car park behind the superstore, going in, spending a fortune on tat, watching the game, back in the superstore post match, getting on their buses and off home. Two weeks later coaches from other parts would repeat the process.
The club weren’t satisfied with local fans just paying their entrance fee, the aim was to milk the tourists. Him and his mates still went away where he said you were among genuine fans. No doubt there’s all sorts of hoops you need to jump through nowadays to get an away ticket now, I s’pose though.