No Adult Membership scheme this year

[stmusicdude]

 

Well, I've worked for organisations that run membership schemes for about 16 years.

 

The administartive costs - even when organised highly efficient - are high.

 

You need to factor in staff time and overheads too.

 

The actual cost to a company of sending a letter is nearly always more than a pound.

 

Most membership organisations with many more than 1K members will have a full time staff member working largely on the membership database.

 

In Saints' case, you'd also need to make the job of the ticket sales staff a tad more complicated. And you'd need to put in procedures to prevent fraud (casual fans buying a ticket on a mate's membership account to swell his loyalty points). You'd also need some procedure to resolve disputes (a member complaining that he'd definitely only used his discount rights seven times and the database was wrong).

 

You can assume the real cost of staff time is £10 per hour for even a minimum wage worker. £20+ for moderately more qualified staff.

 

I don't know how many years of experience you have running membership systems. But if you can point to any membership organisation in the UK that runs at less than £5 a member (discounting those run on a purely voluntary basis, where the human resource cost is zero), I'd be delighetd to hear about it.

 

Party political memberships costs anywhere from £10-£20 a year to administer, for example.

 

 

not sure if this is the post i wanted to reply to .. but it wouldn't let me yesterday. You made your points well & i accept you must know far more than I gave you credit for about it. so sorry .. I still feel football club membership has a different value than a political party etc.. and you still come over as talking down to ppl who have different view to yours but thats your right.

[Lord Duckhunter]

 

It wouldn't even wash its own face.

 

It would raise nowhere near 25OK.

 

It would be expensive to administer and you need to factor in opportunity costs. For example, some cuurent purchasers of season tickets might downgrade to mere membership and end up attending less games and handing over less money as a result.

 

The scheme being proposed was for a 50 fee attached to a 40 discount. The club only clears a tenner per member. The admin costs are likely to be higher than this - but even if you assume that the cost would only be £5 per person to administer, you would need to sign up 50,000 members to make your suggested 250K profit. That simply isn't going to happen.

 

There are, in practice, only a small number of fans a membership scheme would appeal to. A very high proportion of hardcore fans are already season ticket holders. Those who aren't are almost all able to get to all the games they want to go without the slightest problem (generally only home games). Those who are hardcore, but not season ticket holders, can often join a group like the London Saints Supporters Club who can help with tickets.

 

So, those who are likely to see any real benefit in a membership scheme are nowhere near 50,000. Not 10,000. Possibly not even 1,000. And at this point, the income from a membership scheme probably doesn't even cover the administrative set-up costs, let alone the on running servicing costs.

 

The 250K figure is just a fantasy number you've plucked out of the air. Running a scheme would cost the club money in the NPC.

 

Seems strange that Huddersfield ran one last year, do you think they did so at a loss?

 

http://www.htafc.com/page/OurTownArticle

 

And Charlton

 

http://www.cafc.co.uk/page/redcard/0,,10267,00.html

 

Of course they were League one clubs, what about Middlesbouourgh in the Championship.Steve Gibson seems pretty switched on, doubt if he'd run a scheme that cost the club money.

 

http://www.mfc.co.uk/page/tickets/boro-pride/0,,1~1761006,00.html

 

Forest

 

http://www.nottinghamforest.co.uk/page/Membership/0,,10308,00.html

 

Doncaster

 

http://www.doncasterroversfc.co.uk/page/Membership/0,,10329,00.html

 

 

 

This year Leeds are running one, are you seriously saying that Uncle Ken is running a scheme for the benefit of fans at a loss?

 

http://www.leedsunited.com/page/AdultMembership/0,,10273,00.html

 

I could go on a list other clubs, but you get the drift.

 

 

All these clubs out of the top flight running schemes that according to you "wouldn't even wash its own face."

 

People like Ken Bates do not run scemes like this out of the goodness of his heart.

[SaintBobby]

 

Seems strange that Huddersfield ran one last year, do you think they did so at a loss?

 

http://www.htafc.com/page/OurTownArticle

 

And Charlton

 

http://www.cafc.co.uk/page/redcard/0,,10267,00.html

 

Of course they were League one clubs, what about Middlesbouourgh in the Championship.Steve Gibson seems pretty switched on, doubt if he'd run a scheme that cost the club money.

 

http://www.mfc.co.uk/page/tickets/boro-pride/0,,1~1761006,00.html

 

Forest

 

http://www.nottinghamforest.co.uk/page/Membership/0,,10308,00.html

 

Doncaster

 

http://www.doncasterroversfc.co.uk/page/Membership/0,,10329,00.html

 

 

 

This year Leeds are running one, are you seriously saying that Uncle Ken is running a scheme for the benefit of fans at a loss?

 

http://www.leedsunited.com/page/AdultMembership/0,,10273,00.html

 

I could go on a list other clubs, but you get the drift.

 

 

All these clubs out of the top flight running schemes that according to you "wouldn't even wash its own face."

 

People like Ken Bates do not run scemes like this out of the goodness of his heart.

 

Yep. They probably are all running at a loss.

 

It might be a "worthwhile" loss. A bit licket "quids for a kid" nights - which aren't revenue maximising but may have preceived long-term potential.

 

Otehr issues will be how easy/hard is it to get into home games and how broad the season ticket base is (Saints is very broad - with about 505 or more of our home attednance being season ticket holders).

[The Kraken]

 

Yep. They probably are all running at a loss.

 

It might be a "worthwhile" loss. A bit licket "quids for a kid" nights - which aren't revenue maximising but may have preceived long-term potential.

 

Otehr issues will be how easy/hard is it to get into home games and how broad the season ticket base is (Saints is very broad - with about 505 or more of our home attednance being season ticket holders).

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing here, as I clearly don't have too much idea of the hidden costs of a membership scheme. I am extremely surprised, however, at the notion that it would cost so much money to run. I'm guessing that the club think it wouldn't be self-sufficient while we're in the Championship, as there simply wouldn't be the demand for it; you wouldn't need to be a member to get tickets for most games, and there's no other real benefits. as a consequence the likely take-up would be pretty small and the club may think they would struggle to break even on it.

 

In the Premier League it was massively advantageous to be a member in terms of being able to purchase match tickets early, sometimes at all. And at £20 a year, you only have to shift 5,000 memberships to see a revenue of £100K coming in. That easily pays for a full time member of staff of the dbase plus tie ins with all the other relevant departments IMO. In reality membership levels in the Premier League were at least double that figure, so at its peak I can't see a membership scheme as being anything other than a money spinner.

[Lord Duckhunter]

I cant believe Ken Bates runs a scheme that costs him money.

[View From The Top]

I cant believe Ken Bates runs a scheme that costs him money.

 

Nor can I.

[Saint Martini]

Because Chelsea were a money-making machine before Abramovic took them over...