I saw something earlier about the percentage of people attending Aston Villa matches based on last seasons numbers. It turns out we're bottom of the table based on fill capacity. Remember though, there is a global decline in people attending live sporting events.
If you dig further into the analysis that is provided by the likes of PwC you'll find that it's mostly events when following teams where the decline exists and it's not just the Premier League. The thing is, supporters are getting bored with throwing money away and that's what it comes down to, even if you love your club.
Today, you can subscribe to any number of services and get the game in your living room and while you don't get the same feeling as if you were at the stadium, it's often better coverage.
Also, when you're at the stadium and you're behind the goal, if an incident happens in the other box, chances are very high you're not going to know exactly what happened until you watch Match of the Day later. It's basically natural progression, I mean how many rent a DVD these days?
When at home watching, you get the game in the comfort of your living room and everything that comes with a live match ono TV. And those that do pay for these services can often end up paying just as much as the person that is paying for the season ticket.
Sadly, for the club, they don't get all that money, but if you asked a club today what they'd rather lose, it would be the TV money.
But TV companies are also very conscious of the supporters in the stadium. The Premier League is the best sold event globally and full stadiums are one of the reasons why they can sell it. The Premier League know this to, confirmed when they started this 'you are football' campaign. It's not just to the supporters following at the stadium.
But it's an opportunity
But the point of this post is that this presents an opportunity for the new owner. You see, Birmingham has a huge catchment area and Aston Villa is the largest club in this area. It baffles me that Villa Park isn't sold out every game, but then it doesn't surprise me.
There are only so many times you can make someone believe this is the turning point and the current owner, coming in the way he did, didn't help matters. Actions and words and all that. It was only ever going to be short term.
The new owner of Aston Villa should see buying Aston Villa as something of a challenge, for sure, but also something that if done right, can create more than just a nice revenue stream, but the opportunity of real long term success.
Randy Lerner failed on so many levels and was only interested in getting people to buy tickets and shirts. He should have given shirts and tickets away. But that's long term thinking and there is much more to it than that. I just hope the new owner sees it that way too.
No news on the new owner. But he or she is coming.