Tottenham news: Finance expert claims group of fans could be costing Spurs £3m after blow revealed
Fans who are reluctant to return to matches because of Covid concerns could explain why Tottenham average 8,224 empty seats per game.
That is the view of finance expert Doctor Dan Plumley, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the results of a recent study conducted by OGLB.
As relayed by the Daily Mail last week (25 January), the research reveals that Spurs lose an average of £165,000 per game because of unsold tickets.
This figure equates to £3.135million when extrapolated over 19 Premier League home matches.
Plumley suggests that concerns about the virus as well potential pricing issues could lie at the heart of the problem for the North London club.
“A thing to be mindful of is how many of those are season ticket holders,” the Sheffield Hallam University expert told Football Insider‘s Adam Williams.
“They have already paid their money upfront. The losses on that, you’re looking at food and drink spend.
“The breakdown for Spurs in terms of season ticket holders isn’t available and n terms of solving that problem, Covid is still an issue at the minute.
“Some people are reluctant to go back to big crowds. The club can’t do anything about that.
“Some of them might have already bought their season tickets and be staying away.
“The other way you go is to start talking about prices. If it’s a consistent problem, you’d look at your pricing structure.
“You’d have loads of stats supporting that over the year. But it’s not always as simple as saying reduce prices and the crowds will get bigger.
“It is a tricky balance. Performance on the pitch has to align with the pricing structure as well.
“If you aren’t where the fans think you should be, that has an impact on pricing and attendance. So it’s complicated.
“Clubs will have budgeted for this. They’ll have run the scenarios and know the price range they can go to.”
Spurs’ state-of-the-art stadium opened its doors to the public in March 2019.
It can seat just north of 62,000 spectators.
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