But you do see his posts when it’s quoted by another poster



As for your reply to my post about paying in instalments, you also say “The same strategy tweaked slightly might benefit the club” so we don’t have to do 12 monthly instalments but an interest free 3 instalment plan is a tweak (or our own) strategy.
Not sure what you sell and if you’ve ever put sales plans together, but understanding your market is the first point to establish before starting to put an action plan, I don’t think you’ve grasped it here, season ticket sales are up so our current strategy on that is working, discounting match day tickets would effect the re-sale of season tickets next year as the benefit would not be as great, most importantly we are not in Melbourne and not receiving millions of £‘a in subsidies to support our business plan. Improving the match day experience is the best thing we can do to improve attendances and income, our hospitality is sold out for most matches so it’s the walk ups and stay away fans along with getting new fans,that need to be worked on, as a chairman of a community club I know that trinity do an awful lot to address this, unfortunately there is a lot of other activities out there on a Saturday/Sunday and Thursday night are a loss leader. Cutting the price of watching what we produce on the field is devaluing the product, I’m guessing your the kind of salesman that when the customers says “I can get it cheaper at “insert supplier” you offer a discount, rather than state you products USP’s

Backwards more like. Were you not here during the Glover era?

I don’t understand your point on the payment plan, are you saying 3 instalments of around £75pp is easier to swallow for the average household than £19.99pp is?

I sell office supplies and yes, putting a sales plan together is something I do weekly for around £5m worth of business.
Understanding your market is step one, would you comfortably say that the average support/potential fan of Wakefield Trinity can afford £75 per person per month for 3 months? (Compared to £19.99 as mentioned above).

I understand we can’t rely on millions of investment from the state like Melbourne hence my point right at the beginning where I asked what we were doing to mimic clubs like that? Not why haven’t we had £26.5m in funding.

Personally I believe the main reason for a boost in season ticket sales comes from two 5th place finishes in a row.

In terms of price matching, I say it everyday in the office and every weekend in the pub (only to different audiences): “don’t drop your pants”. So no, I understand there is a number we have to hit to ensure our club stays afloat, I’m not stamping my feet asking for £100 season tickets. I’m simply interested to understand what conversations/projects could be undergoing with a long term perspective of becoming a successful club.

‘Could’ is the key word here. If your scheme based on your hunch is implemented, who’s picking up the risk if it generates less revenue?

Approached our ‘alternative to state aid’? So that would be Wakefield council. What do you reckon the answer might be?

As for sponsors, major blue chip brands aren’t exactly falling over themselves to get into rugby league. We are lucky to have 1! You make it sound oh so simple? Our average sponsor probably contributes about 5k. Do you know how tough it is to get more?

We’ll replicate Hudds £80 next year. I wouldn’t bank on seeing a game on Boxing Day mind....

Read back a couple of pages I don’t think it’s oh so easy. I know how difficult “new business” is to obtain. I will one last time reiterate, what is going on in the background to change that? What are Wakefield Trinity doing to become the pioneer for Rugby League? I gather it’s obvious that I’m also talking about much more than the season ticket price. Which I might add and hope that anyone that does reply to me does it read, not for one second do I expect the season ticket prices to lower now or in fact in the next 5 years.

Side note: In honesty guys this is the first time in a while I’ve enjoyed myself whilst posting on here and I have had to wind anyone up to do so! Thanks for a great debate so far!

Steady pal.....


.......and you wonder why I'm "harsh" on you......

Rude.

No offence, but I dont think you can compare "office supplies" to try and balance the books - as MC has to do - with a professional sports team.
I also work in sales and management and tbh, you make it sound like a walk in the park.....
As for the £ cost, people will decide to pay how they can - my mate pays in 3mths, I pay via commit 6.
The bottom line is as long as people do it, thats all that counts.

You’ve done me, I’m out. We just sit around all week playing championship manager

TheDreadnought, you do realise we have commit 6, £26 a month, gets you 6 lines in weekly 1873 draw and pays for the following years season ticket? That's spreading the cost over the year, plus chances of winning £250 each week.

Phew!!! I'm exhausted!!!!

Like talking to a brick wall.

Couldn't say that in all honesty

The reasons for your whinging about nothing you can actually justify, remain an unknown

but I suppose if it quacks like a duck, people will draw their own conclusions.

Have you actually read anything I’ve put? Everything I have about any other club is a fact. You obviously haven’t read it as I’ve confirmed I don’t know how many times that I’ve sorted my season ticket.

I never said that though did I, do as you please. Enjoy championship manager lad

I didn’t know that to be honest, double the initial 3 months that I thought but still more than Hull however I’ll admit it’s not as much as a increase.

We aren't competing with the NRL. No one is going to say, "£25 to go to Belle Vue. Outrageous. I'm off to Melbourne instead."

My comment about the general admission prices when I went to Aus in April was to put in context the Melbourne season ticket prices, in that they are consistent with the single ticket prices, not that we are overpriced.

Cutting season ticket prices doesn't work. Remember the Bradford £80 tickets, a third of the normal cost? If they sold three times as many, they only make the same amount of money as they did before, BUT lose the "on the day" gate money the other two thirds would bring. And if you remember, Bradford went bust straight after. Bradford assumed that fans would spend money on consumables. They didn't. If someone wants to buy a burger at a game, they will. No one will buy a burger they wouldn't ordinarily buy just because they got a cheap season ticket six months earlier.

What brings crowds, and money, in sport is success. To get success, you've got to be able to buy the best players, which means finding the resources, not gambling it all on consumers, who are traditionally from a less weathy demographic, on turning up in droves to witness a bargain basement team try to win, purely on the basis of it being cheap.

We're in the entertainment business. To attract crowds, you have to entertain. To entertain, you have to have the players. To have the players, you have to have the guaranteed income.

What you don't seem to get is although you think you are having a lively debate you don't take on what other people say and accuse them of not reading yours.

You imply in your questioning that you think the reason we are not like Melbourne Storm is through lack of effort. You've been around long enough to see there is effort in what the club does. The issue is money.
Melbourne and even Huddersfield have money in the city and money that sees value in investing in rugby league. Wakefield isn't like that.

Even in the 70s when we had a new era building, we had to sell and with the greatest respect replaced with older has beens. Having David Topliss and Trevor Sjerret plating for us still didn't give us Leeds type crowds. When they went to Hull it drew people in.

So asking MC what he has done to compete with NRL or teams with sugar daddy investors is naive at best.

And if you are in sales Dreadnought you'll know that there is an optimal price to get maximum profit.

We are not trying to get big crowds, we are trying to raise revenue. Selling cheap may improve crowd size but doesn't get you a profit if you are too cheap.

We have form on the board showing how it can go wrong.
We have far more options for ST than we've ever had. More merchandise at better quality. More ways for sponsors to invest.

So unless you have a plan that we can actually discuss that isn't just asking what we do, you are not going to get a debate.

What I imply and what others presume I’m implying could be two completely different things Poptart. Throughout the whole thing I’ve not once said copy Melbourne, go get 26.5m worth of funding or more importantly compete with Melbourne. I only used them as an example of what is being offered elsewhere to outline where we could potentially be aiming for.

I’ll go back all the way to page 2, what seems like a lifetime ago now lol



Key parts for me based on what others have said, not once do I confirm we would survive based on offering the prices that Melbourne do, I don’t mention competing I asked what we are doing to mimic the deals, nothing specific just the ways of working in general (all I’ve had back is confirming we can’t ask the council for 26.5m).

I was given a straight answer on the last point however.

Poptart you mention we are not trying to get big crowds and again I’ll refer back to MC’s comments after the London game but also reiterate it could have been in jest (yet to be confirmed); If only we could get the same amount of fans to buy season tickets. Not word for word don’t get me wrong but definitely something with a similar message behind it.

8 pages worth of conversation where I have backed up my points when required but also more than once confirmed I agree with a hell of a lot that’s been said.

I’ve never said MC/Staff do nothing all week, initially I only even said clubs like Wakefield do the same goes for Castleford as they have basically the same structure as we do!

What if I was to tell you I don’t have the answer for the club, do I have to stop posting about it because others clearly don’t agree with me? I thought this was the point of the forum, to discuss RL. I don’t know what I am supposed to have not taken on board, having read the thread from start to finish again any question I’ve replied to has been with a counter argument based on my opinion.

I’ve questioned a hell of a lot on here today but with that said I don’t think any of it is out of turn especially considering if I have made a point I have backed it up with the proof, even if people want to exclude Huddersfield because of Davy the Hull KR point still stands, I held my hands up because I didn’t know about the commit 6 option but it’s still whilst marginal a more costly option that what our competitors are offering.

Anyway, peace out guys. Have a great weekend, stay safe and if I don’t log on tomorrow or Sunday, I’ll catch up with you all Monday morning.

I detest subsidised ticketing, always have.

Apart from some careful targeting of the young I find it utterly counter productive.

I could write loads on it but I won’t ill just say this.

It de-values your product and you never get it back. The sort of people generally (not all I accept) who turn up because it’s cheap expect it to stay that way. Once the club tries to recoup it investment they generally scarper, leaving real fans to dig deep to save the day.

Far better the trickle effect. It’s not much and I’m sure MC wishes it were more, but every pound is real and most new fans are in it for the long haul.

Do the math as to which is better, I know which one adds up better to me.

I'm with you on this, in fact I like the idea of extra costs on top of the basic tickets in return for extra benefits. The membership with the freebee polo shirt is one I take up every year. Don't know how it could be expanded though?

Dreadnought you’re out of your depth here this isn’t paperclips and staples (consumables) it’s a totally different product, it’s in essence a service, you do not end up with something physical you can hold or use. A whole different sales philosophy from discounting and bog offs needs to be used, building the value and benefit (sponsorship and advertising are a couple of these)
Also just going back to the HKR 12 month plan being cheaper, unfortunately it doesn’t give you the chance of winning £13,000 plus numerous other weekly prizes (USP’s

) don’t come back with the same old responses, the club is doing loads, I’ve already stated this and am privileged to know what some of those things are and their direct results. All your posts seem to belittle the club and your responses to people’s criticisms of your responses shows a total dismissive viewpoint, which in sales is a big no no, I always say “two ears for listening and one mouth for talking” so in sales you should listen twice as much as talk and then take that away with you to improve


You seem to be the only person on here with your views, are you suggesting the rest of us are wrong?