by Clyde1998 »
10 Sep 2025 05:55
Linden Jones' Tash Clyde1998 Sutekh Thinking perhaps there’s other ways of doing this sort of thing. Norwich, for example, get their casual fans to pay £25 to annually register for home and/or away “clubs” which entitles fans in each club to buy tickets for home/away games based on how regularly that fan has attended home/away games previously.
Could be a good way to get revenue into the club at some point in the future. The old membership one-time fee basically killed off any regular income for the club through this manner. We seem to get at least 3,000 non-season ticket home fans per Saturday match. I don't know how many unique visitors we get each season, but say 20,000 people pay a £10 annual membership fee - that's an additional £200,000 for the club.
However, would you negatively impact on the number of people buying tickets? Tickets are already £25-27 for an adult, which is arguably too high to get people into the ground on a semi-regular basis already when compared to the capacity of the stadium. If you're only going to couple games a season, effectively adding £5 to the ticket price per person is probably going to deter folk.
I think we're in a stage where we need to maximise attendances: get more people going to games regularly; get new supporters. The secondary income (food, drink, merchandising) may well compensate for the lack of a membership fee over the course of the season. The long term impact will help the club in future seasons.
What could work is a membership scheme that's not directly tied to buying tickets, although it could still provide priority to tickets (a step down from season ticket holders). Perhaps a monthly subscription of £5 which provides discounts on tickets/merchandising; access to certain club events; entry into prize draws. This would be something existing season ticket holders may be interested in - increasing the potential pool of people paying the membership fee and providing revenue beyond what a simple membership fee for tickets would achieve.
Interesting what happens in other places - Marseille in Ligue 1 had an 'global online community' that you could join for a small annual fee (€5) - this gave 10% off merch, some priority to tickets & video/digital content & exclusive invites to events & activities
This was evolved into a €25 annual fee for pretty much the same...
Now it has evolved again and there are different tiers - standard for €25 & premium €59 - similar sort of benefits, just different levels of early access etc.
Apparently there were 90,000 members at €25 a year - €2,250,000 additional revenue.
If that is the model that is going to be followed - tiered membership with exclusive digital content & activities etc, it will be interesting how they price and tier it for a club like Reading FC
Plymouth have
Evergreen Membership under various categories.
The premium package for £18 per month (£216 over twelve months) valued by the club at £210.50:
- 15% Season Ticket Discount
- Free Argyle Women Season Ticket*
- 10% Argyle Superstore Discount
- 15% Argyle TV Discount (Annual Subscription)
- First Team Shirt**
- 10% Harpers Football Centre Discount
- Evergreen Souvenir Pack
- Evergreen Membership Card
- Level 2 Ticketing Priority
- Exclusive Events & Prize Draws
- Digital Christmas / Birthday Card
The international package for £18 per month (£216 over twelve months) valued by the club at £188:
- Free Homecoming Ticket
- Free Argyle Women Season Ticket
- 10% Argyle Superstore Discount
- 20% Argyle TV Discount (Annual Subscription)
- First Team Shirt*
- 10% Harpers Football Centre Discount
- Evergreen Souvenir Pack
- Evergreen Membership Card
- Level 2 Ticketing Priority
- Exclusive Events & Prize Draws
- Digital Christmas / Birthday Card
The standard package for £12 per month (£144 over twelve months) valued by the club at £126.25:
- 10% Season Ticket Discount
- 5% Argyle Superstore Discount
- 10% Argyle TV Discount (Annual Subscription)
- 5% Harpers Football Centre Discount
- Evergreen Souvenir Pack
- Evergreen Membership Card
- Level 3 Ticketing Priority
- Exclusive Events & Prize Draws
- Digital Christmas / Birthday Card
The international digital package for £12 per month (£144 over twelve months) valued by the club at £89.75:
- Free Homecoming Ticket
- 5% Argyle Superstore Discount
- 25% Argyle TV Discount (Annual Subscription)
- 5% Harpers Football Centre Discount
- Evergreen Membership Card
- Level 3 Ticketing Priority
- Exclusive Events & Prize Draws
- Digital Christmas / Birthday Card
There's also under 18; under 14 and under 8 membership levels for £9 / £6 / £0 per month (£108 / £72 / £0 over twelve months) valued by the club at £91.25 / £99.25 / £37.25 providing:
- 20% Season Ticket Discount / 40% Season Ticket Discount / Two Free Match Day Tickets (for each age group)
- 5% Argyle Superstore Discount
- 5% Harpers Football Centre Discount
- Evergreen Souvenir Pack
- Evergreen Membership Card
- Level 2 Ticketing Priority
- Exclusive Events & Prize Draws
- Digital Christmas / Birthday Card
Funds from this membership scheme are divided between Argyle Past; Present and Future schemes. Argyle Past provides direct funding into pastoral care for Forever Green, the Plymouth former players' membership; Argyle Present provides funding for the men and women first team operations; Argyle Future backs their academy. The member can choose the allocation of their membership fee, defaulting to a 1:1:1 ratio.
In March 2024, there were
6,187 members (including 134 international and 1,641 junior) - so a minimum income of £654,624.
A scheme like that at Reading would be amazing, although the pricing and benefits would have to be tailored to Reading.
In the lower leagues, I've noticed Thatcham Town has a membership scheme (£14 annually):
- Discount at the bar
- AGM vote
- Discount on social nights
- Discount on admission to home league matches
- Discount on venue hire
I'm actually tempted by that - may encourage me to go to a few Thatcham games this season.