Laurie Dalrymple: Wolves ticket prices a balancing act

Costs have risen with the club in the Premier League next year.

Season tickets behind the goals have gone up 30 per cent, while under-17 prices have trebled from £50 to £150.

Dalrymple, told the Express & Star there was a balance to be struck between generating income and keeping fans happy.

“There’s been significant investment made into the club in the last two years,” he said. “It would be an unfair criticism to suggest the investment potential isn’t there and won’t continue to be there.

“Equally, I’d point out that our ownership model is somewhat different to other clubs.

“I need to report back to a board that says if I’m going to come to you for £100m or £150m for stadium redevelopment, the immediate question that comes back is ‘are you maximising your revenue streams?’.

“There has to be give and take between the fan expectation and managing realistically up the line to an executive board.

“If I was sitting there as a fan – and I’ve made this point all season that I’m not undermining for one second the level of commitment both financially and in terms of time – I’d be thinking I’m prepared to make a fair and appropriate investment into my ticket prices.

“If the last 12 months is to be continued, I think it’s extremely fair, but equally I’d be wanting an owner to make a strong commitment into taking the club forward.”

Dalarymple didn’t agree that costs should be kept down because there are fewer home games to watch in the Premier League (19) than the Championship (23).

“In terms of the Premier League versus EFL argument, there are fewer games, but we’ll be having Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United – that’s the level of opposition,” he added. “My personal view is I don’t think that’s a consistent argument in terms of the value of a ticket price.”

Some fans may be priced out by the hike in costs. Dalrymple said that Wolves’ prices compared favourably with both other Premier League clubs and other leisure activities.

“I appreciate it’s difficult,” he said. “I appreciate that for some people it can be seen as a significant investment.

“I think there are a couple of things – when we do our due diligence we looked at what was charged (when Wolves were last in the Premier League) six or seven years ago but also we’ve balanced against what it costs if you’re going to go to the cinema, or going to go on holiday or go out for a meal.

“If you overlay the cost of having a season ticket at Wolves and how does it compare, I think it compares extremely favourably.

“I’m a dad, I’ve got three kids, if we go to the cinema I’m not going to get any change particularly out of £70.

“To some degree, the value we place on coming into Molineux to watch football is highly comparable.”

Wolves have also made three other price changes, namely allowing fans to sell their season ticket for a match and get merchandise cash in return, while the club phoneline will now be charged at local levels and admin fees have been reduced.

Dalrymple added: “The other important point to make it, not only have we assessed the value of ticketing, but we’ve taken a complete overview of the other peripheral costs and benefits around being a season ticket holder.

“We’ve listened on those.

“There have been a few wishes from a fan perspective, one being that from the start of next season if you can’t physically make a game, you can resell your ticket and have a direct benefit back to the season ticket holder in the form of club cash.

“The phoneline, that I knows everyone has understandably have a bugbear about, from June 1 that’s gone and we’re reverting back to an 01902 number.

“We’ve also reviewed the admin fee. If you’re buying a collective of four or five tickets there’ll be a £1.50 admin fee for first ticket and a far more fair and appropriate admin fee applied to the other tickets.

“I wouldn’t take the cost of the ticket in isolation, I’d look at the wider picture.”