Pricing in Football 6: Food, Drink & Programme Pricing

In our series so far, we have looked exclusively at ticket pricing from many different angles whether you be a season ticket holder, an on the day matchday ticket buyer or an away fan. There is of course more to pricing in football than just the ticket price though and this article will look at the food and drinks aspect along with programmes whilst the next article shall tackle merchandise. That will then conclude the matchday pricing aspect before we finally look into broadcast rights and prices to the end consumer to conclude our series.  

Complimentary food and drink sales are often at extremely high margins but don’t always leave the consumer satisfied with more than a few negative reviews regarding certain football grounds offerings. A big part of the revenue model in years past the significance of these sales for a football club has lessened in recent years but for the fan they still make up a crucial part of the overall matchday cost.

The traditional food that accompanies football matches in England and Scotland is a meat pie. This is the staple diet of the average football fan at the ground itself and has been for many decades. It is therefore a great measure when investigating pricing and specific price points so let’s look at some pie specific pricing data!

Statistics for the 2019/2020 season in the Premier League show that Liverpool had the cheapest pie on offer in the stadium at a price of ￡2.90 and Chelsea had the most expensive at ￡4.50. Not surprising that a London club had the highest price but a little surprising that the range is so large at ￡1.60 difference between the two extremes. The average price of a pie in a Premier League stadium for the 2019/2020 season was ￡3.65. Comparing this to the 2017/2018 season highlights some interesting developments. Firstly, back then Chelsea had the cheapest pie at ￡2.50 so in just a couple of seasons their price has gone up ￡2.00 or 80%! The highest priced pie back in 2017/2018 was ￡4.30 from Tottenham Hotspur who at the time were playing out of Wembley stadium. The average price of a pie in a Premier League stadium back in the 2017/2018 season was remarkably ￡3.65. Pricing has therefore remained quite flat even if individual clubs have dramatically changed their pricing approach.

Statistics for the 2019/2020 season in the Scottish Premiership show far lower prices than south of the border. The cheapest pie on offer is just ￡1.50 at Hamilton and the highest price is ￡2.80 at Rangers giving a lower range and lower price points at both extremes than the Premier League. With an average price for a pie in a ground of just ￡2.39 the average price is ￡1.26 lower than the Premier League. With significantly cheaper season tickets as well the Scottish fan certainly gets the better deal. The real interesting thing to pull out of all this pie related data however is that in England a fan is willing to pay the average price of ￡3.65 and in Scotland they are willing to pay the average price of ￡2.39. Both of these price points of course are significantly higher than purchasing the product in a differing setting, but the product still sells.

The simple reason for why pies in football grounds sell at these far higher price points is a pricing concept known as “context pricing”. Context pricing involves understanding the situation in which a purchase is being made and then pricing accordingly. For example, a coffee from a roadside van is likely to be cheaper than a coffee from Starbucks and yet the quality could in fact be similar. The key here is “context”, in the roadside example the buyer is not benefiting from an aesthetically pleasing environment so is unwilling to pay a high price point. In the Starbucks example the surroundings are likely to encourage the buyer to be more willing to part with more money for the same product.

Relating context pricing back to our football example we can see that a fan is likely to be in the ground for nearly two hours and has no other purchasing options. This along with the fact that a fan is often looking for convenience, when it comes to making a food or drink purchase, means that football clubs can set significantly higher price points that the market average due to the context in which they are pricing the product.

Context pricing is also the reason why in the 2019/2020 Scottish Premiership season the average price of a cup of tea was over ￡2.00. Motherwell and Rangers pitching in at ￡2.50, a simply ludicrous price if it wasn’t for the context in which that pricing point was pitched. For a football fan this does however beg the question that if they are being priced out of the game at a ticketing level are, they also now being priced out of the game if they can get inside the stadium. Certainly, these prices suggest the price of a full matchday experience is only heading in one direction and for a lot of fans this will be an unsustainable future.

Another complimentary purchase to examine for now is the price of a programme. The reason for using “for now” is the latest study of 2019/2020 Scottish Premiership pricing showed that two clubs out of the twelve members do not offer a physical programme anymore. Livingston offer an online alternative which is slowly becoming the norm. The programme used to be a matchday essential, but statistics suggest sales are falling and as such many clubs are moving away from producing one. As something of a purist this is a worrying development with an online alternative surely not an alternative at all. Of the clubs who still offered a programme the average price was ￡3.00 with very little price variation. The price point for a programme does appear far more fixed than the price point for a pie but whereas the pie is likely to be a staple of the game for many decades to come the programme sadly may not.

Complimentary sales, such as food and drink along with the matchday programme, used to be a significant income stream for many big clubs. With broadcast rights now achieving unbelievable amounts of revenue there is the argument that these prices could be dropped. By reducing these prices in stadiums up and down the country, the matchday experience for many fans would be significantly improved without harming the overall revenue structures of the UKs biggest clubs. With a post Covid-19 world looking like one where everyone will have less disposable income, pricing strategies like this may just ensure that football remains a game of the people.

James Hawkes BSc, MSc  

BBC (2017), Price of Football: Full results 2017, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41482931

BBC (2019), Cost of the Game 2019/20: Full results, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49568957

Statista (2020), Teams of the Premier League ranked by the price of a pie in 2019/20 https://www.statista.com/statistics/328659/premier-league-teams-ranked-by-pie-price/