Professor Rob Wilson, Director of Executive Education at University Campus of Football Business is one of the leading experts in sports finance. With a PhD exploring the factors that drive financial performance in professional team sports, Dr. Wilson has become a go-to voice in understanding the complex intersection of money in sport.
Speaking exclusively to BoyleSports, Wilson has spoken candidly about ticket issues at the FIFA Club World Cup and whether star attractions like Messi and Premier League sides can attract crowds.
Club World Cup Banking On Messi
I think what we need to think about here more than anything is who the Club World Cup is aimed at. I think it's aimed at broadcasters, the commercial partners, the sponsors and then the local market fans. So in this instance, US fans.
The challenge for the Club World Cup organizers is whether American fans are passionate enough to go to the Club World Cup to watch teams that are participating from other parts of the world? They are passionate, but they will be highly selective. So Inter Miami will get some good traction, and I think the UK clubs might get quite interesting.
What we also need to remember is that in the US club loyalty doesn't perhaps run as deeply as it does in Europe or South America for instance. I think the ticket prices are going to be a huge factor in the numbers of people that actually attend.
If the event is pitched as a global entertainment product rather than a meaningful football competition, I think what we'll see is stadiums being filled to watch Lionel Messi first and foremost.
Empty Seas A Critical Problem
If we're totally honest, it's an enormous ask to expect those local market fans to be travelling great distances across the United States. For an average match-going fan, you've got to weigh up the costs of flights, accommodation, shopping, eating out, taking time off work – and making sure your group of mates are also doing all those things.
So, I think it's quite unrealistic to expect those local market bands to be travelling too much. It's aimed at those kinds of corporate partners rather than local football audiences.
So from a traditional fan engagement perspective, it's just not viable in that format. It's about the commercial broadcast model, the local fans going into watch teams and making sure that the equation around ticket pricing is really really kind of critical.
There'll be loads of unsold seats though and I think that's going to be a critical problem for the organizers around ticket pricing.
Ticket Prices Slashed
I think there will be further reductions in ticket pricing. What we need to remember is there's always going to be a flaw and that flaw is determined by the operational costs and the brand positioning for the tournament.
FIFA needs to avoid the optics of empty seats because of the nature of the Club World Cup and how hard they've worked to kind of expand it.
I think we could still see prices drop a little bit further, perhaps sort of into what $10 to $15 bracket in some of the markets for some of the games and the challenge then is the organizer devaluing the product through those fire sales to make sure that the tickets are full.
Anybody can give away free tickets for instance to try and kind of increase community engagement, but actually that's not necessarily the best methodology.
What we also know about free tickets is very often they remain empty, so I think we'll see it drop lower, and they'll certainly be trying to make sure that at least those parts of the stadium that are clearly visible on the television are as full as possible.
Premier League Still Sells
They've got a level of attraction because of how hard the Premier League have worked over the last kind of 10-20 years really. And then those individual clubs of course have done North American tours. So you'll start to get a bounce.
If you think back to I think it was last summer the likes of the Manchester United or Arsenal tours in the United States, that will actually give Chelsea and Manchester City a bit of a bounce.
So don't expect to see the $10 to $15 tickets for their games, they might get down to around sort of $20 to $30 but you'll have that supply-demand set of economics that will be quite important, especially for some of those group games.
Perhaps it's not about exclusivity. This has to be about optics and filling stadia.
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