Newcastle United season ticket holders – Now set to be next to face shock financial reality | OneFootball

Newcastle United season ticket holders have loved it.

Those lucky enough to have season tickets when the takeover happened on 7 October 2021, enjoying a massive upgrade in terms of the football on the pitch.

Those supporters who weren’t Newcastle United season ticket holders, for whatever reason, at that point, finding themselves restricted to buying tickets match by match.

Basically, the biggest game of musical chairs ever seen on Tyneside, when the music stopped Newcastle United fans were either in or out. Give or take the token 1,000 or so season tickets that were made available in summer 2022 by the club and instantly snapped up by the lucky few.

Speaking of lucky few…

The vast majority of the existing Newcastle United season ticket holders have been even luckier than most outsiders will be aware of.

These were the 2023/24 NUFC season ticket prices announced by the club back in June:

However… as things currently stand, the vast majority of the existing Newcastle United season ticket holders are actually paying far less than these prices.

Mike Ashley bought fans off by giving them long-term season ticket deals where basically they had prices frozen, all they had to do was each January / February, commit to the following season that wouldn’t kick off for another six or seven months.

Monthly payments starting during that previous season, meaning tens of thousands of fans had committed to and already paid a number of monthly instalments getting on for hundreds of pounds, before they even knew what division the team would be playing in that next season.

The Mike Ashley message was ‘Look, you all know I am taking the mick, I am not going to run the club with any ambition, the football will be rubbish, I am going to employ clowns such as McClaren, JFK and Bruce to manage the team, I will only allow minimal spending on players, we’ll be lucky not to get relegated, but if you agree to keep on sitting next to my S….. D…. adverts I will charge you cheap as chips prices for your season tickets, which actually will get cheaper every extra year you stay loyal to me, as paying the same price no matter inflation or what new season ticket holders would have to pay. Plus, you just know you will probably renew anyway year after year no matter how badly I treat the fanbase and club, so you might as well be getting into matches on the cheap.’

So basically, Mike Ashley doing this, to try and hard as possible to protect himself against mass boycotts by Newcastle United season ticket holders.

Give fans such a cheap deal, they then start paying monthly instalments half a year before that next season will kick off, which means they are trapped, no matter what Ashley does. Facing losing hundreds of pounds they have already paid, if they then at some point say no more, when it came to giving the FCB their money.

If you look at those 2023/24 season ticket prices above, probably around two thirds of the 30,000 or so season ticket holders are paying hundreds of pounds less than those prices.

Most of those are in the Leazes and Gallowgate Ends where the £692 adult price generally applies.

I have mates in the Leazes End that are still on the Mike Ashley long-term cheap / freeze deal, they are only paying £467 for this new season. So they are paying out £225 less than those sitting around them who aren’t on the long-term Ashley arrangement, a saving of a third / 33%.

My Leazes End mates and around 20,000 others are living the absolute dream, watching great football from a committed team, playing under a class manager AND paying bargain basement prices.

As they say though, all good things eventually come to an end.

Earlier today, the club announced ticket prices for the Villa game match by match tickets and how the membership ballot was going to work this season for each Premier League game.

Members will pay somewhere between £44 and £74 for adult tickets for this Villa match, which presumably will see even higher prices when playing the likes of Man U and Liverpool. NUFC also revealing that when you enter the ballot you don’t have any say in what level(s) of ticket prices you are trying for. You just give your bank / card details and if you are lucky in the ballot, you are randomly allocated tickets, which could be any of the price levels, with that money drawn from your payment details.

I presume £44 applies to Leazes / Gallowgate tickets (no idea what is happening with the family enclosure) and so over a full 19 game season, that would be a total of £836, 19 x £44 (Of course, maybe £44 is the family enclosure price for one-off tickets and the Leazes price, who knows???). That compares to £692 which is the full price of an adult Leazes season ticket, or as low as £467 if you are still on a Mike Ashley deal.

So this morning, I reckon a lot of Newcastle United season ticket holders were feeling a little smug, or at least relieved, at the position they are in.

However, I think that tens of thousands of Newcastle United season ticket holders will now set to be next to face some shock financial reality. My understanding is that the Ashley cheap deals will end after this 2023/24 season for the vast majority of Newcastle United season ticket holders who are on them, it may even indeed be all who are on the long-term deals.

Anyway, a bit like all those on a fixed rate mortgage that was sorted a while ago and is now coming to an end, a very nasty surprise is set to be in store, especially for those Newcastle United season ticket holders still paying Mike Ashley level cheap deal money for the new high quality football.

For the 2024/25 season, up to 20,000 fans appear set to be paying hundreds of pounds more than they are doing at the moment for season tickets. I think as well it will be a double whammy, for example, the £692 price for Leazes / Gallowgate end season tickets will surely go a decent way beyond £700 and so if you are still paying £467 Ashly price, probably looking £250+ extra. For those say in the East Stand where £852 is full price for this 2023/24 season, if you are still on an Ashley deal then your price will surely go up even more than those behind the goals, when these 2024/25 season ticket details / prices are made public next summer.

When it comes to ticket prices and what is fair? For so many Newcastle fans it appears to be a case of whether it personally affects them or not.

Newcastle United was a total joke under Mike Ashley and sadly, his divide and rule tactics have continued to impact to an extent, putting fan against fan, cheap deal ST holders v paying full price ST holders, members v ST holders and so on.

The new owners inherited a shedload of problems / issues from the former owner to sort, on and off the pitch, which included a match ticket pricing policy to sort out. Just yet another thing on the list, which also included FUN88 paying a pittance on a long-term deal for shirt sponsorship.

FUN88 were sorted / compensated and now Newcastle United banking around four times as much for shirt sponsorship from Sela.

What the new / current Newcastle United owners do with ticket pricing for season tickets and match by match tickets is something that all fans will have a view on, at least those who intend to go to matches.