Are you a Newcastle United Season Ticket holder? Better check your renewal email wording! | OneFootball

My Newcastle United season ticket renewed itself this week.

I know this can be a contentious statement in these times of Newcastle United members struggling for tickets and the uber capitalism of modern football sending prices skyrocketing.

For what it’s worth, I believe the 5% rise across the board to be totally unnecessary.

Given the absolute pittance it will bring in (as the club hides behind the dreaded PSR as a reason), it will add nothing to the growth of the club when compared with the constantly expanding excess of corporate seats, the enormous sums of TV money and the sponsorship deals that still seem under-exploited at Newcastle United.

Putting the squeeze on the everyday fan gains little financially, compared to the goodwill that could be built by throwing a bone to the people who they constantly use in materials promoting the club.

Making noise, waving flags, offering passionate support at all times – I wonder how that would fly if they were replaced wholesale by consumers who are there to spend, spectate and expect?

Anyway, this isn’t just a Newcastle thing, with worse happening at the likes of Man Utd and Spurs, if not the wider western world.

My own personal increase was more than fair. After a decade and a half on the Mike Ashley deals, me and my mates had benefited hugely from cut-price top flight football, so an increase of just under £25 a month is fair game, even in spite of United squeezing that unnecessary extra bit.

I understand what the going rate of modern life is and I suppose that amounts to a couple of trips to Costa.

So, I accepted the Newcastle United season ticket renewal email with a shrug and no small relief that I didn’t have to go prattling around in the erratic online box office system to maintain my payments.

This was confirmed by a paragraph in my Newcastle United renewal email confirming auto renewal, with the following caveat:

“If you do not wish to renew your season ticket, please contact the box office before 5pm on Friday 21st March”

I very much doubt there will be many takers for this.

There’s even an offer in there to move down a pay grade to a less expensive level 7 ticket for anyone struggling with the increase, but I suspect even if it was beyond any Newcastle United season ticket holder, they would have friends more than willing to step in as an unofficial proxy for the foreseeable future. So, a fairly unnecessary paragraph that.

A couple of days later though, it occurred to me that I had another Newcastle United season ticket to think about.

In 2021, with Mike Ashley taking the Premier League to court over the blocking of a sale, I suspected change was afoot at the club, so I jumped in and bought the vacant seat next to me for my son. He is now 10 and benefitting from getting in before the ladder was pulled up, but usually I don’t think about this until the summer.

Unlike me, his is still an annual renewal, where I just pay the full amount in a lump sum in the mid-season break.

On a whim, I checked his email that the ticket is registered to.

Lo and behold, there was the same email from NUFC.

It also included the same unnecessary paragraph about if you are a Newcastle United season ticket holder not wanting to renew. Or so I thought, as on closer inspection that read:

I have to say, I got a bit of a shiver here.

The thought that I almost didn’t check this on the assumption this was a summer renewal was horrifying, as the prospect of telling my little lad he didn’t have a ticket any more would be heartbreaking, before even getting into the fact of having to sit next to a different person every game in his seat.

It’s clear enough in the body of the email, the Newcastle United season ticket renewal period opens on Monday 10th March and has a mere 11 day cycle before it slams shut.

I felt duty bound to write this piece should anyone else be unaware that one or more of the tickets they are responsible for is in this exact situation.

If you are hoping that non-renewals will lead to Newcastle United season ticket opportunities, I think it’s best you think twice. Even if the club recoups a few hundred tickets in this way they will certainly be added to the general sale pot, where they can be sold at a more lucrative match by match price to an audience that may be more likely to spend money on merchandise and refreshments. This is arguably fairer in a way as more people get to see the team play, but those going through the members ballot process every match might not agree.

As it is, I’ll be straight in at 10am on Monday to retain my lad’s place in SJP. I just hope it’s an opportunity that remains viable for him, and open to others, in the long-term, as it seems you need to be right on the ball to keep up with the ticketing manoeuvres at NUFC. Check those emails folks.