Should I go to the match?

[Kernow Yellow]

less information is available for free

That is simply not true. It's a million miles away from being true. Far, far more info about OUFC is available for free now than it was in 1994, both from the club and elsewhere. The club didn't even have a website in 1994! And if you were growing up in Oxfordshire now you'd still be able to listen to Radio Oxford commentaries. I really don't see where you're going with this at all.

[Atrebate]

less information is available for free

That is simply not true. It's a million miles away from being true. Far, far more info about OUFC is available for free now than it was in 1994, both from the club and elsewhere. The club didn't even have a website in 1994! And if you were growing up in Oxfordshire now you'd still be able to listen to Radio Oxford commentaries. I really don't see where you're going with this at all.

Match attendance is much more costly now and largely unaffordable for many adults, let alone teenagers, thanks to the commercialisation of football.

I wonder if the points being made are being lost here. Lets try a comparison with say 10 years ago. The club had a website and radio commentary for every match, both of which were free at the point of use in their entirety. Clubs like Oxford United and many others in the Football League and Premier League, are in my opinion risking loss of younger fans to replace those that pass away or simply stop attending for whatever reason for cash now. Clubs like Oxford need to continually access younger fans in ways that younger fans want to interact. Pricing them out of the market risks a bleak longer term future when the football bubble burst as it inevitably will do.

Therefore, rather than sign up to deals like ptv which bring in relatively few crumbs now, clubs need to be providing ongoing information for free via the website.

I'm also in the Yellow Player is too expensive camp. It might only be 10p per day, which is a fairly meaningless method of assessment btw, but some of the information on YP is available on other sources, and that which isn't becomes available for free a few days later, with the exception of a limited number of player and management interviews which tell us very little. The result of this is that the free information becomes available on the club website only when it is chip paper old, whereas to attract new supporters it needs to be free and up to date.

[Isaac]

A lot of this is arse about tit. Atrebate - In 2002/03 average attendance with all the free stuff was 5862, this season it's 5996.

People become fans by going to the games (atrebate I think you touch on this in your previous post, the rest of it doesn't make much sense to me).
Let's be clear - the commentary is still free for locals, exiles have to pay for it via yellow player. I can promise you that not once did a non-OUFC fan stumble across the BBC online commentary and then decide to travel to watch Oxford. It simply won't attract new fans.

Ticket prices however will do, but there is a whole other debate we should have about that.

[Atrebate]

A lot of this is arse about tit. Atrebate - In 2002/03 average attendance with all the free stuff was 5862, this season it's 5996.

People become fans by going to the games (atrebate I think you touch on this in your previous post, the rest of it doesn't make much sense to me).
Let's be clear - the commentary is still free for locals, exiles have to pay for it via yellow player. I can promise you that not once did a non-OUFC fan stumble across the BBC online commentary and then decide to travel to watch Oxford. It simply won't attract new fans.

Ticket prices however will do, but there is a whole other debate we should have about that.

I'm sorry if it doesn't make much sense to you Isaac, not much I can do about that. But trotting out odd stats here and there proves very little.

If you want to compare attendance as a means of defending your argument, you would have to consider also how attendances overall in the game have changed over the same period and see how OUFC have compared to that to determine relative success or failure compared to the norm. You would also have to think about how and why the attendances have changed and so identify if those reasons supported or deflated your argument. You would need to know if any change in attendances equated with a change in demographic of the supporter base e.g. from younger and working class fans to older more affluent fans. Plucking out single numbers proves nothing.

Then you would need to consider the point I actually made, which is that as people change over time with technology and how they interact with each other and the wider world and think about whether or not it was likely to be beneficial to the club and potential future supporters to withhold information which might make them attracted to the club, or once attracted then also remaining with the club.

Access to fairly ordinary information about the club has become premium rated and charged for. Ticket prices are rising out of the affordability of the ordinary classes who used to follow football. Whilst this continues, so diminishes the potential future supporter base. Yellow Player is just one of the elements contributing to that.

There was a time when commentary was free not just for locals, but for anyone with internet access. There was a time when access to the managers post match comments was available to the masses immediately, or at least as soon as technology allowed. There was a time when the first people to learn about the club was those who visited the club website. There was a time when brief highlights were available on the club website. Now that has all been taken away unless a commercial charge is paid, over and above the expensive tickets and expensive refreshments and expensive programmes and expensive replica kits. Supporters are being fleeced for very little in return.

As technology moves on, so must the club, continuing to provide the information to attract and retain supporters, otherwise, as I said earlier, the future is bleak.

[ty cobb]

As I started this whole debate I should come out in agreement with JT as there are clearly plenty on here who don't - all with good points.

However, the fact is that there are a number of fans out there who don't live in Oxford anymore. I am one of them. In order to get those fans to keep coming to games now and then you need to keep those fans interested. The fact that anyone would be willing to sit in front of their computer screen for a couple of hours on a Sat afternoon takes a bit of commitment, but the fact that those exiles have to pay for it twice (once through the licence fee and again through PTV) wheras those in Oxford only pay once is annoying and results in some fans not taking the service.

This then means those fans don't sit down and listen to Oxford United on a Sat afternoon, they get out the habit, it's not such a part of their lives anymore and it makes it less likely (IMHO) that they will come to more matches in the future.

The points about being more ways to keep in touch with Oxford are true but misses the point somewhat which is it is not fair to charge exiles for listening to commentary but have it free for those living in Oxford. This then makes it less likely for some exliles to come along to games in the future. The point about how much it is per day doesn't really apply as I would only use it to listen to the games so the cost is about £1.10/game, not much but £50/year would cover the cost of the ticket of attending about 3 games a season.

There is obviously a trade off for this in that the club gets an income from the service and if that covers 50 or so paying extra paying attendees every game it seems sensible that they take this option from a financial view.

However, the main reason most fans are not going is the sense of drift at the club, we are now a average league 2 club with a average league 2 budget. Given that we have crowds that are better than most the teams in the league above suggest there is something going very wrong and needs addressing before we can move forward.

[Isaac]

I'm sorry if it doesn't make much sense to you Isaac, not much I can do about that. But trotting out odd stats here and there proves very little.

to quote your earlier post

I wonder if the points being made are being lost here. Lets try a comparison with say 10 years ago. The club had a website and radio commentary for every match, both of which were free at the point of use in their entirety.

You made the comparison in the first place, not me, I put a number to it. Looking into demographic, social change and the relationship to attendances sounds like a pHd, which I'm not doing.

Then you would need to consider the point I actually made, which is that as people change over time with technology and how they interact with each other and the wider world and think about whether or not it was likely to be beneficial to the club and potential future supporters to withhold information which might make them attracted to the club, or once attracted then also remaining with the club.

Access to fairly ordinary information about the club has become premium rated and charged for. Ticket prices are rising out of the affordability of the ordinary classes who used to follow football. Whilst this continues, so diminishes the potential future supporter base. Yellow Player is just one of the elements contributing to that.

There was a time when commentary was free not just for locals, but for anyone with internet access. There was a time when access to the managers post match comments was available to the masses immediately, or at least as soon as technology allowed. There was a time when the first people to learn about the club was those who visited the club website. There was a time when brief highlights were available on the club website. Now that has all been taken away unless a commercial charge is paid, over and above the expensive tickets and expensive refreshments and expensive programmes and expensive replica kits. Supporters are being fleeced for very little in return.

As technology moves on, so must the club, continuing to provide the information to attract and retain supporters, otherwise, as I said earlier, the future is bleak.

If you can point me to any &quotordinary information&quot about the club that is premium rated and then explain why you think this would attract or retain supporters (and keep in mind the majority of Oxford current and potential supporters will live near Oxford). You can get fixtures, tickets, match reports, post/pre-match interviews via the official website, the oxford mail and the bbc. The bbc also has the goals/highlights from the most recent matches. All free. Plus there is twitter, facebook and email. All free. Where is this important premium rate information? What else should the club do? It is far, far easier than ever to keep up to date with the club, or find out when matches are on than it has ever been.

To clarify my thoughts on what makes people go to football matches

1. A successful team
2. Important games (see Orient in the relegation year or the conference play off games)
3. Ticket prices (to encourage people to relatively unimportant games, or to watch a average side).
97. Access to weekly online interviews with Mickey Lewis.


Things that have nothing to do with people going to football matches, but will influence what they spend on the club.
1. Expensive refreshments/programmes/replica kits (this has been the case for 20 years and overall footbal attendances are much higher now than then, so this probably isn't a factor).
2. Cost of yellow player (I can't see why anyone who is local to oxford would buy it, but then I don't buy replica kits either).

[Isaac]

However, the fact is that there are a number of fans out there who don't live in Oxford anymore. I am one of them. In order to get those fans to keep coming to games now and then you need to keep those fans interested. The fact that anyone would be willing to sit in front of their computer screen for a couple of hours on a Sat afternoon takes a bit of commitment, but the fact that those exiles have to pay for it twice (once through the licence fee and again through PTV) wheras those in Oxford only pay once is annoying and results in some fans not taking the service.

Minor point Ty, but I don't think you need a license for the radio. So you're paying once or not at all.
Another thing, I'm not sure the club should be overly concerned about exiles (and I am one). Given they probably go to a higher proportion of away games than local fans, they are likely to spend less directly on the club (but significantly more in total on transport etc) than even moderately committed local fan.

Personally, I'd suggest if you have something better to do on a saturday afternoon than sit swearing at an average league 2 side the radio, then it wouldn't matter if it was free to do so or not.
I bet you'd be there listening (or attending) if it was a playoff game or a relegation match though - I reckon yellow player subscriptions would be positively correlated to ticket sales.

[Hog]

Speaking as another Exile I think 10p a day is very reasonable and certainly much cheaper than the old days when you had to buy the Oxford Mail every day (or the Times on Friday if you didn't mind waiting!). And that was only if you were local - Exiles had no chance!

Incidentally, if you have YP you can also look at all the material provided by all the other clubs in the scheme if you feel inclined, including their commentaries and you can also listen to the 'opposition' commentators for OUFC games. Depends how much time you've got on your hands I suppose! I certainly wish I could have tuned into the Luton commentary when they were being thrashed at Gateshead the other day rather than watching us against Wycombe!

Am I right in thinking that Jack FM also do on-line match commentaries? I'm sure I've heard them in the past.

[slappy]

Yellow player and it's previous incarnations have had various pros and cons.
- match day commentary always seems very hit and miss as to whether it streams without crashing, and is way behind on the action compared to the radio.
- the player/manager/chairman interviews are quite informative, and even if parts are summarised into free 'news' a few days later, there are often little bits of hidden information. The last few months I've lost interest in these though as the play-off push petered out.
- the quality of match highlights is a bit poor I think. For some or all of the BSP years there were none, but the BBC showed them and people could get away with uploading onto youtube. Now the football league won't allow any form of upload, whether official or fan generated, and the BBC don't have them online anymore. Moreover the 'history' of match day clips has gone, when there used to be four or five seasons worth. I would also like to be able to pause/rewind a bit more easily too.
- what I am not sure about is the Football League App, which last time I renewed was £10 for a year. This used to include the videos, but not the commentaries, but now I think does have the commentaries.

[Atrebate]

You made the comparison in the first place, not me, I put a number to it. Looking into demographic, social change and the relationship to attendances sounds like a pHd, which I'm not doing.

No what you did was use a meaningless statistic in trying and failing to demonstrate your argument.

If you can point me to any &quotordinary information&quot about the club that is premium rated and then explain why you think this would attract or retain supporters (and keep in mind the majority of Oxford current and potential supporters will live near Oxford). You can get fixtures, tickets, match reports, post/pre-match interviews via the official website, the oxford mail and the bbc. The bbc also has the goals/highlights from the most recent matches. All free. Plus there is twitter, facebook and email. All free. Where is this important premium rate information? What else should the club do? It is far, far easier than ever to keep up to date with the club, or find out when matches are on than it has ever been.

May I ask if you have actually read my comments? They already contain the information you are asking to be repeated and I am sure no one wants to keep reading the same posts over and over again.

[amershamwrighty]

Quite possibly I am being a bit thick, but I'm wondering if I have lost sight of the main point(s) being made on this thread.

Is it suggested that providing YP for free - or at least live matchday commentary free - will help the club attract/retain new supporters ?

If so, I doubt it. But playing half decent football certainly will and does.

[Ancient Colin]

Agree with Amersham: while I am in the &quotwhy can't I listen to RadOx for free&quot camp, that's not remotely affecting my equivocation about attending: as it is a League-wide thing, I can hardly blame club/management/ownership for that. However, my match day experience, the &quotatmosphere&quot and what I see on the pitch certainly does. And it's a bit more systematic that &quotoh, just because we don't happen to have made the playoffs this year, fans are disillusioned&quot, it's a lot more cumulative and fundamental that that.