Explaining Man United’s ticket price rise – and how a much bigger increase was avoided

Manchester United’s match-going supporters knew this reckoning had been coming for much of the season. Since the club’s part-owners INEOS and British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe put their feet firmly under the table at Old Trafford, the focus across the club has been on cutting costs and driving up revenue.

By now, we have heard plenty from Ratcliffe about the dire straits of United’s finances; most notably his questionable claims over the past week that the club would have gone “bust” by Christmas without what he describes as a “transformation” in financial strategy.

This has included all manners of cuts; no more company credit cards, slashing multi-million pound ambassadorial payments to legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson and, most significantly, reducing the club’s headcount by up to 450 people. This is all part of an attempt, outlined by both Ratcliffe and his chief executive Omar Berrada, by the new leadership to make United the “most profitable club in the world”. In doing so, this will, in theory, create a surplus that can be reinvested into the club’s infrastructure, the men’s and women’s teams, as well as the academy, all while complying with the Premier League’s increasingly rigorous profit and sustainability rules (PSR).

The easiest way to increase revenue at a club the size of Manchester United is via success on the field and in the transfer market. By securing Champions League football, vast broadcast and competition revenues are raised. It would also be hugely beneficial if United traded players in a smart and sustainable way, which is why Ratcliffe has spoken repeatedly about the need to reimagine United’s approach to recruitment and data analysis.

For a long time, United’s player trading has widely been considered poor, squandering hundreds of millions of pounds on transfer fees and salaries for players Ratcliffe himself has described as underperforming and overpaid. United’s financial picture would also be better if they were not laying out millions in interest payments, which have now hit a cumulative £1billion ($1.3bn) since the Glazer family, who remain majority owners, first acquired the club in a controversial leveraged takeover in 2005.

The reconstruction of a squad, the rebuild of a recruitment model and a return to the Champions League, however, does not happen overnight, all of which leaves Ratcliffe needing to explore different avenues to inject cash into United.

For a long time under the Glazer ownership, United’s executive resisted the temptation to increase ticket revenues, even freezing prices for 11 years. This was partly due to concerns about provoking a fan backlash against an already unpopular regime, but also because United’s commercial might was such that United were always able to find another sponsor to bolster the club’s finances.

The club’s sponsorship team flew around the world to pursue and seal industry-leading deals, while a team of analysts sought to identify emerging sectors that might be ripe for future exploitation. Ratcliffe’s entire modus operandi appears to focus more acutely on increasing controllable margins, rather than overly massaging prospective and existing sponsors at costs he considers to be excessive. We can see this through his desire to improve recruitment, or control wages. For example, players who are currently on contracts at Old Trafford or signing for United this summer will discover a club keen to tie players to deals highly incentivised by performances and on lower salaries overall than had become the norm previously.

The fruits of this are for the medium term, however, and in the meantime, United are staring down the barrel of a second consecutive season outside of the Champions League. Their current 13th-place position in the Premier League threatens to leave them outside of European competitions altogether next season, though they are in the quarter-finals of the Europa League and winning that tournament does provide a route into the Champions League.

It is easy to imagine how United’s finances would be transformed if the performance of the men’s first team improved, a point that Ruben Amorim, the club’s head coach, has repeatedly acknowledged this season. Yet for now, others associated with the club appear to be bearing the brunt of the savings and revenue drive, with staff members culled and the news on Monday that ticket prices will be increased for fans.

United had already increased ticket prices by five per cent both at the end of last season and the end of the previous campaign. Despite this, The Athletic reported as far back as last June that United’s new ownership was seeking to increase ticket prices and, since then, the club have been working internally to calculate new pricing.

While Ratcliffe has been the driving force behind the conversations, little happens at Old Trafford, even under the current arrangements in which the Glazers appear to have outsourced the club’s sporting and business operations, without the blessing of the club’s majority owners. Indeed, it is worth remembering that ticket price increases were presented in sales decks to prospective investors as a way for the club to increase revenues when the Glazer family pitched during the strategic review process that culminated in Ratcliffe becoming a part-owner in early 2024.

That possibility was realised when the club announced on Monday that season-ticket prices at Old Trafford would increase by around five per cent, with club sources saying the business is now unable to absorb the rising costs of operating matchdays without transferring some further costs to fans. The announcement was made on the first day of an international break and almost three weeks before their next home game, meaning supporters will have to wait if they wish to protest.

The five per cent rise comes as part of a raft of changes, which will raise over £15m, according to sources familiar with the situation who wished to remain anonymous as they are not authorised to speak publicly on the matter. The club are also introducing a new model to categorise games for tickets sold to non-season ticket holders. This will mean games are ranked according to likely demand. It is expected that games against traditional Big Six rivals, for example, would be the most expensive, as well as the final day of the league season, while games against promoted teams may be among the least expensive.

This would be complicated, however, should Leeds United be promoted from the Championship, as the traditional rivalry between the two teams would likely see the game placed above the lowest category. The club are yet to state the prices they intend to charge for these games, partly because they are waiting to see which teams will be in the Premier League next season, but it may also be the case that United are waiting to see whether they will be competing in European competition before establishing the prices.

The Manchester United Supporters’ Trust (MUST) described the new categorisation model as “a major concern”, calling for a strict cap on “the number of games that will be placed in the higher-priced categories”.

The changes include a move to relocate fans who are seated behind the dugouts in order to sell these desirable vantage-point seats at premium prices and as hospitality packages. Chelsea have introduced a similar dugout experience, charging supporters as much as £12,500 for a ticket, although many are priced at around a quarter of that cost. United have not stated the pricing they intend to introduce for these seats. They argue that creating these enhanced ticket spaces helps to keep down season-ticket prices in general, while the club have also frozen the price of under-16 season tickets, which they argue shows their commitment to a new generation of fans.

In a statement on Monday evening, MUST also highlighted concerns that the new changes will include a 15 per cent rise in car parking charges, while there will also be a £10 charge for fans if tickets are sold back to the club less than two weeks before a game.

While some of these measures may appear punitive for supporters, they have been greeted, in some quarters at least, with a sigh of relief. That is because the starting point for discussions by Ratcliffe and his new team of executives set their targets significantly higher than five per cent season-ticket rises.

The Athletic has been told the club were initially aiming for a 20 per cent rise, but substantial lobbying and extensive consultation by the club’s Fans’ Advisory Board (FAB) — a small number of unpaid supporters who give up their time to argue in the interests of supporters — contributed to the club searching for different solutions which better protected season-ticket holders. This accounts for around 50,000 seats within Old Trafford’s 74,000-capacity stadium.

FAB was established in the aftermath of United’s secret and doomed plan to join a European Super League in 2021 and this exercise appears to have shown the significance of dialogue and engagement, even in a world where some sections of United’s support appear to favour a protest-first approach to their complaints. During this process, United’s fan representatives made their case directly to Ratcliffe, chief executive Omar Berrada and chief financial officer Roger Bell.

Yet direct action may not be without its impact. Ratcliffe, for example, appeared visibly stunned when he attended a game at Fulham’s Craven Cottage earlier this season to hear his name sung in disparaging and abusive terms by the club’s travelling support. Then, when he wound down the window to speak to a fan outside the stadium, Ratcliffe appeared to presume the supporter wanted a photograph, when in fact he was about to be admonished for a rise in ticket prices.

United first angered fans in November when they took the unusual step of altering their ticket strategy in the middle of the season. They also abandoned concessions, meaning ticket prices for unsold or returned tickets would then be £66 for the remainder of the campaign.

United’s leadership were shaken by the reaction and they have responded by reintroducing concessions to ticket sales for non-season-ticket holders, although these tickets will be subject to the match categorisation model. In all likelihood, many factors, including a record season of underperformance in the Premier League, have likely contributed to the overall prices not being quite as bad as some feared they might be.

United view the overall package as balanced. Other clubs, such as Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Liverpool, have frozen their season-ticket prices for next season, but Newcastle United and Brighton & Hove Albion have announced five per cent rises, while Arsenal’s tickets will rise between three and five per cent. Nottingham Forest, who are enjoying their best season for more than 30 years, are increasing their prices by an average of 8.5 per cent.

Berrada said: “We understand that any price rise is unwelcome, especially during a period of underperformance on the pitch, and we listened carefully to the strong arguments put forward by the FAB in favour of a freeze. However, the club has decided that it would not be right to keep prices unchanged while costs rise and the club continues to face financial issues.”

There are, however, questions that remain. When INEOS first embarked upon this process, did Ratcliffe pursue a game theory, whereby he intentionally cast his targets so high at the start that supporters were left relieved by the end at relatively modest changes? Or did he and his management team simply underestimate how controversial it would be to dramatically increase ticket prices at arguably the most scrutinised sports team in the world, leaving him backtracking when pushback landed from supporters?

Moreover, some fans may look at the revenue raised here, at over £15m, and wonder whether some of INEOS’ own errors — most notably the £10.6m spent to sack Erik ten Hag (after United first extended his contract) and the £4.1m episode which led to the departure of sporting director Dan Ashworth — and wonder whether United’s fans are being asked to carry the burden of the club’s poor performance and decision-making. The club’s statement also provided no guarantees that three years of five per cent increases will not be followed by further price increases in the coming seasons.

Others may also look at a club that appears to be making sacrifices in every direction; staff rendered redundant, their lunches taken away, their bonuses cut, or fans paying more for tickets and United’s players encountering more sensible wages. Every direction, that is, with the exception of the club’s majority owners the Glazer family, with the Americans having pocketed over $1.3bn from the club via share sales and dividend payments. For all Ratcliffe’s talk about cost-cutting, therefore, the Glazers will always remain the elephant in every room.

The MUST statement added: “We do note that the scale of the headline increase is less than many feared and we believe the enormous amounts of dialogue that fans’ groups have had with the club, alongside the public pressure exerted through the media and various protests, helped restrain the increase.

“We also need to work to understand the detailed impacts of the seat moves and terms and conditions changes being made. The devil is so often in the detail, and any changes of this kind should always be carried out with full consultation with those affected.”

(Top photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)