Can UK Soccer Hooligans Stop Runaway Ticket Prices?

While sports fans might act like they’re more invested in the ups and downs of their teams than they actually are, a large enough group of them can exert serious pressure in surprising ways. Many a player has been ousted from many a city when a bad attitude or scandalous rumor turned public opinion against them, proving that the voice of the fan isn’t completely lost even in a 70,000-seat stadium.

But what about the voice of the consumer in the face of escalating ticket prices? If the U.K.’s Premier League is any indication, fans have a fighting chance.

While there will always be fans grumbling about ticket prices in any sport, the issue came to a head in the Premier League in early February after Liverpool FC announced new ticket prices for the 2016–17 season that would see the most expensive category rise to £77 ($110) from £56 ($80). In addition to selectively higher-price matches against top opponents, this proved too much for Liverpool’s diehard supporters, who organized a protest for the club’s next home game four days later on Feb. 6. Fan blog This Is Anfield, which takes its name from Liverpool’s home pitch and the site of the demonstration, documented the process of about 10,000 fans walking out of their seats and the stadium at the 77th minute of the match.

Obviously, the protest was more symbolic than anything — fans had to give Liverpool their money just to walk out anyway. However, it was enough to rattle some cages around the Premier League’s offices. The Guardian published an open letter from Liverpool (and Boston Red Sox) owner John Henry detailing the club’s change of heart. In addition to backing off the £77 price point and guaranteeing that they wouldn’t increase next season, too, Henry pledged that “the pricing of tickets will be readjusted to result in zero revenue growth from [general admission] ticketing on a like-for-like basis.”

The issue of revenue growth off the backs of ticketed fans may be the true issue underneath all the vitriol from fans. ESPN FC noted that the Premier League recently signed a TV deal that saw roughly £5.5 billion ($8 billion) flow into the coffers of league executives and owners. Most fans can separate the dual nature of sport as entertainment and sport as business, but when fans make the phrase “Share the Wealth!” a central part of their chants in the stands and posts online, it’s safe to say that the scales have tipped too far in one direction.

To their credit, European football fans are seeing results from their vocal opposition to what they see as pure profit-chasing ticket prices. In addition to staring Henry and Liverpool down, all 30 teams also agreed to limit ticket prices for away fans — a fixture “that distinguishes Barclays Premier League matches from those of other leagues” — to just £30 ($43) for at least the next three seasons.

For European soccer fans, this is all great news. Across the pond, though, it might just be salt in a very expensive wound.

World Soccer Talk compared the price of average season tickets in both the Premier League and the stateside National Football League, and the results weren’t even close. Depending on the seat, the well-to-do English soccer fan pays between $27 and $73 per game for his or her season tickets. However, with 11 or 12 fewer homes games per year for NFL season ticket holders and higher prices overall, these fans pay between $46 and $266 for the privilege of watching a single game. Over the course of a season, that’s a maximum of $2,128 for a single fan to attend seven or eight games — excluding playoff games, merchandise and massively inflated concessions.

Why American football fans aren’t already rioting in the streets over this price disparity is impossible to tell. It could be that NFL teams are truly putting a $266 product on the field every game — or, at least, that’s what U.S. fans think they should see. It could also be a matter of selection bias, with wealthy fans buying tickets at any price and the less fortunate settling with their TVs at home; indeed, Sports Business Daily reported that stadium attendance declined by about 0.5 percent in the 2015 season, with some underperforming teams seeing year-to-year dips of up to 8 and 9 percent.

What’s for certain, though, is that NFL teams aren’t making it easy on fans to get a clear picture of what they’re buying. World Soccer Talk explained that, unlike the publicly available pricing structures they were able to easily check on most Premier League club sites, NFL teams force would-be customers to call or submit applications before they can see the nitty-gritty details.

Whether or not NFL games are worth this much isn’t the question — true value, of course, is a matter of perception. No, the real fight won’t start until more American fans understand that, though they love their teams with all their hearts, maybe it doesn’t have to come at the expense of so much of their wallets.