Ticket Sales Good — In England
June 15th, 2010
The vocal Glazer-hating contingent of Manchester United fans would love to have the world believe that every fan of their club hates Team Glazer and wants them to vacate their soccer mad country that can’t even find one decent goalie.
Well, it seems these blathering haters are all wrong.
The wildly popular Daily Mail tabloid in England is reporting today that season ticket renewals at Manchester United are brisk and enough for Team Glazer to claim victory against their detractors, who hoped that fans would stop buying tickets and subsequently force Team Glazer to sell the team.
Team Glazer must be clanking their bottles of Newcastle about now.
As for those Tampa blackouts, Joe is sure that only Team Glazer’s sheer love of Bucs fans would prevent them in the fall.
June 15th, 2010 at 8:00 am
Thats because British fans are much less fickle than Americans. People want to go see their club irrelevant of their performances (to a much greater degree). American fans vote with their wallets, British fans vote with their voices.
June 15th, 2010 at 8:11 am
Sure to start a firestorm
June 15th, 2010 at 8:46 am
Ridiculous to compare the 2 situations, its not about being fickle, its about economics. The Man U market dwarfs the Bucs’, and all though they have an organized movement in the UK they will not be able to get a large part of the fans not to buy tickets. There will always be someone out there as long as the team is good, and Man U is.
The Bucs have been in decline on the field and going through organizational changes for a while, and that combined with the recession has hurt the Bucs.
The bottom line is all you Man U fans need to realize the rules. When your team is good you can’t complain about how its run. Unless you find real proof of a financial issue with the team you can’t do anything and the Glazers won’t sell because you don’t have enough money! Keep using your voices, you’ll be hoarse soon enough.
June 15th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Joe,
Last week you published the BBC article and declared that there was only one primary source to the story, Green, and that he has ulterior motives and might not have released all info. Now, the Glazers come out and say everything is hunky dory with ManU’s ticket sales. Don’t you think they may have ulterior motives as well to report positive news, even though there is no way to confirm what they are saying?
June 15th, 2010 at 9:34 am
The bottom line is that Manu is still a damn good soccer team. They haven’t seen any decline on the field since the glazers bought the team. As a matter of fact they have probably improved since then.
June 15th, 2010 at 10:39 am
lightningbuc:
Two different animals. One, as you cited, is a release issued by the kickball team. No one is trying to paint it in any light other than that. In a short period of time, that statement will be proved accurate or inaccurate by attendance to the kickball games.
The BBC piece was supposed to be an investigative piece by an alleged respected news gathering organization which allegedly strives for objectivity. It would be no different than writing an expose on Obama with the lone source being Sean Hannity.
Nah, Hannity wouldn’t have any agenda to push in a story about Obama!
June 15th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
lighningbug — there is no way to confirm what they are saying except history and circumstances. ManU has led the Premier League in attendance, by a wide margin, for years and years. That is no guarantee of continued success, but do you think that Green Bay Packer fans or Pittsburgh Steeler fans would stop going to their games based on a concern over the team’s finances? Seems unlikley, doesn’t it? ManU fans are Packer/Steeler fans PLUS about a hundred or more years. Truly part of the culture. In fact, that’s the actual reason that all of this ManU stuff is out there. Less to do with debt levels than ticket prices. Nonetheless, seems likely that they continue to sellout.
June 15th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Who cares about the British kickball team?
Anyone? Going once, going twice
noticed Hooters was trying to show Soccer in their restaurants this weekend. (yawn) didn’t seem to be a big turn out for that!
June 15th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Capt. Tim — soccer is not for everyone and is still small over here, but it is growing:
“ESPN announced Monday, that its coverage of the 2010 World Cup, has drawn between 75 and 80-percent higher ratings than comparable coverage during the 2006 World Cup.
No doubt the buzz for the World Cup is at an all-time high in the United States.
Through eight matches, ESPN and ABC are averaging 3,000,000 households and 4,247,000 viewers, versus the first eight games of the 2006 World Cup (1,718,000 households and 2,363,000 viewers in ’06).
Saturday’s long-awaited match between the U.S. and England drew 12.9 million viewers and was the most watched U.S. Men’s National team game since 1994.”
Only talked about here because of the ManU connection obviously.
June 15th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Yawn, don’t care.
June 15th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Capt. Tim — people don’t change their minds about soccer. I think you have to play it to appreciate it. But, nearly as many people watched the US-England match as watched Game 5 of the NBA Finals. So, not everyone is as bored as you. 🙂
June 15th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
That’s(yawn) very exciting ,I’m sure.
But soccer is gay, and I still don’t care
June 16th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Strange how no figures were quoted in that Daily Mail piece….and that Andy Mitten, a very impartial source connected to the club, is saying the opposite in the article below.
http://menmedia.co.uk/sport/football/manchester_united/s/1243148_andy_mitten_reds_face_battle_for_fans
But don’t let this get in the way of your Team Glazer wankfest.