Portsmouth's promise to Fratton faithful after 'important' Championship season-ticket stance

Continuing to ensure Fratton Park is ‘affordable’ for supporters remains at the forefront of Pompey’s vision.

That’s the pledge from Andy Cullen following the unveiling of Blues season ticket prices ahead of their long-awaited Championship return.

The price of an adult season ticket renewal in the Fratton End, North Stand wings, South Stand wings and Milton End has risen to £455 - an increase of £41 (9.9 per cent).

Adult renewals in the centre of the North Stand and South Stand have increased by £51 (12 per cent), while child renewals across the stadium have risen by either £10 (10.5 per cent) or £9 (10 per cent).

Since the new season-ticket prices were announced on Wednesday evening, the reaction from Fratton faithful appears to be largely favourable.

And Cullen has explained Pompey’s approach towards pricing.

He told The News: ‘Fans are at the forefront of this and affordability is important. You have to be very, very careful when you are making these considerations.

‘Like most football clubs, our match-day costs are going to be significantly increased by the rise in the minimum wage, which adds to stewarding and catering costs. We employ a tremendous army of match-day staff as well and that has a knock-on effect throughout the whole cost structure.

‘You are always mindful of the pressures on the core fanbase as well, so while a rise of 10 per cent in some areas and 12 per cent in other areas seems to be a significant increase, you put it against other competitive pressures we have in the business and trying to ensure we can operate sustainably as well.

‘But you have to look at the way people watch and attend football. We have a large number of families which come together to watch matches. In some cases it can be three or even four generations of families, with the burden falling on one or two people in the household.

‘That always comes into my thinking when I have looked at ticket pricing, recognising that affordability is important.

‘Ticketing is a huge proportion of revenue at Fratton Park compared to other clubs and what we are trying to do at the moment is develop our non-match day revenues. In terms of hospitality, we are not blessed with some of the big rooms that modern stadia have, but we are well supported and more than make up for that.

‘Obviously next season broadcasting becomes extremely significant in terms of that mix, it’s a game changer.

‘It’s almost a five or six-fold increase in broadcasting income next year, but we are also conscious that the cost base goes up as well.

‘We also have to look at the impact of ticketing on other things we do around the ground on a match-day, including our catering income. The partnership with Piglets Pantry has seen match-day income almost trebling in the space of two years.

‘That is through being able to introduce more catering outlets in the stadium, serving alcohol in areas we weren’t able to before, the introduction of the fanzone, it has all had an impact.

‘There’s merchandising as well. We will probably record a 25 per cent increase on last year in terms of merchandise sales. There have been record shirt sales.

‘We are trying to make sure we do everything sensibly, not putting the club at risk - and we are extremely grateful for the support we have.’

One again Fratton Park season tickets will be capped at 15,000, thereby retaining the potential for walk-up sales on match-days.

Following the completion of the Milton End, on five occasions home attendances topped more than 20,000, with the largest established against Oxford United in March (20,303).

And Cullen stressed the importance of continuing to restrict the number of season tickets available to supporters.

He added: ‘There are people who, for various reasons, aren’t able to have a season ticket, either through affordability, work commitments or travel, and we want to ensure they still have the opportunity to buy tickets.

‘We believe that 15,000 still means we’ll have just under 4,000 tickets on sale for people to buy casually for each match-day.

‘Last season 22 out of 23 of our home ends were sold out, with Burton (March 2024) just shy.

‘It shows that, as we continue to increase and improve the facilities and capacity, the demand has been there.’