I assume there is and therefor the next question is will any clubs pass this saving on to their fans as the Chancellor hopes most business will?

My guess is that they won't.

Yes but for an admission price of say £16, the reduction in VAT amounts to about 35p so clubs inevitably will decide it's too much hassle dealing with the extra loose change at the turnstiles.

They'll put the prices up for you asking such cheeky questions.

Yes there is.

It would actually COST clubs money to pass the 'saving' such as it is onto fans though. On a £15 entry fee the VAT cut will be 32p. It would be prohibitive have turnstile attendants dealing with piles of change (and costly in terms of actually having it and banking it) which is why prices are never in fractions of pounds anyway. You'd also have to relabel all the turnstiles with a new price. Potentially, if you drop the walk up price then you'd also have to refund money to season ticket holders who bought in advance which would be a costly admin exercise also.

It would be absolute lunacy for clubs to change the prices and I can't believe anybody would seriously expect them to do so. It's a small bonus to clubs I suppose. Might be worth anything from £250 - £750 a game depending on how many walk up fans they typically have.

Surely season tickets should be at worse frozen then for next season?

Why?

That's completely dependent on the club in question. Our season ticket price for instance has been frozen for three seasons now. It's probably time it went up, a trivial drop in VAT doesn't change that.

If we didn't change the prices next year we'd be £4.89 per season ticket better off. Hardly worth worrying about. I accept that at Rangers with higher ticket prices it will make a bigger difference though.

Maybe im way off, but if VAT accounts for 17.5% of the price of my season ticket, then if my season ticket cost £430, nearly £80 of that is vat, therefore even a £20 increase would leave Rangers with at least £100 pure profit on every season ticket next season. Given that mine is the cheapest, therefore there will be more VAT on others....

I don't understand your calculation, VAT isn't being abolished, just reduced slightly. Rangers "take" if they didn't pass on the reduction would be not much more than £10.

Yeah, sorry

Oh dear!

If your season ticket costs £430 then £64.04 of it was VAT at the time and, if it doesn't change, then £56.09 of it will be VAT next time. Net result Rangers, without changing price, are £7.95 better off.

It's worth remembering that if Mr Darling (or whoever is actually in power by then) carries through with the threat to raise VAT back to 17.5% again in 13 months time then, for half a season, the clubs will equally all lose out by the same amount (of course they may change prices then! ).

The thing is with a club like Rangers who have many thousands of season ticket holders, it's a fair bit of money back. Say 30,000 season ticket holders - it will be £200K+ However, they might find that with the top rate of tax going up to 45%, some of their foreign mercenaries will prefer to go elsewhere!

Wasn't the increase on VAT (15% - 17.5%) done by the tories only supposed to be a temporary thing after the poll/council tax cock-up anyway?

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Stupidest comment of the year award

Newcastle have reduced ticket prices.

So I see, though of course at £35 a ticket the 2.5% drop is a wee bit more relevant than it is in Scotland, particularly lower divisions.

In cutting prices by £1 (note they didn't elect to fanny about with "pence" prices) Newcastle United will actually be 22p per person worse off as a club. If they are not also refunding season ticket holders an equivalent sum (are they? The article on their site doesn't mention them) then as a gesture it's virtually irrelevant but good pr. The away fans would generally be the beneficiaries since most of St James is sold out to season ticket holders. If they ARE refunding season ticket holders then it's a very generous gesture since it will cost the club approx £10k per fixture.

They arent refunding season ticket holders, who already pay less per game compared to someone who bought a ticket for every game anyway.

I assume Ashley is doing this as he's worryed about the 5000 drop off in average crowds this season. A 50'000 sell out every week would be one of the main selling points of buying Newcastle, so when the crowds fall short of that it must worry him. There are only around 30-35'000 season ticket holders this season, so there is quite a decent percentage of the crowd who will buy tickets game by game. Thats what I have done this season. It cost me £25 to go to the City game, and £20 to go to the Wigan and West Brom games. Tickets are sold in 3 bands considering the opposition. So now it will be £19 for the shit games (Bolton, West Brom, Stoke etc.), £24 for the middle games (City, Everton, Spurs etc.), £29 for the bigger games (Sunderland, Boro, Man Utd, Arsenal etc.)