Andre Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

With an estimated yearly intake of only $2.8 million from gate receipts, several officials from top clubs contesting the Digicel Premier League (DPL) are complaining that they are not making enough money from match ticket sales and have had to create innovative means of attracting more supporters to the games.

Importantly, this figure only represents the estimates realised by some of the more popular clubs which manage to attract an average of 500 paying fans at most of their games. The situation for smaller, less popular teams is far worse in terms of money earned from supporters who pay to watch games.

Teams at the top of the pile make an average of $150,000 per match from gate receipts but this is placed in perspective when their monthly expenditure bill of roughly $1.5 million is taken into consideration.

Home games

Each DPL club plays 19 home games and charge a fee of $300 for entry into these games, a price that has remained unadjusted for the better part of ten years.

Bruce Bicknell, chairman of the Waterhouse Football Club, one of the best-supported teams in the island gave an idea of the situation facing his club and lamented that despite filling their stands on most occasions, the money earned from match tickets is minute when compared to the sums needed to fund the club's operations.

Said Bicknell, "It's (gate receipts) not a major income earner for us because a lot of people cannot afford $300 but when the stadium is full I would say that we may gross about $120,000 and net about $70,000 but that's petty cash compared to our needs.

"We need nearly $2 million a month to run the club so you can see there just how little that contributes. But the money (to run the club) comes mainly from corporate sponsorship, gate receipts and fund-raisers, in that order."

Creative means needed

Harbour View's Clyde Jureidini highlighted the need for more clubs to adopt creative means to bring out more supporters to their games but admitted that the worsening economy has certainly affected the number of fans who are able to attend games.

"We (clubs) have to work to try and make it more interesting and entertaining and, at the same time, expand the market which is why more clubs are playing at night so you get a more working class audience who can afford to pay and come after work for their recreation. We have to be pitching it to a different audience, people who have more disposable income," said Jureidini.

He continued, "The problem is the economy. People just don't have the money. The football-loving fans do not have the money to come to all the games all the time."

Portland-based St Georges United have been particularly difficult to defeat at their Lynch Park venue, largely because of their massive support base and currently enjoy one of the highest returns from ticket sales in the entire league.

Club chairman Everton King advised that an average of 1,000 paying supporters turn up at each game resulting in a $300,000 per match return before expenses are subtracted.

Said King, "We get about 1,500 fans at each game with about 1,000 of those paying to come in. We then have to pay out about $70,000 or $80,000 for expenses after each match.

"We are pretty satisfied at his stage but we know that we should be doing a lot better with the amount of fans that we have. If we got about 2,500 persons per game we would be all right."