What Price an Away Shirt?

As MK Dons confirm that their season ticket promotion topped out at around 4800, it strikes me as a great result for the club but a poor one for their customers. For those not close to the Dons, the club announced with a great fanfare that if they sold 5000 season tickets before 5pm on 1st August, they would reward each purchaser with a free away shirt. 

Now, I'm sure that the figure of 5000 was always an ambitious one - it makes sense with a promotion like this to set a stretching target. What seemed odd to me was the lack of information coming out of the club as the figure got closer and closer. As was well documented on Twitter over the past couple of weeks, it has become very difficult to get firm numbers out of the club. If MKDons were keen to hit the promotional target one would expect regular updates over the past couple of weeks to encourage a late push for tickets. Yet is was down to a small group of fans in the Twitter community to try and create that last push.

Once the club reached the 4750 / 4800 figure (which one would imagine would be their internal target) the promotion aim seems to have changed. It was massively in their interests not to hit the 5000 ticket figure at which point they have an exposure of 5000 shirts which even at cost price probably equated to about £100k. (roughly 50% of RRP). Indeed the announcement that came out yesterday that season ticket holders would be eligible to buy an away shirt at half price plays even more into their court. Like most half price marketing promotions, this will encourage the increased sale of away shirts (which they probably wouldn't have previously sold). Even at half price, the club are likely to be making a small profit from each sale or are at least increasing footfall into the club shop. 

Of course there is the view that good news financially for the club is good news for the supporters. Increased season ticket sales & £100k saved on free shirts might be £100k to spend on the salary of a loaned player. Extra away shirt revenue from the half price promotion together with increased sponsor exposure from additional away short sales also boosts the coffers. I can't help thinking though that this has been acheived at the expense of the supporters through a promotion which had very little chance of ever delivering. 

Maybe I'm just being cynical. It would be interesting to know what the season ticket total was last season to understand how high the bar was originally set and to understand why it was so difficult to get any information from the club as the target got ever closer.