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Why Premier League Clubs Want Fewer Season Ticket Holders
What this Means for You
- It's harder than ever to keep or buy a Premier League season ticket.
- Clubs earn more from members who buy individual match tickets.
- For the biggest clubs, memberships only offer an outside possibility of buying a ticket.
- If you miss a few matches you could lose your season ticket.
- Match by match prices are going up faster than season ticket prices.
Matchday revenue is vital for Premier League clubs. It makes up between 10% and 20% of their total annual revenue.
According to Deloitte, Premier League clubs were expected to generate matchday revenue totalling $1 billion for the 2024/25 season.
Premier League stadiums currently operate at around 99% capacity—that is a lot of bums on seats—the demand for tickets is immense. The more popular Premier League clubs can now afford to be picky about the kinds of bums they want on their seats.
That is because some fans, especially members who attend only one match a season, are worth more to clubs than season tickets.
In this article we’ll show, in a neutral way, how memberships are worth more to the top clubs than season tickets.
What Are Season Tickets and Memberships?
For the uninitiated, a season ticket is a season-long ticket for your club. For a set price it will guarantee your seat in a given part of the stadium for 19 matches. Availability is scarce and long waiting lists for season tickets are common.
This ticket comes with a number of privileges, including better access to away tickets, services to help you resell your ticket through the club, and the opportunity to buy additional match by match tickets.
Often seen as the conscience of the club, season ticket holders are sometimes consulted on major decisions.
They remain a tie to the community, with fans keeping tickets for generations.
Club Memberships Explained
A membership is a casual way to follow a Premier League club, with few obligations for the fan and club. For a certain price, around $47 to $81 a year, fans will be given priority access to general admission match by match tickets.
As these tickets are so popular and in such short supply, a membership is often the only way to get general admission tickets on the primary market.
But even a membership alone is not enough to get Arsenal or Liverpool tickets, as the high demand for seats reduces your chances in the ballots.
As we’ll show, memberships can be much more lucrative for clubs than season tickets. While season tickets guarantee revenue across a campaign, memberships bring in millions of pounds even before selling a single ticket.
Meanwhile the pro-rata pricing is higher for tickets bought with memberships than season tickets:
2025/26 Premier League Average Pro-Rata Prices: Match by Match vs Season Ticket
As you can see in the table below, match by match Premier League tickets are noticeably more expensive than their season ticket equivalents.
| Category | Average Price (£) |
|---|---|
| Average Cheapest EPL match by match Ticket | 39.10 |
| Average Cheapest EPL Season Ticket (per game, ÷19) | 31.76 |
| Average Most Expensive EPL match by match Ticket | 80.30 |
| Average Most Expensive EPL Season Ticket (per game, ÷19) | 63.77 |
- Prices do not include family sections, local discounts or hospitality
- 2025/26 prices taken from club websites or using best estimate in a small minority of cases
They Key Financial Takeaways for Clubs
League-wide, we estimate that match by match tickets are worth 15% more than the equivalent season tickets.
Let’s extrapolate quickly: If an average club converts just 5,000 of their most expensive season tickets into match by match seats at the average 15% markup, the additional gate receipts would be worth around $2 million a season to the club.
Remember, that is on tickets alone, before we factor in membership sales and fans’ spending at the stadium, which is known to be higher among match by match fans.
Are Clubs Quietly Cutting Season Ticket Numbers?
Yes, there are plenty of signs that clubs are trying to engineer a reduction in the number of season ticket holders in the stadium.
Why is this? Well, Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), in which Premier League clubs are only allowed to lose a maximum of $141 million over three seasons, play a part.
In order to comply with these strict guidelines, and avoid punishments like fines and points deductions they need to optimise the value of every bum on every seat. Clubs have been pushed to a difficult place.
It has never been easy to buy a season ticket for most Premier League clubs. But now it’s harder than ever. We have talked about the length of Premier League season ticket waiting lists in a separate article.
Premier League 2025/26 Season Ticket Availability Overview
Now we’re going to explore the quantity of season tickets available across the Premier League.
While the clubs will always keep exact figures close to their chests, we can conclude that the allocation of season tickets is shrinking across many Premier League stadiums.
| Club | Stadium Name | Capacity | Season Ticket Holders | % of Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | Emirates Stadium | 60,704 | 45,000 | 74.1% |
| Aston Villa | Villa Park | 42,657 | 30,000 | 70.3% |
| Bournemouth | Vitality Stadium | 11,379 | 6,000 | 52.7% |
| Brentford | Gtech Community Stadium | 17,250 | 10,000 | 58.0% |
| Brighton & Hove Albion | AMEX Stadium | 31,876 | 23,000 | 72.2% |
| Burnley | Turf Moor | 21,994 | 12,000 | 54.6% |
| Chelsea | Stamford Bridge | 40,341 | 25,000 | 62.0% |
| Crystal Palace | Selhurst Park | 25,486 | 18,000 | 70.6% |
| Everton | Hill Dickinson Stadium | 52,769 | 35,000 | 66.3% |
| Fulham | Craven Cottage | 29,600 | 17,000 | 57.4% |
| Leeds United | Elland Road | 37,890 | 23,000 | 60.7% |
| Liverpool | Anfield | 61,276 | 30,000 | 49% |
| Manchester City | Etihad Stadium | 53,400 | 36,000 | 67.4% |
| Manchester United | Old Trafford | 74,310 | 53,000 | 71.3% |
| Newcastle United | St James’ Park | 52,305 | 38,000 | 72.6% |
| Nottingham Forest | City Ground | 30,445 | 20,000 | 65.7% |
| Sunderland | Stadium of Light | 48,707 | 26,000 | 53.4% |
| Tottenham Hotspur | Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 | 42,000 | 66.8% |
| West Ham United | London Stadium | 62,500 | 54,000 | 86.4% |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | Molineux Stadium | 31,750 | 22,000 | 69.3% |
- Note that all but four Premier League clubs have away allocations of 3,000+
Since 2017, where multiple clubs have increased their overall capacity, the ratio of season ticket holders has fallen.
This includes Man City, Liverpool, Fulham and now Everton, with a decrease from 78% at Goodison Park to 66.3% at Hill Dickinson Stadium.
The average percentage of season ticket holders at Premier League stadiums is now 65% in 2025/26.
In the following sections we’ll explore how, If you support a club that’s doing well, and with a high ratio of season tickets to match by match tickets, your club may be trying to reduce the season ticket count.
Premier League Clubs Restricting Season Tickets
The average renewal rate for Premier League season tickets is between 90% and 95%.
With that in mind, you can see how the total of Premier League season tickets available will markedly decrease if tickets do not go on sale or become limited.
We’ll dive into a few clubs who appear to be trying to make it harder to buy season tickets, or are actively trying to lower the ratio of season ticket holders against members.
Manchester City: Season Tickets 67.4%
Manchester City attracted a lot of attention in summer 2025 when fans raised concerns about season ticketing availability and rules.
News emerged that the newly redeveloped North Stand (Family Stand) would not offer any additional season tickets. Only match by match Manchester City tickets would be sold here.
There are also suspicions that the club is reducing the tally of season ticket holders by making eligibility more difficult. To qualify now, you need to spend at least a season with something called a Flexi-Gold membership.
For an upfront fee of $161 this guarantees access to Premier League tickets—using this method, if you attend an undisclosed number of matches you may qualify for a season ticket.
So that is to say, you can’t simply join a waiting list anymore to buy a Manchester City season ticket.
Aston Villa: Season Tickets 70.3%
We know that in the summer of 2024, no new Aston Villa season tickets went on sale to the public.
This coincided with a delay in expansion works on the North Stand, which would have supposedly freed up more seats for Aston Villa season ticket holders.
However, there was a massive revamp of hospitality that summer, including brand new spaces such as the Villans Lounge and the Star & Lion. Both lounges are geared towards matchday hospitality.
As it is, the number of general admission season ticket holders at Villa Park has reduced from 30,000 in the late 2010s to 27,000 in 2025/26.
This gives an idea of the direction the club is taking.
Newcastle United: Season Tickets 72.6%
Since 2022 no Newcastle season tickets have been made available.
It’s a far cry from 2019/20 in the Mike Ashley days when the club was so desperate to fill seats at St. James’ Park that it gave away 10,000 half-season tickets.
Again, the rumour swirling around Tyneside is that the club knows it can increase revenue by targeting match by match fans.
This all comes at a time when the club is preparing to build a new 65,000 seater stadium a short walk away in Leazes Park.
Everton: Season Tickets 66.3%
The Toffees are moving into the 52,769-capacity Hill Dickinson Stadium for 2025/26. Their previous stadium, Goodison Park held approximately 31,000 season ticket holders in a 39,572-capacity ground. This was around 78% of capacity devoted to ST holders.
Now, that ratio appears to have been lowered. Although no official figures have been released so far, most estimates place the current number of season ticket holders at the new ground at somewhere in the region of 66.3%.
Everton is not alone in this approach: Expanding stadium capacity without increasing the number of season ticket holders appears to be a common tactic.
Both Liverpool and Manchester City followed this model in the 2010s and 2020s, using new or redeveloped stands to boost matchday income while limiting the number of new season ticket holders.
Bournemouth: Season Tickets 52.7%
Another club clearly desperate to redress the balance between match by match and season tickets is Bournemouth who haven’t sold any season tickets since coming up in 2014.
Space is clearly an issue at the 11,379-capacity Vitality Stadium. The Cherries are planning to expand this ground to around 20,500 seats in the coming seasons.
Fulham: Season Tickets 54.7%
In the three seasons since Fulham came up from the Championship, the price of a general admission season ticket in the Johnny Haynes, Hammersmith and Putney Stands has increased by more than 30%.
No other Premier League season ticket has risen in price at such a rate. One obvious reason for this rise is to keep up with (and help pay for) the expensive new Riverside Stand, devoted mainly to hospitality and premium matchday tickets.
This stand is designed to capture one-off visitors looking for Premier League football near the centre of London.
Now there appears to be a plan to discourage long-term season ticket holders from renewing by hiking the price in the rest of the stadium at a break-neck rate.
What Connects these Clubs?
It’s no coincidence that many of these clubs, apart from Man City and Everton, have suffered relegation in the last decade, but are now in a healthy place in the Premier League.
When times were tough, they were grateful to generate guaranteed revenue with season tickets, including those half-season tickets at Newcastle United a few years ago.
Today all of these clubs have high demand for match by match tickets and appear to be trying to make room for them. For Aston Villa and Newcastle United the need may be even more urgent as they try to stay PSR compliant.
Everton, famously suffered a deduction of 8 points in the 2023/24 season for contravening the Premier League’s PSR rules. So the configuration of Hill Dickinson Stadium shows they are attempting to maximise matchday revenues by adjusting the season ticket/match by match ratio.
This squeeze on availability makes financial sense when you consider how much more valuable match by match tickets can be for clubs.
Season Ticket vs Match by Match Tickets
Per our figures, the average price of a Premier League general admission seat is around 15% greater for match by match tickets compared to the pro rata price of a season ticket in the equivalent seat.
In a part of the country that gets more tourism and has extra reasons to attract one-off fans, let’s look at some prices of match by match London football tickets.
We’ll check Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham season tickets against the match by match ticket price:
Arsenal
- Center Upper Season Ticket Price: $2,321
- Centre Upper match by match Arsenal Ticket Price across a Season: $2,619
- Match Ticket Percentage Increase: 12.10%
Chelsea
- East Upper Season Ticket Price: $1,472
- East Upper match by match Chelsea Ticket Price across a Season: $1,761
- Match Ticket Percentage Increase: 17.90%
Tottenham Hotspur
- South Stand (Behind Goal) Season Ticket Price: $1,151
- South Stand (Behind Goal) match by match Spurs Ticket Price across a Season: $1,328
- Match Ticket Percentage Increase: 14.30%
Next we’ll explain those figures in more detail by looking at a breakdown for Arsenal.
Arsenal Match by Match vs Season Ticket Prices
Like Fulham, the top London clubs have been accused of putting a priority on single-day fans, unfairly called ‘day-trippers’ by more established supporters.
Now, we’ll take an in-depth look at Arsenal, who are more transparent than most Premier League clubs about ticket pricing.
Red Membership is $48 a season, and is absolutely essential for access to tickets. There are around 200,000 Red Members. In the crudest possible terms, that is $9,681,120 of revenue a season, again, with no tickets sold.
The Match by Match vs Season Ticket Price Gap at Arsenal
We looked at the price of general admission Arsenal tickets in the priciest, Centre Upper section. Across a 19-match Premier League season, we estimate that the price of a ticket here will average out at $139, taking Category A, B and C pricing into account.
Multiply that by 19 and you get $2,619, compared to the season ticket price, which is $2,321.
So you can see, with this small sample, how much more lucrative match by match ticket sales might be for a club.
And that is before we account for the membership fee to access those tickets, as well as the well-established fact that non-season ticket holders will spend more on matchday, for food & drink and at the club store.
Attempted Phase-Out of Senior Concession Tickets
A big squeeze is thought to be looming for most Premier League clubs that offer discounted ticket prices for senior fans (Over 66 years old).
In 2012/13, when the figures were last made public, the Premier League claimed that the average age of in-stadium supporters was 41.
It may be fair to assume that the average has risen a lot.
Senior Season Tickets: Will They Survive the Next Decade?
Especially, when in March 2025 Tottenham Hotspur claimed that there were four times as many fans claiming Senior Concession Season Tickets (SCSTs) at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium compared to when the club was at White Hart Lane.
This is despite the capacity of the new stadium, opened in 2019, being less than double the capacity of White Hart Lane, which Spurs departed in 2017.
Senior Concession Phase-Out then Backtrack
In 2024 Tottenham Hotspur announced that no new Senior Concession Season Tickets would be issued from 2025/26, before ultimately backtracking. West Ham planned similar cuts, but also climbed down in the face of supporter outcry.
Now, rather than phasing out senior season tickets, clubs appear to be setting delineated ratios for each season ticket category. In the case of Tottenham Hotspur tickets, they will define eligibility by seniority, so longer-term holders will qualify for concession tickets sooner.
Season Tickets Under Threat from Strict Attendance Policies
While it’s never been harder to get a season ticket, it’s easier than ever to lose it once you’ve got it. In recent years, clubs have introduced mandatory attendance rules, and some are harsher than others.
New Rules at Man City: How Easy It Is to Lose a Season Ticket?
For example, Manchester City made headlines in summer 2025 when they announced that a season ticket holder must attend at least 16 out of 19 Premier League matches at the Etihad.
For 6 of those 16 games a Manchester City season ticket holder can hand their ticket back to the club for resale or share it with a friend via the club’s Ticket Redistribution service. So a fan has to attend 10 matches a season in person, up from 8 the season before.
Elsewhere, Newcastle United, already known for their halt on season ticket sales, have also introduced a punitive new rule. If you miss more than four matches at St. James’ Park without going through the club to fill your seat, you will lose your ticket.
Last but not least, Aston Villa have also just introduced a new usage policy: Fail to attend more than five matches without using the club’s ticket exchange or ticket share service, and you could lose your seat.
Manchester United Stadium Ban
In 2024/25 Manchester United attracted attention for rescinding the ticket of an 84-year-old long-term season ticket holder.
As he was well-known to the club’s stewards, they were letting him into Old Trafford even though the QR code on his paper ticket was failing to scan.
The club’s systems registered five consecutive no-shows and the fan lost his season ticket. Fortunately for him, there was a public outcry and the club reversed its decision.
Retractions and back-tracking hint at pressure from the top for clubs to look for ways to cull the number of season tickets.
What Is the Ticketing Situation in other Top Leagues?
Few other leagues can boast the kind of demand that we see in the Premier League. For example, average attendances in La Liga are around 81%, while Serie A is a little lower at 80.7%. In these leagues, you don’t have the same extreme levels of demand and scarcity.
However, attendance levels are similar in the Bundesliga in Germany, which got 97.1% across the league in 2024/25.
Now, in ticketing terms, the key difference between the Premier League and the Bundesliga is the 50+1 Rule. This gives fans a voice at board level and nips exploitative price rises and allocation changes in the bud.
As a result, season ticket allocations are enshrined at Bundesliga stadiums. Meanwhile the average price of the cheapest (standing) season tickets works out at about $245 league-wide in Germany’s top tier, compared to $805 in the Premier League.
Why Premier League Clubs Want Fewer Season Ticket Holders: Conclusion
So that explains why Premier League clubs prefer memberships to season tickets.
As a neutral site, we don’t have a position to take on these changes. Nor do we think season tickets will disappear. But if your club has a large proportion of season ticket holders then you may notice a squeeze.
It’s not our job to moralise about the pressure being put on Premier League season ticket holders. Still, it’s clear that clubs see matchday ticketing as an efficient lever to increase revenue.
They can sell tens of thousands of memberships each season, making millions simply by providing the hope of being able to buy a ticket for a Premier League match.
One thing is for sure: Tickets are scarce for the big Premier League teams. Fortunately there is always availability on Ticket-Compare.com, offering a choice between pre-vetted resale and official tickets for the Big 6 and beyond.
