To wish the people screaming outside would shut up?

[Notcontent]

Yes, I do understand that people are excited about the football, but it’s Tuesday night and my DC, who is completely exhausted, has to get up early for school - the rather scary shouting has just woken her up. Yep, I know someone will say I should move to the middle of nowhere. I would love to - as many people would - but sadly that’s not possible.

I am only using what I have to hand - Premier League vs West End.

As they say, you can make anything true if you pick and choose statistics.

The premier league is limited by the amount of seats available, ignores the fact of the thousands potentially millions who watch the games at home or at the pub etc and then ignores the cup games etc etc.

Globally Football is the most popular sport, trying to justify that the theatre is more popular is desperately trying to downplay one thing you don't like for something you do, IMO

try living in my house next door to a two year old who can scream continously in a tantrum for hours on end day in day out, one and a half hours of world cup screaming would be bliss

Also to add to the wonky stats you chose.

The study didn't weight for the fact that West End shows can be, in some instances, be shown 2 times a day 7 days a week, where as the football season only lasts from August to May.

I find summer Olympics dull as ditch but really enjoy winter Olympics. Maybe its because there is more chance of people injuring themselves quite spectacularly?

When I'm watching MotoGP and someone nearly crashes their bike, but manages to save it, my heart rate goes through the roof. If there's a bad crash, and the riders don't get to their feet straight away, I feel a bit sick and very anxious.

I think I may be over-invested in it, tbh.

Haha Lakie that reminds me, my mum always used to complain when my dad watched F1/MotoGP about how motor sports are a pointless noisy waste of time and the drivers are Neanderthals who don't care about the environment, but she still shushes me whenever there's a Bournemouth match on the radio Takes all sorts I suppose!

@Justanotherlurker I'm wary of derailing the thread further of the original topic, and a lot of the stuff I've been posting after my initial one was to answer some questions. But last comments on this specific topic:

a) I did say that the BARB figures were unreliable due to their methods but said it could actually be HIGHER than 24 million because they have no idea how many people are watching in pubs, clubs, even cinemas. So I think I was very fair there.
b) The viewing figures are totally unverifiable whereas the attendances provided by both theatres and football clubs are based on quantifiable facts - turnstile info/ticket sales. For accuracy, I agree these reports should say "tickets purchased" rather than "attendance" as obviously it's not 14 million different people, as soon people have season tickets, go and see several shows a year etc.
c) And with reference to your very specific last point - there are no West End shows that have two shows a day 7 days a week. Not a single one. There are no West End shows that have two shows a day 6 days a week, 5 days a week, 4 days a week. Several will have two performances on a Saturday and one day in the week.

d) You say that the premier league is limited by the amount of seats available. Theatres also have a limited number of seats and not all shows run for months or years. Seating capacity at Chelsea's stadium is 41,631. The London Palladium is 2,286, so at the usual eight performances a week, it takes two weeks and one day to fill the same number of seats. Most theatres seat far fewer.

You are welcome to your opinion. I do not disagree that football is more popular globally.

Shatners - that’s not right about stadia down the leagues. Leeds, Portsmouth, Wolves, Sunderland, Norwich and many many others have much larger crowds and stadia than Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Watford, Fulham (prem next year), Brighton, Burnley.

Championship had 11.3m attendees last year, premier league had 14.5m. League 1 and 2 combined were over 7m

@Usernumbers1234 thank you for that, that's interesting. That does tend to suggest that football and theatre could be pretty level pegging if we took regional theatres into the mix alongside the other leagues based on those figures.

I was about to make another comment but we're straying well away from the OP's topic, so I shall stop now, honestly.

Thank you for your comment earlier about my being generally balanced!

There's another thread about someone whose wedding is going to be wrecked because some guests are obsessed with watching men's football on television BTW.

I agree, derailing somewhat. OK I was wrong to say west end shows, I should have used the broader term of some london theaters which the study included has shows running sometimes twice a day seven days a week.

More people attend London theaters than attend premiership games, I agree, but it ignores the massive tv revenue, other leagues, cup games etc etc. To try and insinuate that the Theater is more popular and should receive the same amount of attention is based on wonky foundations.

Funny enough I used to live very close to Twickenham, which is part of the reason why I think it is about class prejudice - a LOT of the behaviour that people are attributing to football fans was common among the rugby fans too.

Yes, rugby fans can be appalling, psychomath. Although I once watched an England-Wales game in a pub in Cardiff and we were treated very hospitably by all the Welsh fans and saw no trouble at all in the city or on the train back to where we were staying, so maybe it's an English thing.

I once went to a polo match at Cowdray Park. Many of the braying hoorays were paralytic and a fight broke out, one was so drunk he pissed in his trousers and another fat gammon had to be helped into his Range Rover, which he proceeded to drive away.

There's another thread about someone whose wedding is going to be wrecked because some guests are obsessed with watching men's football on television BTW

😂

Anyone still using the term gammon unironically really needs to assess how apparently progressive they really are...

I think it’s an interesting comparison to be honest. I think a top west end show is the closest thing to a premier league game in terms of looking at ticket metrics, other sports don’t have a comparable level of demand except maybe the Grand Prix which is a one off annual event.

I’m not sure the average prices for Chelsea and Man U are quite right as a comparison though. Apart from a couple of teams who currently have stadia larger than their regular support base (Westham and Man City) it’s practically impossible to get a ticket at list price as a non season ticket holder, you can’t ring up United and get a £40 match ticket for a weekend league game. You have to go to the secondary market and you are paying at least double face value. Hell I resold 2 tickets online last year for a mid table rubbish team vs lower table rubbish team on a Monday night for £120 each (face value 38), the international tourists are flooding in of late,even to games in the north and they just want to be sure of getting a ticket the week they are in town and will pay for it.

Whilst theatre seems to have got its pricing right. I’m still choking at £145 a ticket for the Lion King in the autumn, but from what I can tell that’s the market rate for a good seat. Whilst some football clubs and musicians still seem scared of the negative press, and instead engage in the underhand tactics described here to maximise revenue and still look like you care about the fans -

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/ticketmaster-ceo-reveals-why-youre-doomed-from-the-start-when-it-comes-to-the-biggest-gigs-a7065996.html%3famp

The football clubs are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place on pricing too. They don’t really care about the standard ticket revenue at the top of the game, it pales into insignificance again TV money and Marketing income and executive box and corporate sales. A corporate match viewer is worth 20 times what a normal season ticket holder is. They just want a full stadium and an atmosphere that looks good on the TV to export their main product, which is the tv footage, not the match experience. I think some clubs would like to cap ticket prices even lower to show they care about the fans and it won’t hurt (they cap away tickets at £30 to ensure away support and atmosphere), but because the demand exists the profit exists and someone is going to resell them. if they cap home tickets at £30, you just create 40000 ticket touts in every ground.

There's another thread about someone whose wedding is going to be wrecked because some guests are obsessed with watching men's football on television BTW

Oh then we definitely shouldn't televise it!

The wedding wouldn't be wrecked if the bride thought about the guests and what they might like. There is not a social gathering in existence where the atmosphere isn't improved by an England game on a big screen. Even non football fans can join in the fun for England in the WC (if they're prepared to try and not narrow minded)

@Justanotherlurker I have never seen any London play or musical run two performances a day 7 days a week. I'd genuinely love to know what they were if your study names them. In WWII the Windmill theatre never closed and did several shows a day of a cabaret/variety style thing. You may get places like the Barbican Centre doing more than one performance a day several days of the week, but that's musical concerts rather than theatre.

Least we're not talking about cricket. Now that really IS dull

@Shatnerswig

I admit I should be more coherent, but the fact that some shows run 7 days a week (generally 6) and some even have 2 matinees a week isn't really comparing like for like to make an insinuation that football is less popular and so theater should require equal or more coverage etc.

I've never seen so many miserable fuckers in one place as this thread.

Get a grip

Why are people miserable because they don't like football?

I fucking hate the thing, but I'm not miserable in the slightest.

It's the ones who don't want anyone else to enjoy it either who are miserable

Must depend on where you live because I've not heard anything.

I agree you haven't been miserable ProfessorMoody and I was really sorry to hear about your son's school... but.... your first post was fairly condescending to those that do like football 'football and all it stands for is vile' and you feel sorry for those that enjoy it...

Fair enough you don't like football, and I can imagine during the World Cup its pretty much hard to avoid so not much fun for a non football fan. But surely you can hold your opinion about football without being rude to those who enjoy it?

Even non football fans can join in the fun for England in the WC (if they're prepared to try and not narrow minded

What? If you find football as boring as watching paint dry you're narrow minded? So, basically, anyone who tries something, not just sport, but any genre of book, film, tv programme, music, but doesn't like it, is being narrow minded?

Come on then @ReadingRiot, tell me you enjoy everything.

I agree Shatner - given my post about holding an opinion without denigrating those who hold a differing view... ReadingRiot comment about "narrow minded" is rude.