Sunday, 27 January 2008

Ben on...hundreds of dollars worth of cricket

So the most expensive ticket on sale for the New Zealand tour of England is £103 (the ODI at the Oval – they need the money). If I bought a ticket today, that would be NZ$265.

If I had $265 to spend on the England tour here I could see the two T20s ($30 a pop) and all five ODIs ($40 gold seating at each) and still have $5 left for a beer at one of those games. Alternatively I could get a pass for all 5 days at the basin test ($100 gold entry) and all the beer I could drink.

4 comments:

Marie said...

Hey Ben - Actually I managed to get much cheaper tickets (comparitively) £40 per day to see NZ play England at Lords. The more expensive tickets were £60. Also it is a bit misleading to do a comparision based on the exchange rates. In real terms the tickets that I got are about twice as expensive as it would be to see the test at the Basin - and you have to remember that the facilities are far superior.
Most of the tickets here either go to season ticket holders or in a ballot (similar to the All Black games). The only place that I saw tickets being sold to the public was at Old Trafford and they were very reasonably priced, about £30 from memory.
The thing that has struck me is how popular cricket is here and people's willingness to pay to go see the team even though it has a dismal record similar to NZ.

Marie said...

oh I meant to say that the tickets you might have seen are probably being resold - hence the much higher prices. I am currently trading bids for my 2 spare tickets.

Ben said...

Hey there Marie. Congratulations on getting your tickets. I'm extremely jealous that you are going to Lords – if there was any chance of me making it, I'd be bidding for one of your spare tickets.

Just to clarify – and to stretch my comparison even further – your £40 daily ticket is twice as expensive as a whole test match at the Basin ($60). Also, the £103 ticket is not resold, that is what the Surrey County CC is charging for some seats. I'm not trying to compare value for money, I'm just amazed at how cheap it is to see cricket in New Zealand. Why can't we get more people to go along?

Marie said...

Yes, I must say now that I am here trying to get tickets in a ballot which most people I know missed out on, I realise how lucky I was to live 10 mins walk from the Basin and be able to pay the price I did to watch those games. I will never take that for granted again.
It casts a whole new light (for me) on how touring teams must feel coming to NZ and seeing half full grounds consistently. In some ways it makes me wonder if it is even profitable to play there - that is if profit is your main motivation...
Rest assured I will be giving a full report of the NZ tour - although given the dismal Twenty20 results thus far I am keeping my mouth shut about how much I like cricket - particularly at work!