The Liga MX has been the target of criticism in recent months due to how the tournament is developed and its operation. However, now the alarms have gone off again due to the low fan attendance at stadiums.
In recent times, beyond the results, what has given us something to talk about in the Apertura 2024 has been the low attendance at the different venues, regardless of which team is home, This has even been seen with the current two-time champion America.
Given this, several questions have arisen about the reasons why this change has been seen in Liga MX, which is why Paco Vela spoke with an expert, a Mobile Ticket sellerwho told how he experiences this situation.
How long have you been operating the team ticket offices in Mexican soccer and how many teams do you manage?
We have been operating Paco since 2015, that is, we are now nine, we are already in our first decade. Of Liga MX we have 50 percent, nine, and of expansion we have 12 out of 15. 12 out of 15.
¿What has been the most important challenge What have they had to face in the technological, economic and social conditions in our country to offer the service they do to be able to acquire a ticket?
I believe that challenges are a very important aspect in the communication of events. cI think that some improvement is needed in terms of communicating to the fan much more clearly and much more in advance about the fact that the tickets are available, that you can say that the promotions are such and such. I think that is an important issue for the fan. Technical issues, no. People are increasingly accustomed to buying a ticket in the application, on the internet. We are very close to people already thinking that it is ‘crazy’ to have to go to a ticket office, I think.
But basically I think that part of an important challenge is the issue of organizing communication to be able to make the offer to the fan. Today the fan is… A mistake perhaps is to assume that the X Club fan is only thinking about attending the stadium. And no, today the fan has hundreds of entertainment options. There is a super offer of live events additional to football. Hundreds of entertainment offers from your home. And I think that a challenge is to better communicate to the fan the benefits of the ticket, the attendance, the experience, etc.
​How do fans in Mexico consume soccer unlike other shows?
The consumption habit is that, There are many things in football, in the football office, that depend on ancestry, roots, passion, because it is their club, etc.ersus consumption, well also in music. Obviously you love a group and so on, but the frequency is also what’s a little different.
In other words, the fan has soccer every 15 days, you can’t have your favorite artist every 15 days. That definitely doesn’t work like that. So how it is consumed is more varied. That is, the frequency is not varied, the response is not varied. The question is frequency. The business is to find that the frequency is higher.
Can the behavior of the Liga MX fan be identified?
Regarding the possibility of knowing what Mexican soccer fans are like in order to give them a pleasant experience in the stadiums, the expert pointed out that it is difficult to encompass and define what the Mexican fan’s consumption is like.
“There is not so much loyalty, because of what you suddenly say, the one who went to matchday two did not go to the following matchdays. In Mexican soccer, in that 50 percent, which seems to me to be a universe that does represent half of the market Mexican, to define, to put a name, a monkey, a figure and say the Mexican fan consumes like this,” he said.
“I think it is very difficult to classify what the Mexican soccer fan is like, because the Mexican soccer fan in Guadalajara, for Guadalajara, behaves completely different from the Tigres fan. That’s why it seems difficult for me to include the Mexican soccer fan, rather I think that we have clusters and we are now clearer about how the La Fiera fan behaves, how the Mazatlán fan behaves, how the Tigres fan behaves, how Chivas behaves, etc.,” he added.
After this, he pointed out that the clubs themselves, with the data provided by the tickets to the stadium, are the ones who must look for alternatives to discover how to keep their fans interested in going to the stadium.
“The clubs, to be super honest with you, I think that in the next five years it will be necessary to discover in even more detail what you are talking about about habits, to find with the data that we do have them and that today we have to put them in a digested way.” , easier for clubs to execute things (…) It is not the same that they serve you or that the brand serves you as a super loyal fan and very good consumer as someone who is going for the first time, for example, or who goes 15 percent of the year because their habit is like that. “, said.
Is better treatment of fans necessary?
During the interview it was noted that the fan experience is not just about obtaining a ticket and entering the stadium, as they can be treated better with the services offered at the venue.
“There will always be ways to make the experience more perfect, but definitely you can be treated better. In other words, you can be treated better, not just with the ticket and tickets, but with the services we offer in the place, right? ? With all the part of trying to understand that although it is football and it is passion, it is still entertainment Q.That you go to a place where you can sit in a comfortable place, that the beer is cold, that they serve you quickly, that as far as possible there is the best way to operate the stadium, to enter and exit. But everything starts with the ticket in hand.”
Are you helping your teams develop anything to improve the stadium experience?
Yes, of course it is our job, we are commercial partners of the clubs. Thinking that we are a solution on top of it and that you get the most out of it as things go for you in life, well no, the intention is, the more tickets the clubs we have sell, the more business we sell for us too.
Why are people staying away from stadiums?
The expert considered that – although it does influence – the football that the teams show on the field is not the only reason, since he believes that there are also factors, such as the profitability of other sporting and entertainment events.
“I think that with all the good vibes, they are very alarmist to think what football is. That is, to think that people are abandoning the MX league. I honestly don’t think that’s the case. “I believe we are living in a post-pandemic boom era.”
“You and I were locked up for I don’t know how long in our houses without having the possibility to do anything. And if I ask you how many concerts and live events you have gone to in the last three years, I assure you that it is much higher than expected. that you lived through in the first three years of the pandemic, right?
For this reason, he pointed out that it is also a market and pocket issue, since fans are not only concerned about League soccer games, but also games of other sports, fairs, concerts and more.
“The fan cannot afford soccer, basketball, baseball, the concert, the festival, etc., etc., etc. Where you live, there is the balloon festival, La Fiera plays, the bees, the rallis are playing, the cervantino is coming, the rally, Apodaca does concerts every two, three weeks.”
“So, as I see it, there is an excess demand for, or we were lowering that peak that we had, all of us who are dedicated to entertainment, well like everyone in the pandemic, we were super affected by the pandemic, right? And then we had three and a half years where we had an impressive rally of attendance, events, concerts, etc., etc. Today there is talk that there is an abandonment, but neither is there talk that in recent years there has been a rebound in online sales of stadiums, in which there have already been fewer sales at the box office and that clubs are selling much faster online “.
The contrast with other entertainment events
Taking into account the boom that some other events have had in recent months, the ticket seller pointed out that the drop in tickets at football stadiums is not as alarming as it seems, since this event has also been seen at concerts, for example. example.
“In addition to football, from what I told you, we have concerts, theaters, etc., etc., etc., and yes, the trend is attendance at live events, and not because they are bad events, that is, it is just a specific question of soccer, because then those notes are about ‘they are abandoning soccer and the federation is doing I don’t know what’, it is not true, honestly the music events no longer attract 10 thousand people, they already include 6 thousand and include other courtesies to try to have the place in favor, the theater is not filling up, there are concerts that are being canceled because there is not enough demand for the events.”
Is low stadium attendance related to the show?
“It is related to the show, what I am going to is the quality of the show, that is, if you have a super repetitive show like the one I told you about right now, we already saw it, we literally just saw it last year and the pocketbook, as I told you ago time is not enough for everything, you are watching Metálica right now, tell me how you are with Metálica, it is a top-level show with very high demand, it is full.”
“The league is going to be full, that is, the point is, it is going to cost us more work for the clubs, for the media, for the actors who are around the events, because to start leading to a match on the day of 16, where perhaps nothing is being played anymore, team A against team B, because it is definitely going to cost us a lot more work, but I invite you to the fact that if Guadalajara América plays in the quarterfinals, the stadium will to be full, both at full capacity, then everything is correlated to the quality of the show.
FCM
