Can the Sydney Roosters justify charging South Sydney Rabbitohs fans over $90 for their clash on Friday night?
The Rabbitohs made a formal complaint to The Daily Telegraph on Monday morning after it was revealed that the Roosters are charging their rivals $90 for an adult ticket when the same seats for other home games are being sold for $40 less.
This isn’t the first time this season the Roosters have come under fire for inflating ticket prices after the tricolours opened up an away bay for the traditional ANZAC Day clash against the Dragons, with tickets going for $100 per adult.
Roosters CEO Joe Kelly defended the club’s decision stating that the Rabbitohs and Dragons clashes are considered ‘tier one’ games, giving them a reason to bump up the prices.
“We’ve got three tiers this year and it’ll all depend on who we play each and every year, our tiering of matches this year are Anzac Day (as) our highest category, followed by our Souths game and then the rest of the games are all of equal stature,” Kelly said on SEN 1170 Afternoons.
“As you can see it’s based on supply and demand, as it is around the world when it comes to sporting events, you’ll see dynamic pricing broadly applied by many sporting organisations.”
Kelly defended the pricing by revealing what the Roosters are doing to help reduce the price for Souths members.
“Those tickets (category one) start from $90 for an adult but from that sort of highlight number that’s been used, Rabbitohs members were given a 10% discount on that,” Kelly added.
“It was the case where a number of Rabbitohs members thought the price was too high, so we offered another tiering which is category four pricing, which is behind the goal… they’re $110 for the family.
“At the end of the day, the essence of our sport is that we are a live form of entertainment, we want to see bums on seats, we want to see our members out here supporting our team.”
The Roosters and Rabbitohs do battle at Allianz Stadium on Friday night.