BBC Test Match Special
Ticket prices & Test Matches
Test Match Special in particular has been voluble on 1st September about the lack of attendance at Lords for the fourth day of the England v Sri Lanka Test. Tickets cost a minimum of £95 and despite it being known in advance that tickets sales had been poor nothing was done.
Of course its Lords and as Duncan Stone points out in his book Different Class, its about elitism. The MCC talk about inclusivity but the practice is too often lacking. There is a large Sri Lankan community in London. One wonders what was done to persuade them to come?
I was at the West Indies Test at Lords in July with my partner Megan, Jimmy Anderson’s last and enjoyed it. But then I at least fit the demographic. White, in my sixties, not impecunious. Only the beard and my socialist politics marks me out.
Perhaps this is something that Lisa Nandy the new Culture Secretary might address. I don’t see much evidence that Keir Starmer is a cricket fan (I have scoured Tom Baldwin’s biography) but that could be work in progress.
The problem is not just Lords of course. Attendance at international cricket matches is good for home matches played by Australia, India and England (the above allowed) and elsewhere as anyone who looks at games on Sky or TNT knows its sparse.
Partly the nature of working life in 2024 lends itself much more to short form cricket. Partly there is a huge mismatch in resources for the promotion and staging of Test cricket.
Back however to England and Wales, its not just Lords. Crowds at the Old Trafford Test in August were far from capacity. If we switch codes, 45% of the attendance for Hundred games this year was at Lords and the Oval.
To their credit two Lords admin people spoke to Jonathan Agnew about ticketing, attendance and cost. Clearly matters are reviewed but an alert sounded, at least for me, when dynamic pricing was mentioned. Essentially that means charging what can be got away with. As Agnew underlined however it should be a matter of pricing tickets at a level those without so much money can afford and widening the attendance at Test matches beyond people like me
Perhaps its time cricket grappled with the cost of living crisis. Energy prices are on the rise again. A day at the Test may seem expendable compared to keeping warm this winter.
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