Ballots and queuing will remain the only way of securing general admission tickets to the Wimbledon Championships, which has ruled out following dynamic pricing moves made in entertainment and starting to be adopted in sport.
Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), organiser of the annual grass court grand slam, said ‘scarcity’ and ‘exclusivity’ remain the tournament’s unique selling point, as the annual ballot opened this month.
Ticketmaster’s ‘dynamic pricing’ method, where prices change according to demand, hit the headlines in the UK late last month as Oasis fans trying to buy tickets for their reunion tour were left furious when, after waiting in online queues for hours, they discovered the price had skyrocketed by hundreds of pounds.
The method has begun to creep into sports, with LaLiga sides Celta Vigo and Valencia recently receiving a backlash from fans after laying out their dynamic pricing plans.
While UK consumer protection law allows dynamic pricing – indeed it is an established practice for hotels, train operators and airlines, which charge more at peak times – the UK government has vowed to review the practice as part of a wider consultation on ticket sales.
Speaking at the IMG-RedBird Summit yesterday (Wednesday) on the subject of ‘Shifting Dynamics in the Economy of Sport’, Bolton said: “We’ll never go down the dynamic pricing route. We’ve just recently opened our ballot which we believe the fairest way to do it. So, there’s a window to apply in the ballot. You don’t have to keep refreshing your screen 1,000 times.
“It’s a fair way to allocate tickets. And there is something here about finding the sweet spot of supply and demand. And so, part of how our brand is premium and the reputation our brand and our event has, is because there’s a degree of scarcity, and as we think about how we grow our physical space, we only want to take that so far.
“We’ve been very clear that that is not about excessively increasing capacity, because the amount of tennis we will have will still be the same. We want to make sure that we’re continuing to create that supply constraint dynamic to it, because, in a positive way, it needs to remain exclusive.”
Expansion plans to be heard
Wimbledon has a daily capacity of just 43,000 people, meaning many fans are unsuccessful in the ballot. A limited number of tickets are held back to be sold on each day of play, leading to the famous Wimbledon queues forming overnight.
The AELTC has been hoping to increase the capacity, but so far its attempts to build a new 8,000-seat show court have been thwarted by the planning committee at Wandsworth Council. This came after the neighbouring Merton Council had approved the plans, which also include the construction of 39 new grass courts on the former site of Wimbledon Park Golf Club. In total, it would almost triple the footprint of the championships.
A public hearing on the expansion project will be held at London’s City Hall on September 27.
Campaigners opposed to the project believe it would cause unacceptable damage to the area’s biodiversity and heritage, while the AELTC said it will “secure the future of the championships” by enabling them to better compete with other global tennis tournaments and that it will create “year-round benefits for the local community”.
The AELTC purchased land for the proposed stadium back in 2018 and there had been hopes to open the court by 2030.
Fan engagement
From its pristine grass courts, compulsory white attire for players and only subtle reference to tournament sponsors around the field of play, the Wimbledon Championships have long been a bastion of tradition.
While that may not immediately appeal to a younger audience, the AELTC has been making strides to soften its image.
In 2022, the rights-holder launched WimbleWorld on metaverse platform Roblox, receiving more than 12 million visits. It has been rolled out at subsequent championships, while last year it launched an offering on online gaming platform Fortnite. ‘Race to Wimbledon’ challenged users to run, drive, parkour and fly past London landmarks to make it to Centre Court in the fastest time.
Then this year, the AELTC partnered with Blippi, the American YouTube star, to help popularise tennis among under-fives.
All are examples of the AELTC moving out of its comfort zone.
Bolton continued: “I’ll be honest, I’ve never been on Roblox, but that’s where our future generation of fans are literally playing. And so some of our biggest drivers of engagement this year, and actually over the last couple of years, have been through Roblox, and we’ve spent a really significant amount of time talking to that age group about what they want from Roblox.
“The other one that just staggered me was the scale of the attention we got from the collaboration we did with Blippi. Again, not someone I was generally familiar with, but a social media influencer and has a YouTube channel directly targeted at kids.
“It is crazy hard for the All England Club to get kind of naturally comfortable with that, but we have to go to where our next generation are; we’ve got to find different ways to excite them about what Wimbledon is, and we don’t always assume that that’s through the tennis.”