Newcastle United hierarchy make statement on ticket prices for next (2025/26) season | OneFootball

The fans have now heard from the Newcastle United hierarchy on ticket prices for next (2025/26) season.

The club making a public statement via CEO Darren Eales.

The Newcastle United Supporters Trust (NUST) wrote to the club/Eales last week.

They had called on the club to freeze all “full price” tickets for next (2025/26) season.

On Wednesday (29 January 2025) morning, the Newcastle United hierarchy replying in the name of Darren Eales;

‘Dear Newcastle United Supporters Trust,

Thank you for your recent letter and for raising the important issue of ticket pricing.

I want to firstly echo your comments on our incredible supporters. Our teams continue to received magnificent support wherever they play, and that is a source of immense pride for all of us. Our supporters are what makes Newcastle United truly special.

We are committed to growing, sustaining and empowering that support. We want as many people as possible to feel a deep connection with Newcastle United, wherever they are, and to experience the magic of match day, while also recognising and rewarding the steadfast loyalty of those who follow the team week in, week out.

In parallel to that, we are committed to developing teams that everyone connected with the club can be proud of – by investing in our talent pathway and by going up against fierce global competition to find, attract and retain top talent who will drive us forward.

That is especially challenging within the parameters of profit and sustainability rules, and we have continued to grow and optimise our commercial incomes to fuel our progress. That has also supported our investment in fans’ matchday experience and alleviated some of our sharply rising operational costs.

It is incumbent on the club to strike the right balance that keeps Newcastle United growing and competing on and off the pitch while ensuring tickets are as affordable and accessible as possible, and that is a challenge we will always approach with great care and consideration.

To support us in striking that balance, we continue to benchmark our ticket prices at Premier League level and across other sports and entertainment events, while being cognisant of rising costs elsewhere. Accordingly, we now offer the cheapest entry-level adult season ticket in the Premier League and consistently compare favourably across all pricing categories.

“Thank you also for your kind comments about our cup ticket prices. Alongside the amazing passion that exists within our supporters, we hope our approach to pricing has helped to bring even more fans into St. James’ Park who may not otherwise be able to do so due to the extremely high demand for Premier League matches.

“We have not yet made a final decision on ticket pricing for the 2025/26 season, but I want to assure you we will be applying the same high degree of care and consideration as we try to maintain a balance that helps us to build towards our future successes together.

Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the Newcastle United Supporters Trust and your members for your continued support for the club and its teams.

I look forward to meeting with you and your fellow members of the Fan Advisory Board soon.

Darren Eales

CEO, Newcastle United’

Fair play to NUST for raising the question but they/us surely knew what the response would be.

Our fans are the best, we love and appreciate you, blah blah blah, but no, we won’t give any assurances on ticket prices next season whatsoever.

I don’t have a problem with that, as in, I expected nothing else.

Darren Eales doesn’t work for us, the Newcastle United fans.

He works for the Newcastle United owners.

To think these Newcastle United owners care about the fans, anymore than any other Premier League club owners do, is surely naive in the extreme.

Why would they?

The Reuben family and Saudi Arabia PIF aren’t Newcastle United fans.

They are the same as pretty much all others who own Premier League clubs, whether now or in the past. There are the very odd current exceptions, such as Tony Bloom who is a Brighton fan, same with Matthew Benham who is a Brentford fan.

This isn’t a criticism of the Newcastle United owners, just stating facts.

They bought Newcastle United for their own selfish reasons, same as other Premier League owners. They will have their reasons, one or more of money, power, influence, part of a bigger overall plan/jigsaw to do with their other business interests.

They saw Newcastle United as a great investment opportunity and nobody in the Reuben family, nobody in Saudi Arabia, was thinking, ‘you know what, let’s go and save those Geordies from Mike Ashley.’

They were looking at Newcastle United as an undervalued business due to Ashley’s actions, after almost a decade and a half the then owner finding himself at last forced to sell due to his own actions. Those actions leading to so many fans refusing to give him their money to fill the seats anymore, so he was forced to give 10,000+ free season tickets away, selling the club at a bargain price to the Reubens and Saudi Arabia PIF who saw an absolute bargain.

The irony was wonderful. Mike Ashley has built a massive retail empire based on buying up businesses/brands that were struggling, largely due to mismanagement, taking advantage of the situation and getting them on the cheap. Then after asset/morale stripping Newcastle United, Ashley feeling forced into doing the same at a knockdown price!!!

As the Premier League delayed approving the takeover, Mike Ashley realised he had been too hasty in taking the Saudi/Reuben offer and tried to get out of the deal and charge more, either to the same buyers or somebody else. However, Ashley found he was contractually stuck with that originally agreed £305m buyout price.

No wonder he has pulled so many stunts since, to try and make things as difficult as possible for these new/current owners!

Getting back to Newcastle United ticket prices…

These Newcastle United owners want to rake in as much cash as possible, they don’t care about the fans.

It is just business.

Personally, I have no problem at all with this, it is just the way that it is. That is how Premier League club owners treat their fans. Look at what all the major (as well as most of the not so major) Premier League clubs are doing with ticket prices, look at Man U, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Villa, Liverpool, West Ham and so on.

They will all charge as much as they can.

It is just business.

No, I wouldn’t rather have Mike Ashley back…

For anybody saying; ‘I suppose you’d just as well have Mike Ashley back then?’

That would be a most definite no.

Not for one second do I think the Newcastle United owners care about the fans more than any of the owners of the clubs named above.

So then, why do I think these new/current owners of NUFC are better/different to Mike Ashley?

The simple answer is that my hope and expectation is that they will run Newcastle United in a far more professional and ambitious way than Ashley did.

I know that wasn’t difficult to improve on but I think they have done an excellent job so far, not in terms of specifically looking after fans, but in terms of rebuilding the club so it can be more competitive, on and off the pitch.

You see, this is the only place where the needs and wants of both Newcastle United fans and these NUFC owners meet.

Newcastle United fans want to have a successful strong club, on and off the pitch, which is exactly the same as what these NUFC owners want/need.

So, I have every confidence that when it comes to generating as much money as possible for the football club, these Newcastle United owners are absolutely committed to that.

This also of course especially applies to the senior staff that the Newcastle United owners employ.

Darren Eales and others might go around saying how great the fans are and shaking their hands at meet and greets BUT for the Newcastle United CEO and the rest of the employed NUFC hierarchy, their only real job is ensuring the club is generating as much revenue as possible.

Which if you still doubt that, just remember three letters, which I am sure you will all have at the forefront of your NUFC thoughts.

Yes, PSR.

Darren Eales claims the club don’t know how much they are going to charge for tickets next season.

Hmmm, I know how much I believe him when he claims that, maybe you think differently…?

What I do know, or at least what I am 100% convinced of, is that the ticket prices will go up next season, Just a case of by how much.

Whilst one thing I am more (if it were possible to be) than 100% sure of, is that when the Newcastle United owners reveal how much ticket prices are going up for the 2025/26 season, they will be quoting PSR countless times.

Which is fair enough, up to a point.

All the clubs are doing the same, pointing to all the other major Premier League clubs and saying ‘look at what they are charging for tickets.’

Darren Eales does the same in his letter to NUST, basically saying look at how much all the other clubs charge and/or how much they are putting up their ticket prices.

I can only imagine as well the frustration of these Newcastle United owners, that one of the many negative (for the current owners) Mike Ashley legacies they have been gnashing their teeth at, are the long-term Ashley ticket deals which have now finally all run their course by the end of this current season. These current NUFC owners having already made public that they won’t be continued beyond this season, now they are not legally obliged to do so.

The Newcastle United owners now charge a minimum of £47 for match by match adult tickets (for adult members who have also already paid £37 for a year’s membership), a minimum of £50 for the ‘more glamorous’ matches (such as against bottom half of the table Man U and Spurs…). These minimum prices include the least attractive seats inside St James’ Park, such as up in Leazes Level 7 near the away fans.

So just imagine the frustration of Darren Eales and the Newcastle United owners when for example thousands of season ticket holders in prime seats in the Leazes and Gallowgate, are paying what works out less than £25 per match, if on the Mike Ashley deals?

As I say, this all ends the current season and I would also be amazed if the ‘family ‘ area survives. This was also sold by Mike Ashley as something he was doing for the fans, whereas of course he was simply looking to guarantee selling a lot of the harder to sell tickets inside SJP, by branding them as a ‘family’ section and putting backsides on seats, pile them high and sell them cheap, especially kids tickets for less than £100 per season ticket.

Obviously, the ability to sell tickets is the least of the worries for these Newcastle United owners now.

Instead, they are looking to get as much money as possible from selling tickets, they know they can fill them all at pretty much any price (within some kind of reason…).

I simply can’t see the Newcastle United owners, continuing the family section cheap as chips prices. I think they have been waiting for the other Ashley deals to run out and sort all the new stadium ticket pricing at the same time. After all, when we got to the Champions League, tickets cost the same up in Level 7 above the Milburn, as they did in the likes of the Leazes and Gallowgate.

You also have the incongruous fact that when buying tickets as members match by match currently, if you are successful in a Premier League ballot and are taking a kid with you. It is possible to get tickets right on the halfway line, up in Level 7 of the Milburn stand family section, at a far cheaper price than if you bought yourself and your child tickets in the very worst seats in Leazes end Level 7 next to the away fans.

The ticket pricing and who pays what, has been a right mess these last few years, due to the legacy of Mike Ashley.

Good luck to those, I know a lot of them, who have now been watching excellent football these last few years at the Ashley legacy bargain prices. However, that is now all coming to an end.

I only hope that these Newcastle United owners will at least have some restraint on what they do with ticket prices next season for ALL fans, find a level of fairness and make things as affordable as possible for the Newcastle United supporters.

The fact is of course that demand massively exceeds supply for every single game at St James’ Park and we can only hope that a far bigger capacity stadium is delivered as soon as possible, whether an expanded SJP or at a very nearby new site.

That will allow far more fans to go to home games and deliver far more overall matchday revenues to the club’s owners. The bigger the capacity as well, the bigger the hope that ticket prices can be kept as reasonable as possible, from a fan perspective.