Are football ticket prices too high? Lazio fans seem to think so. In a recent report from ESPN FC, it was revealed that Lazio's season ticket sales have hit their lowest point in a decade. After a 10 percent Lazio ticket price increase compared to last year, it seems as if fans are choosing to watch Lazio's football games from home instead of buying up seats at Stadio Olimpico. According to ESPN, it was Lazio's first price hike since 2004, and has therefore resulted in the soccer club's lowest season ticket sales since 2004. That's a pretty clear cause-and-effect relationship.
The Right Time for a Price Hike?
It does sense that Lazio officials chose this moment to raise ticket prices. The Eagles jumped from a ninth place finish in 2013 2014 to a third-place spot last season-their first time to land in the top three since the 2006 2007 soccer campaign. But Lazio failed to qualify for this year's Champions League-earning a playoff spot thanks to their third-place finish, but missing out on a group stage draw after losing big to Germany's Bayer Leverkusen (0-3) in the second playoff leg.
Even before Lazio missed out on their Champions League chances, though, they weren't selling tickets. Indeed, when the Eagles made their 2015 2016 Serie A debut on August 22nd, they were sitting pretty. They were coming back into Italian football a top-flight team, and had won the home leg of the UCL playoffs 1-0. They even won their season opener, beating Bologna 2-1 in front of home audiences, but the number of empty seats was more notable than the number of cheering fans.
ESPN reports that Lazio had sold 12,300 season tickets as of September 8th. Unless that number picked up significantly before season ticket sales closed for the 2015 2016 campaign, the Eagles could potentially have sold 10,000 fewer season tickets than they did for the 2013 2014 season. And that year, the soccer club was not coming off the tails of a fantastic third-place season.
The lesson? In the eyes of the fans, there is no right time for a ticket price hike-even if your soccer club just gave their best league performance in eight years.
Examining Football Ticket Prices throughout Europe
So it's pretty clear that fans in the Lazio soccer jersey 2015 2016 think their football club's tickets are too expensive, but what do supporters at other soccer clubs throughout Italy-or even throughout Europe as a whole-think of their ticket rates?
A survey done by The Guardian back in 2013 took a look at season ticket prices throughout Europe, and found that fans were more or less disgruntled across the board. Predictably, English Premier League boasts the most expensive season ticket prices. Based on The Guardian's 2013 findings, the average price for the cheapest season ticket in the Premier League was a jaw-dropping £467.95. In comparison, the average prices for the cheapest season tickets in the Spanish La Liga (£232.80), the German Bundesliga (£207.22), and the Serie A (£164.89) really do seem cheap.
Back when The Guardian ran their piece about average ticket prices, they noted that groups of football fans in England had gone so far as to warn Premier League officials that there was a risk of "future 
generations being lost" to the game due to high prices.
The good news at Lazio is that there doesn't seem to be a risk of young people being priced out of the ticket market. On the contrary, the Eagles offer reduced prices for fans under the age of 15-a group that, according to ESPN FC, accounted for 4,000 (or 32.5 percent) of the 12,300 season tickets the soccer club has sold for the 2015 2016 season. The bad news is that longtime Lazio fans don't feel enough loyalty toward the club to justify paying 10 percent more than they have in recent years.
What do you think? Will you still be picking up a Lazio jersey 2015 2016 from Soccer Box and rooting for the Eagles this season? Or has the club's sudden price increase spoiled your anticipation for the new 2015 2016 campaign? Share your thoughts with Soccer Box on social media! We are active daily on multiple networks including Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr.
