Edgbaston, Old Trafford and Headingley all charge much less, while England fans could watch a full Test away in New Zealand for just £64
September 26, 2024 7:00 am
What does £175 buy you these days? Return flights from London to Barcelona, Rome or Stockholm next summer? An Amazon Kindle? A Galaxy A9 tablet? A Garmin smart watch? No, all of these are cheaper.
The correct answer is a ticket to watch Test cricket at Lord’s next July. That’s right, if you want to go and watch one of the first three days of England’s third Test against India it will set you back between £120 and £175 for an adult ticket with an unrestricted view. That’s the equivalent of four adult tickets for a leading West End show.
For kids, it’s £40 to £50, an absolute bargain in the circumstances, right? Wrong. The cheapest adult tickets for the India Tests at Edgbaston (£35) and Old Trafford (£38) next summer go for less. At Headingley, where England’s series against India starts, the cheapest adult ticket for days one to three is £50.
It’s barely a month since just 9,000 people – one third of the capacity of Lord’s – turned up for the fourth and final day of England’s Test against Sri Lanka. Back then the cheapest available ticket was £95. Guy Lavender, chief executive of Marylebone Cricket Club, owners of Lord’s, admitted there would be a review of day-four ticket prices after that.
So what’s happened? The price range for the fourth day of next summer’s India Test for one adult ticket is between £90 and £150.
Tickets for a day at the cricket at Lord’s have always been pricey.
The most expensive ticket for the 2023 Ashes Test against Australia, for example, was £170. Yet it doesn’t make it right and it was one of the reasons why I argued this month that Lord’s should be stripped of one of its two Tests a year.
The ground will also host the World Test Championship final next summer, with prices between £70 and £130.
There will always be a premium on England tickets, especially against top opposition. In terms of demand, it’s arguable that home Tests against India are more popular even than the Ashes given the huge numbers of British Asians who want tickets.
Yet given that Test cricket has been behind a paywall in the UK for 19 years and the issues the sport has engaging with people from diverse backgrounds, shouldn’t the MCC take into account the value of making cricket’s ultimate format accessible for all?
It was timely that yesterday, the England & Wales Cricket Board released an update on the progress they have made since last year’s release of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket report that stated “racism, class-based discrimination, elitism and sexism are widespread and deep rooted” in the sport.
ECB chairman Richard Thompson said this week: “While we continue to acknowledge the challenges, historic and current, it is also true cricket has a unique ability to connect the communities of England and Wales. For that reason, I remain confident and determined that cricket will become this country’s most inclusive team sport.”
There is little inclusive about the pricing of that Lord’s India Test. Indeed, it is the polar opposite – exclusive.
The MCC is not alone among sports clubs in raising prices for marquee fixtures. Yet even Premier League football is arguably better value than a day’s Test cricket at Lord’s. Football lasts only 90 minutes, of course, but match day pricing for the major clubs is more reasonable than a Lord’s Test.
If you want to go and watch Liverpool in the Premier League at Anfield this season it’ll set you back between £9 (a concession for local fans) and £61 for an adult ticket. How about Arsenal, whose Emirates Stadium is the closest Premier League ground to Lord’s? Between £37.15 and £141 for a category A game.
What about cricket elsewhere in the world? An adult pass for the entirety of any of England’s three Tests in New Zealand at the end of this year will set you back £64. That’s £12.80 a day over five days (or £16 if it’s over in four).
Yes, the cost of watching Test cricket in England as a whole – not just Lord’s – is too high in comparison. But the Home of Cricket is way out in front when it comes to prioritising profit over everything else.
