Attendances have been a ongoing worry for me for years, the actual pattern of football shows a decline in people going to watch at this level, I did some research 12-18 months ago on this and gave a letter of suggestions to Waggot but never heard anything back. I reviewed Cardiff, Swansea, Reading, Stoke, Hull, Huddersfield etc and they share a similar declining of year on year figures.
It was the back end of Covid-19 and some of the key suggestions I made was;
Bring the local businesses together on match day and utilise the fan zone area, taking ideas from other clubs whereby they had local food stalls selling homemade foods from Curry to baked goods such as pies and craft beer from small local breweries etc, I wanted us to capitalise on this given the SME's in the area had been effected with Covid and shops shut (Look at the new local pie company which sponsors games), the intention was to use the fan zone and a bit of the back bit of the carpark to have stalls for the games last season when we could attend again at first. Possible Meal Match tickets to be on offer.
I would like to have seen a link up with the Essa brothers who own EG and Asda amongst other businesses including fashion chains. The club could have promoted itself in localist ASDA stores, those customers purchasing over £40.00 of Asda goods qualifying for say £5.00 of a match ticket next home game (Given a coupon with a valid receipt). This would have been a benefit to both Asda and EG Fuel customers as it would have been to the club and possibly attracted more walk on infrequent fans.
Since sliding into the Championship ten years ago, I identified more than 115 brands which had previously supported Rovers from hoarding and advertising, to corporate and player sponsorship which have walked away from the club, some of those still employ in the area such as Crown Paints, to others on the SME scale including fashion brands. I spoke to a number of these brands who've since leaving rovers in 2013 sponsorship wise have never been invited back to the fold.
Business Breakfasts & Corporate event hosting, to use the facilities of Ewood for hosting corporate events including the businesses breakfasts of which we actually have done similar since, I also wanted more player nights q&a's of which we seemed to do something similar with the 2002 Worthington winners night.
Community walls - Like with the bricks, I suggested to get back into schools to assist in PE lessons, run local competitions with schools/after school clubs to art colleges locally to design a mosaic wall at Ewood for local students to display there art, running more soccer camps etc.
Flexi Season Ticket - The Flexi Season ticket for Saturdays only for those not able to make midweek games.
Community Repair and Clean Day - Free ticket to those helping to offer a minimum of 3 hours before a certain game to help re-paint, clean parts of the stadium, I had local businesses specialised for DFT and Network Rail ready to jet wash the stadium etc in exchange for some positive PR from the club.
Supporterts Help a Hand Fund - Designed at targeting sponsors and supporters to create a hardship fund through donations whereby struggling households such as single parents who perhaps can't afford match tickets can I apply to the scheme for a match ticket and this is sponsored by whomever.
They were just a brief few points of many but never seemed to gain traction.
In all seriousness though, I'm missing the Sunderland game because of family commitments, it was a game I was really wanting to go to, but family comes first I'm afraid.