Bolton Wanderers have already sold more season tickets for the upcoming campaign since the club exited the Premier League.
It has been a decade this year since the Whites suffered relegation from the top flight. Their journey in the 10 years which has followed has seen the club play in the Championship, League One and League Two.
Wanderers finished last season in ninth place in League One, coming in the top 10 upon their return to the third tier of English football. This season, the club is targeting promotion and challenging for a place in the top six.
READ MORE: 'Have to be patient' - Ian Evatt opens up on two Bolton Wanderers missed transfer window targets
Wanderers season tickets for the 2022/23 season went on sale very early, not long after the January transfer window had finished. Special early bird prices were offered which saw more than 12,000 snapped up by the time it came to an end at the conclusion of March.
That figure has slowly risen towards the 13,000 mark and Wanderers are aiming for a season ticket number of 14,000 by the time the campaign begins at the end of July. Wanderers' first home game will be in the first week of August against Wycombe Wanderers, having begun the season on the road versus Ipswich Town.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News , Wanderers chief executive Neil Hart is hoping that the club can average an overall crowd of some 17,000 supporters, when non-season ticket holders and visiting supporters are taken into account. The Bolton chief executive has hailed the achievement of selling season tickets at a volume not seen since the club was in the top flight and puts Wanderers in a great position for the upcoming campaign.
He said: "My view is that it was a very smart thing to do. We had a very good January window, results were picking up, and we decided to go early in February. A February launch for season tickets at Wanderers is very unusual. I’m not sure if it had ever happened.
“We decided to go early with an early bird offer. We reduced season ticket pricing significantly and that was a really positive thing that Sharon and the board and I wanted to do, just to acknowledge the cost of living and the challenges our supporters face. By the time the early bird window closed, which was the end of March, we’d sold over 12,000 season tickets which is phenomenal really in a seven or eight week period.
“When you look at last season, our season ticket volume was 10,500, so to increase that by 1,500 was fantastic. We went back on sale in April and they what were at last season’s prices, so there was no price increase really. We’re just short of 13,000 and we expect that to break 13,000 fairly quickly and get towards 14,000 hopefully by the start of the season, but let’s see what happens.
“The volume of season tickets we’ve done this year is a record since we’ve exited the Premier League in the 11/12 season. I think it’s worth pointing that out, for us to be in League One and hitting the numbers we’re hitting is really, really positive.
“I think the strategy around that is taking our mean gate forward. What I mean by that is in the season just gone, our mean gate was around 15,500, so we really wanted to take that mean gate beyond 17,000 for the forthcoming season. If you look at a baseline season ticket holder base of 13 to 14,000, if you put two to 3,000 walk up gate on that, and if you put the away crowd on that, we could be in a really positive position this year."
The Wanderers chief executive has been in the job for almost a year now. He has hailed the progress made over the past 12 months which has been done along with chairman Sharon Brittan, the club's board, manager Ian Evatt and the staff at the University of Bolton Stadium.
Hart reflected: “It’s been really enjoyable. It’s gone really quickly. It’s gone really fast but in some ways, it feels like I’ve been there a lot longer than a year because we’ve made so much progress and we’ve got so much done.
“But I’m really enjoying it and working with Sharon and the board and with Ian and all the staff at the stadium. The ingredients are there for us to hopefully continue an upward trajectory.”
Don't miss a thing from the club you love! For all the latest updates on Wanderers , sign up to our free newsletter packed with all the latest news here.
READ NEXT:
