Having grown up in London going to rugby and football games for as little as £10 for a kids ticket, it dismays me to see the price of sports tickets now, as discussed by Jonathan Liew (Spiralling costs tear through notion of sport as a communal force for good, 11 July).
How fortunate we are in New Zealand that a family day out at a major sport event is still a perfectly affordable day out. We recently took out seven kids to the Super Rugby finals, with the Chiefs playing the Crusaders, and paid £6 for kids’ tickets and £12 for adults’.
We went to the All Blacks v South Africa game on Saturday with £13 kids’ tickets. Our kids love the atmosphere and are hugely passionate about playing sports themselves. You never realise how lucky you are until you read the fate of other people trying to get tickets to their favourite teams.
As Liew says, it’s become a rich man’s world and an unaffordable experience for too many fans. These fat cat clubs should all be boycotted. Or better still, you could move to New Zealand and go to any sport games you want for the cost of a few cups of coffee.
Gaynor Tierney
Hamilton, Waikato, New Zealand
• While it is true that many of the professional sporting spectacles are priced out of the range of many people, it is still very possible to watch even national or international level competition in some sports.
Athletics cross-country races and road races are free to watch, as is the Night of the 10,000m PBs on the track, and triathlons and cycle races on the road. Even cricket has options for after-tea or fifth-day tickets for Tests. Many regional sports events are also available to watch for minimal fees (generally less than £10).
I coach athletics, so I am perhaps biased, and agree that events such as the Olympics are expensive, but I do believe it is still possible to see good-quality competitions in many sports for zero or minimal fees.
Juliet Kavanagh
London
• Jonathan Liew bemoans the spiralling cost of watching elite sport. However, 12 million people on the roadsides and mountains of France and the Pays Basque will experience for free the biggest annual sporting event in the world, the Tour de France.
With the UCI Cycling World Championships back in the UK this year in Glasgow, there is the chance for many of us to see the same elite riders on more local roads, with no money to pay at the turnstiles. The last UCI World Championships in the UK, in a rainy Yorkshire in 2019, saw a total of 712,000 spectators across the full week of racing.
John McPherson
Otley, West Yorkshire
• Speaking as a Chelsea fan, it’s a mixed picture here. Most season ticket prices have been frozen for some years, which means the club has moved from being one of the most expensive to one of the cheapest (I use the word advisedly) in the top flight in London.
However, we don’t get cup games in any competition included – and those prices have been creeping up. If you’re not a season ticket holder, prices have been creeping up too.
So if you’re a corporate or a season ticket holder like me, it’s not so bad. Anyone else – good luck getting in, and if you do you’ll have paid an arm and a leg.
Peter Collins
London
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