QPR season ticket price increase story

There's a story from the Fulham Chronicle that's gone viral among the QPR internet community. It's suggesting the 20011/12 season ticket prices will go up by 35%. Note that's the SEASON TICKET prices,  for a season that will comprise 4 fewer games than the one just gone. This would mean match prices shooting through the roof. I've done some maths to demonstrate how, but first, here's a link to the story in question:


http://www.fulhamchronicle.co.uk/london-sport/london-qpr/2011/05/19/qpr-season-ticket-prices-set-to-rise-by-35-per-cent-64767-28727829/


Here come the maths:
This year's adult prices were: 

Platinum £699 per season ticket or £35 per match 

Gold £599 per season ticket or £30 per match 

Silver £525 per season ticket or £25 per match 

Bronze £450 per season ticket or £20 per match 


Ok let's interpret this story as a 35% increase in each season ticket (which is what it says after all). 

So that's new season ticket prices of (to nearest pound) 

Platinum £944 

Gold £809 

Silver £709 

Bronze £608 

Let's assume they've cut the number of free games to just one for all season tickets (which they might do given that there are only 19 games). 

So divide those numbers by 18 for the approximate match prices. 

Platinum £52 

Gold £45 

Silver £39 

Bronze £34 

And just to see how badly this would stitch up pay on the day fans let's look at the ratio between the old match prices and these estimates. 

Note that this would be a minimum for match prices unless they'd be evil enough to make season ticket prices more expensive than paying for all the games individually. 


Platinum - 52:35 = 49% increase 

Gold - 45:30 = 50% increase 

Silver - 39:25 = 56% increase 

Bronze - 34:20 = 70% increase 


Ok so this indicates the following possibilities. 

1) The club haven't thought this through and will surely rethink following feedback from the fans. 

2) The club have thought this through but 

a)either don't care or 
b) can't see any other way to give Neil Warnock the transfer funds he needs - (unlikely given the TV money) 

3) The report is wrong. 

My opinion is that the order of likelihood of these possibilities starting with the most likely is 

3, 2a, 1, 2b. 

And I really think it's 3.