The biggest worry over Sheffield Wednesday season ticket prices is yet to come

And the fear peering in from the outside is that the biggest shock is yet to come.

Sheffield Wednesday’s latest release of season tickets has triggered a strong reaction online by Owls fans aggravated by the latest price hike. It was a hike they were explicitly warned of, but the numbers sting all the same as the cost of watching Wednesday – at current prices – sits comfortably in a Premier League bracket.

Any adult supporter wishing to buy a season ticket today must part with £565 for a seat on the Kop, with prices ranging to £795 in the South Stand.

Warnings of a further hike in cost beyond the June 26 cut-off raise fears Wednesday could end as the peddlers of the costliest tickets in the EFL, if they are not already.

Of the relegated Premier League teams, Leeds United’s cheapest season ticket is priced at £420, while the most expensive season tickets cost £646, a freeze on last season’s top tier price that saw them rebate a 10% price hike when relegation was confirmed. Leicester City’s frozen season ticket prices bottom out at £385 with a ceiling price of £695 while Southampton’s new season ticket holder price ranges from £379 to £729 – existing holders are £20 cheaper.

‘At the Lane’, perhaps the fairest like-for-like comparison from an socio-economic perspective, Sheffield United fans could up until this week pay £418.50 for a seat to watch Premier League football on the Kop, with top-price tickets at £528.50.

The reception of early bird tickets at Hillsborough were largely welcomed as reasonable and were largely in-line with those clubs – Wednesday released the first opportunity in January, which put ticket prices at between £395 and £535 – and were released irrespective of division in a staged-hike system designed to incentivise supporters able to part with their money earlier.

The latest round of inflated ticket prices are the first to arrive with the Owls’ Championship status secured.

The cold fact of the matter is that the majority of supporters hoping to get a season ticket will have already done so at more reasonable price points. The problem is that those Wednesdayites that haven’t – for whatever reason – may well feel they’ve been slapped with a sense of ‘tough luck’. That’s without considering cost of living crises that other clubs have mentioned in statements announcing lower price structures.

At the very least, it’s a black cloud of a PR own goal scored at a time the club should surely be making the most of warm Wembley sunshine.

The next fear for the majority of supporters is the eventual price of on-the-door tickets. With another season ticket price rise in the post, it should be expected that walk-ups will take a rise on prices paid previously at Championship level.

Perhaps these prices will provide a windfall that allows the Owls to take strides in Dejphon Chansiri’s ultimate mission of a return to the Premier League.

Some of Wednesday’s best performances last season and in seasons gone by have been in front of crowds of 30,000 or more. Fans will come and Chansiri knows that, but PR aside, let’s hope the club doesn’t shoot itself in the footballs by depriving themselves of a single sell-out.

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