There was a members meeting with our CEO Steve Mitchell a few months back, and one of the big topics raised was the increase in ticket prices. From what I remember, the main reason given was our stadium deal. We’re now paying somewhere between $150,000 and $250,000 (I believe?) per game at Cbus when the full stadium is opened. That’s a decent jump from the $110,000 per game we used to pay when the southern stand was regularly closed during our more... scarce years. Obviously, ticket sales help cover those operational costs, including stadium rental. But when you actually look at the numbers, the recent price hikes does come more like a revenue move than a genuine necessity.
Here’s how many seats each section holds at Cbus:
Eastern Stand: 8,996
Western Stand (including corporate): 6,669
Northern Stand: 6,248
Southern Stand: 5,881
Total: 27,794 seats
For this, I’ve used the upcoming Titans vs Rabbitohs game as a base. Ticket prices ranged from $25.45 up to $164.85 (without including the star and betr suits which are $300–$425 per person, thus outliers). This covers the price range for junior to adult tickets across the stadium. When you run a mean (average) calculation on all those values, the result comes out to around $67.82, which I’ve rounded to $68 to keep it simple.
Now let’s apply that $68 average ticket price to our best and worst attended games this year:
Highest crowd (vs Broncos):
24,553 × $68 = $1,669,604
Lowest crowd (vs Dolphins):
13,167 × $68 = $895,356
Again, these figures obviously aren’t exact. They don’t account for pre-paid member tickets, corporate seats, kids getting in free, giveaways, or anything like that. But it still gives you a decent idea of what kind of money is being generated from just the gate takings alone.
Here’s where it starts to get interesting. So far in 2025, we’ve had 126,184 people attend games at Cbus. Multiply that by the average ticket price:
126,184 × $68 = $8,580,512
We’ve had 8 home games at Cbus so far this season. Divide that number out:
$8,580,512 ÷ 8 = $1,072,564 per game (on average)
Again, this will most likely be lower in reality due to all the usual factors; members, ticket giveaways, ticket deals (2 for 1) corporate inclusions, etc. But even with those adjustments, it’s still a significant jump from what we’ve seen in previous seasons.
Now compare that to last year. In 2024, Steve confirmed in the members meeting that the club brought in $39 million in total revenue, which roughly lines up with the $40 million figure reported by NewsCorp earlier in the year (see below)
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Out of that $39–40 million, $3.9 million came from game day revenue. Across 11 Cbus home games last season, that works out to about $354,545 per game, not factoring in the same things we’re leaving out when calculating, so it’s a clean comparison in that sense. So, we’ve gone from roughly $354k per game last year to an estimated $1,072,439 per game this year, with still 3 home games left on the schedule. That’s not a small jump, that’s a little bit more than triple.
It really puts the ticket price conversation into perspective. I’ve spoken to so many people about our price increases, and nearly all of them, myself included, believe it’s a bit of a rort. And honestly, when you just look at the numbers at face value, it’s hard to disagree. The club is highly likely to be bringing in more money at the gate this year, and you’d have to assume that increase is almost entirely driven by higher prices, not just bigger crowds (especially when our lowest crowd was still over 13k).
That being said, and this is where it gets a bit more grey, if you factor in the higher stadium rental costs, general operational expenses, staff, entertainment, and all the other stuff that goes into hosting a game... it starts to make a bit more sense. Not necessarily enough to fully justify the prices, but enough to at least understand where the club is coming from, especially for our lower attended games.
At the end of the day, it’s about balance. Fans want value, especially in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. No one’s asking for $10 tickets on the GC, but the gap between what non members, casuals, away fans, etc. are paying and what’s actually needed to break even + profit just feels a bit more wider than it probably should be.
And when the team’s not performing consistently, that gap feels even harder to justify.
TL;DR - ticket prices go brr to offset costs
