Industry News

NFL’s 49ers freeze ticket prices after poor season

The San Francisco 49ers have told fans they are freezing season-ticket prices for the next two years following another poor NFL season.

The 49ers have struggled since relocating to the Levi’s Stadium in 2014 but have some of the most expensive tickets in the NFL.

They have registered records of 8-8, 5-11 and 2-14 during their three full seasons at Levi’s, and after a poor 2016-17 are currently without a general manager.

Season tickets cost between $850 (£675/€790) and $3,750, and the range for personal seat licences is between $2,000 and $80,000.

“We are announcing that 49ers season ticket pricing will be frozen through the 2018 season,” the 49ers said in a letter sent to season-ticket holders. “Invoices for your 2017 season tickets will be made available to view and pay online in the coming weeks.”

The 49ers had an average attendance of 70,178 during 2016-17, which was the 13th highest out of 32 NFL teams.

At his season-ending news conference, 49ers chief executive Jed York said he was “embarrassed” by the team’s recent performance.

“This isn’t acceptable to me,” York said. “It’s not. Our fans deserve better than this. There were 59,000 fans here [for the season finale] for a game that certainly didn’t matter in the win-loss column.

“There were a lot of reports before the game about fans being here, not being here, but you still had 59,000 fans here because they cared about beating the Seahawks. I owe them so much more than what we’ve given to them. And we will give it to them.”