Bayern proved a major draw on their tour of the USA with queues for autographs in Manhattan stretching back hundreds of yards and a crowd of 5,000 flocking to an open training session in Portland – and back home in Germany the situation is even more extreme. The club’s ticketing unit has never been busier, deputy chairman Jan-Christian Dreesen reported on Friday: “Demand is even higher than last year.”
As has been the case for several years now, every Bundesliga fixture involving FCB both home and away is already massively overbooked. The ticketing unit has been forced to turn down more applications than ever before, with even the least in-demand home match attracting 120,000 requests for tickets. “And for the home game against Dortmund we could have sold 300,000 tickets. That's a vast number,” Dreesen commented.
Bayern could in fact fill every away Bundesliga stadium exclusively with their own fans. “We've had 42,000 ticket requests even for the match against promoted newcomers Paderborn, and 85,000 for the trip to Dortmund.”
Capacity expansion
In an effort to accommodate at least part of the soaring demand, the club has used the summer break to create more space at the Allianz Arena. Reconstruction and structural alterations have yielded an additional 2,200 standing places in the lower tier of the South Stand, with a further 2,700 seats elsewhere around the stadium.
Once the changes are approved by the relevant authorities, the capacity at the Allianz Arena will rise to 75,000 for domestic fixtures and 69,344 for European and international matches. Dreesen is hoping to obtain the approvals during the first half of the season. “I'm very optimistic. I think the whole process will end well,” the deputy chairman said.
Club to resell its own tickets
Dreesen announced another piece of good news for fans as Bayern have become the first Bundesliga club to launch their own dedicated secondary ticketing market. Those holding tickets, including season tickets, for FCB's league matches but are themselves unable to attend can offer their tickets to other fans at face value.
“It eliminates scalping and touting,” explained Dreesen, “our true fans will only sell their tickets via our resale market.” The club permanently monitors other retail portals. Fans found to be offering season tickets with the intention of financial gain could have their tickets cancelled and their agreement with the club terminated, the board director warned. The new secondary market is already a hive of activity, Dreesen revealed: “At the moment it takes an average of just one minute 10 seconds to sell a ticket.”
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