Photo: Fortuna Dusseldorf
Last November, Paris F.C. said it was doing away with ticket prices for the rest of the season. While it was a marketing strategy for a second-division side playing in a rented stadium, it reflects the bigger fact that soccer is now largely a television business in which the fans are part of the production. Fortuna Düsseldorf, a German second-division club, pioneered free tickets as the start of a five-year pilot program — financed by sponsorship agreements — that could lead to abolishing ticket fees. For the first two of the three pilot games, Fortuna could have filled its 52,000-seat stadium two or three times over. Paris F.C. will “take stock” of its policy at the end of the season.
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