Don’t know if people have seen this regarding buybacks this season

Changes to the seat Buyback arrangements for 2025-26.
5 hours ago
3 min read

As fans will be aware, the Club has recently announced its intention to use digital ticketing at Carrow Road from 2025/26 season, partnering with provider SeatGeek.

The initial announcement was preceded by fairly extensive, behind-the-scenes dialogue between the Club and its Supporters’ Panel, which includes representation from the Trust. The Club has also been in communication with other football clubs currently using SeatGeek, in order to gain a better understanding of the initial roll-out process, together with likely ongoing use issues of the technology.

City’s own roll-out has now begun, and the Club has stated that digital ticketing will deliver benefits such as easier ticket sharing between City fans, while supporting the club’s sustainability objectives.

The transferability aspect is of great importance to all supporters, not least because the latest Sky media deal means more and more games being televised each season, with kick-off times and dates being changed, often at short notice, especially later in the season.

The TV deal makes travel arrangements more difficult, and, when combined with supporters’ own work and family commitments, means that there’s a growing trend of non-attendance by season ticket holders.

On transferability, the Club’s current focus is on increasing the use of the friends and family option to pass on your ticket.

Fans unable to utilise their friends and family options can use the Club’s buyback scheme, making their ticket available for other fans to purchase, should they be unable to attend a particular game.

Whilst fans questioned the effectiveness of the scheme in the past, it did have a particular advantage. If a ticket was previously resold, their account would be the credited with £20, assuming a standard adult resale. The supporter then had the option to draw down the credit to their payment card for immediate personal use, or, alternatively, their credits could be retained on their account and used as part-payment towards next season’s season ticket at renewal.

However, from this season neither of these credit options arrangements was planned to be available to fans should their season tickets be resold. Credits will have to be utilised to purchase either cup tickets, or additional tickets for home games during 2025-26.

Neither the Supporters’ Panel, nor the Trust, believed that these changes, which have only just become public, are necessary. Digital ticketing should be a driver to increase the wider use of the buyback scheme, giving more fans the opportunity to regularly buy the better located seats. Additionally, the Club benefits from increased ticketing revenues, as casual ticket prices are higher than the averaged match-day price of season tickets.

In our view fans should not be penalised as a consequence of the Club changing its ticketing operator, and as a point of principle, we believe the retention of fans’ money by the Club isn’t right, especially as season ticket holders are widely considered to be the Club’s most loyal fans.

However, after further discussions with the Club, we are delighted to report that they are now reviewing the buyback option, in conjunction with SeatGeek. This is sensible fan engagement working in practice.

Posted By: littletinyphil on July 15th 2025 at 22:15:01

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