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At Wimbledon (where seats sell for £3,500)
An article by someone who queued for over 24 hours for an 'on-the-day' ticket, and then also went as a guest of a 'debenture' ticket:
The next day I was back, this time on Centre Court, as a guest of someone who had got hold of two debenture tickets for the day. Debentures are the only type of Wimbledon ticket that can be sold on. They are issued every five years, and give their holders a particular seat for all the tournaments during that period – 65 days in total – and access to a private restaurant and bar area. A block of debentures for 2016-20 was issued earlier this year; each cost £50,000 (or £769 per day). Nice for rich tennis fans, they may be even more attractive as investments: individual tickets can fetch thousands, and the entire debenture can be sold on at any point. As with all Wimbledon tickets, demand far exceeds supply, so even debentures with little time left to run on them can make a profit. One 2011-15 debenture, issued for £27,750 five years ago, fetched £91,000 earlier this year; in effect, the original owner had been paid £63,250 to watch (or not) 39 days of tennis.
I was lucky enough to see Federer play again, against his compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka. It was a much closer, more absorbing match than Tuesday’s had been; Federer won in four sets. I also saw Murray lose to Grigor Dimitrov.
Two days at Wimbledon, two very different experiences. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe the queue as socially mixed, but there was a substantial non-English contingent. Most of the people queuing knew a fair bit about tennis; the debenture ticketholders – when they weren’t chatting about business or checking their work email – seemed flummoxed that Murray had lost. I was on my own in the queue, but I felt like I was part of something. In the debenture area, the point was to feel separate.
Yet on both days, I got the sense that being at Wimbledon was something I was expected to feel privileged about – as if taking part in a great British institution was the whole point of the exercise. British tennis, despite Murray, isn’t doing particularly well. It’s hard not to suspect that Wimbledon may be part of the problem.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/07/05/william-skidelsky/at-wimbledon-2/
I was lucky enough to see Federer play again, against his compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka. It was a much closer, more absorbing match than Tuesday’s had been; Federer won in four sets. I also saw Murray lose to Grigor Dimitrov.
Two days at Wimbledon, two very different experiences. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe the queue as socially mixed, but there was a substantial non-English contingent. Most of the people queuing knew a fair bit about tennis; the debenture ticketholders – when they weren’t chatting about business or checking their work email – seemed flummoxed that Murray had lost. I was on my own in the queue, but I felt like I was part of something. In the debenture area, the point was to feel separate.
Yet on both days, I got the sense that being at Wimbledon was something I was expected to feel privileged about – as if taking part in a great British institution was the whole point of the exercise. British tennis, despite Murray, isn’t doing particularly well. It’s hard not to suspect that Wimbledon may be part of the problem.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/07/05/william-skidelsky/at-wimbledon-2/
£91,000 for 2 years of 13 days tennis = £3,500 per day (and that's averaged over the whole tournament, not just a final).
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