OGC Nice

OGC Nice relies on RM for its ticketing system

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your role at OGC Nice?

My name is Raphaël Croizard and I’m entering my fourth season with OGC Nice, where I’m Ticketing and Marketing Project Manager. My role involves overseeing all stadium-related offers – ticketing, pricing strategy, occupancy policy and promotion – while managing the configuration of tools and the logistical organization of match days.

What is the role of the ticketing department at the club?

Ticketing covers a wide field in professional soccer. At OGC Nice, our priority is to optimize occupancy rates while meeting our revenue targets, thanks to a coherent pricing strategy, a diversified offer and a seamless customer experience. To ensure effective coordination, we have brought together revenue management, ticketing and marketing in a single department.

What are the challenges of Revenue Management in sports ticketing?

The position of Revenue Manager in sport is still relatively new. Historically, Revenue Management has developed in sectors such as the airline, hotel and goods transport industries. In sport, purchasing habits are different: spectators don’t yet have the reflex to buy their tickets in advance to take advantage of the best rates.

For a long time, clubs used a fixed price grid, based on the fixture and the level of importance of the match. Today, more and more clubs are beginning to take an interest in the logic of RM, as the stakes are not so far removed from those encountered in other sectors.

We have a limited stock of seats, with a variety of characteristics (location, comfort, visibility) that we need to make the most of, while taking into account the expectations of our fans. One of the main specificities of sport, compared to the hotel industry for example, lies in its emotional dimension.

The strong emotional bond that fans have with their club, combined with the impact of sporting results on demand, makes pricing more complex… but also much more exciting.

Why did you choose Revbell?

We first collaborated with Revbell two years ago, as part of a Revenue Management pilot project initiated by the French Professional Football League. The aim of this project was to explore different ways of optimizing occupancy rates at four soccer clubs, with the support of Revbell.

The findings were highly instructive, and enabled us to implement a pricing strategy for season tickets and single tickets for the following season. This test season also saw a record number of subscribers and attendance.

On the strength of these results, we have decided to repeat the experiment this season, with the ambition of further optimizing our subscription campaign.

How did the Revbell mission go?

Before calling on Revbell, we had already analyzed our data in-house. These initial results were interesting, but we wanted an outside perspective to take things further.

Our request was quite challenging for Revbell, not least because of a very tight deadline: we had just a fortnight in which to obtain a complete report.

Right from the start, a meeting was organized with the consultants to precisely define the objectives and expectations of the assignment. After five or six days of analysis, we received initial feedback from them, which highlighted opportunities we hadn’t thought of.

Five days later, the final feedback enabled us to confirm certain recommendations and open up new avenues. Revbell really helped us see things from a different angle, all in record time.

What recommendations have you adopted?

Our main objective was not to increase the price of lateral subscriptions. This may seem surprising, since Revenue Management is often associated with automatic price increases. Yet this is precisely the subtlety of the Revenue Manager’s job: knowing when to raise or lower prices in order to maximize attendance and guarantee optimal occupancy.

What aspects of Revbell’s expertise have impressed you most?

On the two occasions Revbell worked with us, we were impressed by the teams’ ability to understand our environment and to listen to us without judgment. We felt that they really understood our issues and problems: we all spoke the same language, which was very reassuring.

The collaborative aspect was also very much appreciated: the OGC Nice and Revbell teams worked hand in hand, not separately. To sum up, I can sum up Revbell’s expertise in three words: listening, collaboration and trust.

How do you see Revenue Management evolving at OGC Nice?

At OGC Nice, we are embarking on an important season, marked by the partial closure of tickets for sale, reducing capacity from 31,500 to 27,000. This move aims to improve the spectator experience by bringing fans together and creating a warmer, friendlier atmosphere.

Our challenge will be to set our prices precisely, as we don’t want to increase prices simply because of this reduction in capacity. The aim is to preserve the popular aspect of soccer, which is unique to our club, while rewarding the loyalty of our season ticket holders, whose prices will remain unchanged despite this reduction in capacity.

Revenue Management will play a key role in maximizing occupancy rates, guaranteeing more sell-out matches and generating additional income.

What advice would you give to a sports organization looking to get started in Revenue Management?

Above all, I’d advise you to take the plunge without hesitation. It’s natural to be a little reluctant at first, but often there’s nothing to lose. On the contrary, this approach opens the way to wonderful discoveries and allows you to identify unsuspected levers for boosting your sales.