How Aston Villa Women Grew Season Ticket Sales by 245% YoY

How Aston Villa Women Grew Season Ticket Sales by 245% Year on Year.

Date

2026

Deliverables

Paid Media

Campaign

Location

Europe

Sector

Sports

Aston Villa Women grew season ticket sales by 245% year on year, season ticket revenue by 205%, and achieved an £8.43 ROAS against a launch web traffic uplift of 381%. The campaign that drove it was built around a single insight: a season ticket buyer is not making the same decision as a match-day buyer. The commitment is bigger, the journey is longer, and the creative needs to speak to belonging and identity rather than one-night urgency. We rebuilt the launch campaign around those dynamics, and the result was the strongest season ticket sales performance in the club's recent history.

The result

245%

YoY increase in season ticket sales

205%

YoY increase in season ticket revenue

£8.43

ROAS

the challenge

Season ticket campaigns present a specific commercial challenge that match-day campaigns do not. The audience must be willing to commit before the season begins, without knowing the lineup, the run of form, or which matches will be the season's standout events. The purchase is an act of belief: in the club, in the experience of attending, and in the community they are joining.

Aston Villa Women had been building exactly that kind of community through its match-day marketing. The challenge was converting community engagement into forward financial commitment during a defined launch window.

the approach

The season ticket campaign was structured around the value of belonging. Match-day creative communicates what a single game feels like. Season ticket creative needed to communicate what being a season ticket holder means: priority access, community identity, and the compounding experience of being part of something across a full season.

The launch window was used deliberately. A defined early-access period for existing match-day attendees and sign-up list members created genuine urgency without manufactured scarcity. These were people who had already attended an Aston Villa Women match and had reasons to return; the campaign's job was to convert that intention into a committed purchase before the general sale opened.

Communication through the launch was tiered: early access to the highest-intent audience first, followed by broader promotion as the window progressed. The media strategy was built for efficiency: prioritising intent over volume, reaching the right audience rather than the largest one. The £8.43 ROAS reflects the result of that precision.

A 245% year-on-year increase in season ticket sales in a single launch window reflects a campaign that fundamentally changed the club's revenue mix: people who had previously been match-day buyers became season ticket holders at scale. The 205% uplift in season ticket revenue confirms the growth was not just in volume but in committed forward spend.

The £8.43 ROAS and 381% uplift in launch web traffic tell the same story from a different angle: a campaign reaching people who were actively interested and ready to convert. The web traffic uplift confirms the creative was driving genuine intent, not just impressions.

We are delighted with our ongoing 23/24 season ticket campaign strategy and media plan support courtesy of Mustard Media. Working with the team has been a fantastic experience, enabling us to adopt a different mindset and approach to growing a new audience. Through their help we have redefined positioning, messaging, content, and audience targeting. Their industry knowledge and best practise experience was invaluable throughout and made for an enjoyable working relationship. We will carry the campaign learnings for many seasons to come.

Sinead Quinn

Head of Commercial

What This Means for Sports Brands

Season ticket campaigns fail most often when they use the same approach as match-day campaigns. The creative that converts a single-event purchase does not convert a twelve-month commitment. The buyer needs a different argument: belonging, community identity, and the value of a full season's access.

The Aston Villa Women result shows what changes when the campaign is built around that distinction. A 216% increase in season ticket sales came from reaching the right audience, with the right message, in a defined early window. Not from spending more, not from reaching more people.

The practical question for any sports club approaching a season ticket launch: is your campaign making the case for belonging, or is it making the case for attending one more game?

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do you grow season ticket sales for a women's sports team?

Speak to community, not urgency. Aston Villa Women grew season ticket sales by 245% year on year by building the campaign around belonging and identity across a full season, reaching an audience with an existing match-day relationship in a defined early-access window.

Q: What is the best strategy for a sports season ticket launch?

Tier the launch around your highest-intent audience first. Aston Villa Women's 245% growth came from giving early access to existing match-day attendees before opening to the general public, with creative that made the season ticket feel like the natural next step from attending a single game.

Q: How do you convert match-day attendees into season ticket holders?

Shift the creative argument from event appeal to community belonging. Match-day creative sells one night; season ticket creative needs to sell a twelve-month identity. Aston Villa Women's campaign achieved a 245% YoY uplift by making that distinction explicit in every piece of communication.

Q: What ROAS should a sports season ticket campaign target?

Aston Villa Women achieved £8.43 ROAS through intent-based targeting rather than broad reach. The benchmark matters less than the approach: a campaign built on precise audience qualification will outperform a broad one at the same spend level.