Steve Waggott has revealed that Rovers’ season ticket revenue for 2022/23 is the highest since relegation from the Premier League.

The club sold just under 9,300 tickets, and an additional 409 half season tickets, which helped generate a revenue of £2.45m gross.

The club’s chief executive revealed the details at this week's fans forum in which he also outlined that matchday ticket sales were also running higher than had been budgeted for, having been set a target of £4m.

The club’s head of marketing, Fraser Read, added that while the half season ticket sales figure of 409 was considerably lower than last season, when Rovers sold the most since relegation from the Premier League, many had since been converted into either full season tickets or 18-game packages.

Responding to questions about Preston North End’s season ticket sales figure being their highest in 50 years, Waggott stated that wouldn’t necessarily equate to a higher overall revenue.

He said he ‘was tasked by the club’s owners to hit certain financial targets in order to meet budgets and be able to provide the funds for a competitive first-team squad’.

Waggott also said that plans were under way for the 2023/24 season tickets which he hoped would be made public earlier than in previous seasons.

The lack of replica shirts available in the Roverstore was also raised by fans’ forum members.

Waggott said the majority of stock had sold out, with the club having ordered 12,000 shirts from Macron, as they did in 2021/22 when shirts didn’t sell out.

However, the club have sold £1m worth of retail stock for the second year running and had obtained extra stock from Macron’s warehouse in Bologna.

There were issues with further deliveries though which wouldn’t have arrived from China until March or April.

The club plan to order a similar number of kits for 2023/24, but were encouraged by members of the forum to increase that so to have kits still available for Christmas purchases.

Also on the agenda was the Ewood Park pitch that had come in for criticism during the Cardiff City win on New Year’s Day.

The forum were told that the Ewood pitch had been used for first-team training sessions in mid-December when temperatures plummeted well below freezing.

Groundstaff hoped that extra work on the pitch, which won’t be used again until the FA Cup fourth round tie on the weekend of January 28/29, will see it back towards its previous condition, though the current rainfall continues to present challenges.

Waggott said it was 'extremely frustrating for the ground staff who believed the pitch was in its best condition for a long time'.

Also discussed in the meeting was the survey that fans received after the Cardiff City game, asking supporters for their feedback on the matchday experience.

Over 1,000 surveys were returned, which the club’s head of marketing said had been positive towards the support and friendliness of staff.

There was a mixed response to the concourse services, however.

The forum was told that similar surveys would be planned moving forward.

TAKE OUT A SUBSCRIPTION...

GAIN UNLIMITED AND UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO THE LANCASHIRE TELEGRAPH WEBSITE WITH A PREMIUM DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION