'Nice surprise' expected in season tickets numbers

The club has been delayed in putting the passes on sale due to ticketing software being updated – as well as the knock-on effect of the club being placed into administration last year.

But with fans not having been able to get inside the DW Stadium for 17 months by the time the new campaign kicks off, CEO Mal Brannigan expects the demand to be higher than normal.

“The desire to watch live football inside the stadium will, I think, create pent-up demand that will hopefully give us a nice surprise in our numbers,” he told Wigan Today.

“Have we set an exact figure? No we haven’t. Because I think there are still unusual circumstances which we’re dealing with.

“We just believe we’ll have a good product to put on the pitch, and we’re going to make sure it’s still that family-friendly environment it’s always been.

“And we’ll also be trying to improve that as well, we’ll be bringing in partners to help deliver that.

“We just need to make sure the stadium is welcoming when fans come back.”

Season tickets are expected to be up for sale very shortly.

And Brannigan is also hoping to attract ‘floating fans’, who may have become disenfranchised from some of the bigger clubs on Wigan’s doorstep.

“I think another thing of interest that’s happened recently is the European Super League, and the fall-out from that,” he acknowledged.

“That will have an impact on fans returning to clubs that are possibly more local to them. We’re very aware that three of the six English clubs that tried to break away are very local to us.

“If we can show that supporting your local team, with a good brand of football, can be as enjoyable an experience, then we’ll aim to achieve that.”

Brannigan has also pledged to keep prices as affordable as possible – in order to retain existing supporters and also attract newcomers.

“We’ve made a conscious decision not to put prices up for this season,” he revealed.

“Looking at how people’s lives have changed over the last 16 months, we wanted to make it as easy as possible for them.

“We will be, in the main, making sure most fans retain their seats from previous years.

“But there might be some areas where we change the set-up of the seating areas available within the stadium, in order to create a better atmosphere.

“It will affect a small number of fans, but the vast majority will remain where they have been sitting.

“If we can concentrate the fans and the noise into smaller areas, it can only help the team out there on the pitch.”

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