Price of Football 2017: How the study was produced

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This is how the Price of Football 2017 study and calculator were compiled.

About the pricing data

The BBC contacted 232 clubs for the study. Of those, 202 were in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a further 30 in Europe.

We asked the clubs to provide us with the cheapest and most expensive adult matchday tickets available on the gate and online, as well as their cheapest and most expensive season ticket and away ticket prices.

The clubs were also asked to provide the cost of a tea, a pie, a programme and adult and junior-sized replica shirts.

For the first time, we also asked clubs to provide us with their young adult ticket prices for both season and matchday tickets.

The data was collated and verified by BBC Sport journalists.

About the poll

ComRes polled 1,000 football fans in Britain aged 18-24 online between 27 October and 6 November 2017. Respondents were surveyed to be nationally representative of 18-24 year olds by age, gender, region and social grade and were asked if they considered themselves a football fan. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

About the calculator

To work out the individual spend for each user, we asked users what team they followed and the number of games they attended. We assumed that each supporter would buy one programme, one pie and one tea for every game, as well as a replica adult shirt and a TV sports subscription.

The cost of this subscription is an average price of BT Sport and Sky Sports' full Premier League packages, bought directly from BT or Sky, once any promotional deals had been removed. We multiplied a monthly figure of £36 by the nine months that the football season traditionally runs.

We multiplied the matchday costs (pie, programme, tea) by the number of games attended and added the costs of the tickets, the shirt and the TV package. For season ticket holders, we multiplied the matchday costs by the number of home league games in a season. For both season ticket holders and individual ticket buyers, we used the value provided by clubs for the cheapest available ticket.

If a user selected that they didn't go to see any games live, we removed all matchday and ticket costs, but left the price of a TV sports subscription and an adult's replica shirt for the club they support.

In order to make the comparisons with Neymar's transfer fee and players' salaries, we simply divided this headline spending figure. The Premier League average salary was informed by Deloitte research. For the other English Football League teams and the Scottish Premiership there are no reliable figures available so BBC Sport research has provided a rough estimate for illustration purposes.

Comparisons for Welsh, Northern Irish and non-league teams defaulted to the English Premier League average salary, while the three other Scottish leagues defaulted to a comparison with the Scottish Premiership average. Supporters of women's teams had their spending compared to the reported salary of England captain Steph Houghton.

The other spending comparisons were calculated as follows: music streaming was the cost of Apple Music, Google Play and Spotify Premium after free trials had ended; cappuccino was the average price of one medium from either Starbucks, Cafe Nero or Costa; console games was the RRP of new copies of FIFA 18 or Call of Duty WWII; and the grams of gold price was true as of 31 October 2017.

The data we used for the clubs was taken from their cheapest and most expensive season and matchday tickets and the price of the most popular tickets. We also added their data on the price of a pie, a tea and a programme bought at the stadium, and the price of an adult and child shirt. Connah's Quay, in Wales, do not issue season tickets so could not provide a price. Several teams missed one or more of the other variables, so these prices have also been excluded from the calculator. We have also excluded data for the 'most popular ticket' price, where clubs gave us a range (for example between £18 and £30), or where the price was for concessions only.

The 'price of a goal' is calculated by dividing the cost of a club's cheapest season ticket last season by the number of goals scored by the team at home in the same season.

For the chart going back over time, we used figures from previous Price of Football reports where possible.

Enter your team into the Price of Football calculator and see what your support could cost you.

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