Club dispute one in six success rate for Newcastle United members in home ticket ballots | OneFootball

Fair to say, a lot of frustration when it comes to Newcastle United members and the ballots for home tickets.

The frustration mainly down to two issues.

Firstly and most importantly of course, how many times Newcastle United members are successful (and unsuccessful…) in ticket ballots.

Secondly, an added frustration is the club’s refusal to be open in any way about the whole process. Many other clubs, such as Arsenal, who have similar balloting processes as Newcastle United, also give details on how many members enter each home ticket ballot, what percentage are successful and so on.

The latest (2025) annual survey from NUST (Newcastle United Supporters’ Trust) has covered many areas, including ballots for home matches.

When they asked fans who replied to their survey, of the Newcastle United members who responded, they gave a 16.8% (one in six) success rate when they enter ballots for home tickets.

NUST say that this corresponds very closely with past research they have carried out with Newcastle United members on ballot success.

NUST also state that the club dispute this roughly one in six success rate in home ticket ballots and claim it is higher. However, the club refuse to say what the figure is.

The club won’t even say how many Newcastle United members there are, never mind how many enter each ballot and what percentage are successful and unsuccessful.

Of all the people I know who are Newcastle United members, I don’t think I know anybody who has a success rate of better than one in six in ballots, certainly not for Premier League home tickets. With anecdotal evidence I read from others, seemingly along the same lines.

Until a far bigger stadium is delivered, supply is always going to massively exceed the supply of home tickets. So you are always going to have more people unsuccessful in any single home ticket ballot than are successful. However, it would be a positive for the club to at least be transparent, as the likes of Arsenal and others are, let fans know how many Newcastle United members there are, how many apply for each ballot and how many tickets were available, what percentage then successful and unsuccessful.

The average ballot success rate stands at 16.8% which is consistent with our recent Mags Membership and Ballot Survey.

The club state that the success rate based on their data (which would be more accurate) is higher but have not given a figure.

Following fan feedback, the club introduced a seat selection phase this season following ballot success, whereby the successful ballot applicant would log in and select their seats rather than them being allocated by the club.

This appears to be popular with 74% of survey respondents wanting to see this process continue.

Sale phase

This season the club also introduced a second ticket sale phase after the ballot where an unspecified number of tickets are held back for a 10am member sale.

Opinions are mixed on this with 29% preferring a ballot-only system and 54% preferring the new blended approach. 17% have no opinion either way.

Third Party Sites

One of the most common issues we’ve been emailed about this past season is regarding frustration around third party sites.

Whilst competition is fierce in the ballot and resale, within hours tickets have appeared on unofficial ticket selling pages, often for three-figure sums.

When one of the biggest concerns for Mags members is the difficulty in obtaining tickets (in line with increased demand), there is understandable anger at bots/organisations/individuals who scalp tickets and resell at inflated prices.

Our survey reflects the mood: only 7% of Mags member respondents have used an unofficial reselling site for NUFC tickets but a massive 81% believe that third party selling platforms should be banned (as they are in the Republic of Ireland).