London Diamond League is pricing us out, say families

Families and fans have warned they are being priced out from the UK's flagship annual athletics event, the London Diamond League, with tickets costing up to 10 times those in other cities.

Many adult tickets in usually cheaper seats are £95 - higher than the other 14 cities in the global televised track-and-field series, BBC analysis suggests.

Top British stars including Keely Hodgkinson and Josh Kerr are targeting world records at the event at London Stadium on 18 July, but some fans say tickets are "exorbitant".

Organisers say it is the biggest one-day athletics event in the world, with more than 50,000 tickets sold so far - 14,000 of those costing from £26 for adults and £5 for children.

It is the latest controversy linked to the stadium, which was built for the 2012 Olympics and is now used by West Ham United FC.

Some football fans say the seats are too far from the action, although London Stadium says it has improved the experience.

BBC analysis of tickets for the London Diamond League, also known as the London Athletics Meet, suggests the £26 and £5 tickets are largely at the top of the stadium's upper tier.

The back straight and bends are usually cheaper at major track meets because the view of races is regarded as worse than the home straight, where tickets can often run into hundreds of pounds.

In the lower tier of London Stadium, all adult tickets we saw were £95 - or £65 with an obstructed view - on the back straight and two bends. Junior tickets here were almost £50 and students £85.

Many of the £95 tickets were still available when we looked - and they are priced higher than the average Premier League ticket of £74 for the six richest clubs.

The same zones costing £95 in London are £8.65 for the Rome Diamond League, £14 in Monaco, £18 in the star-studded US leg of the league in Eugene, Oregon, and £25 to £40 at the Diamond League Final in Brussels in September.

Many other Diamond League meetings take place in single-tier stadiums, or with the upper tier blocked off. Other stadiums, such as in Monaco and Rome, are used for football like in London.

"Athletics is a community sport, not the World Cup," father-of-three John Powell said. "They're alienating a hell of a lot of people who are athletics fans and potential stalwarts within the sport."

Powell, who was awarded an MBE for his youth sprint coaching nurturing GB athletes, said despite London Diamond League often selling out, some people would still be excluded by the "exorbitant" prices.

"You've got to remember what athletics is - on the bends people are going to be 150m in some cases away from the finish line… It's very limited viewing. I would very much fear that British Athletics stand to catch a cold on this."

When we compared the ticket prices to the cost of living in different cities, using the United Nations daily subsistence allowance, London was highest of the Diamond League cities at US$498 (£376).

But this was only marginally more than Rome at $474 (£358) and similar to cost of living prices in Zurich, Lausanne, Brussels, Paris and Stockholm.

Club runner Luca Vilimanovic, 22, hoped to go to the London Diamond League this year with his dad, but they both feel it is unaffordable.

"They're charging £40 for a view high up and if you do want a good view, it's too expensive, so you're stuck in the middle a bit," he said. "If we go as a family, it's going to be nearly £400, which is a lot of money."

Vilimanovic said his season ticket for Fulham FC worked out cheaper per game than a trip to the London Diamond League, which he described as "stupid".

Major athletics events frequently operate at a loss when costs including security, marshalling, appearance fees and broadcast infrastructure are factored in, particularly if there is no sponsor.

Winning athletes in Diamond League meetings each get up to $20,000 (£14,800) - with prize money totalling $500,000 (£370,000) per meet in the series.

London Diamond League organisers Athletic Ventures, which include UK Athletics (UKA), said in a statement: "Comparisons with athletics meetings in other countries do not take account of significant differences in market conditions, operating costs, venue requirements and audience demand."

The statement said the meet should be viewed in the context of major UK sporting and entertainment events.

Diamond League CEO Peter Stastny said ticket prices were determined by local meeting organisers and can vary significantly according to local markets.

In October, UKA reported a profit for the first time since 2017, two years after it faced the risk of bankruptcy amid historic financial issues.

Under the terms of governing body UKA's 50-year lease to the London Stadium, athletics events can be held there for one month a year, with West Ham fixtures, concerts and other sporting events taking place the rest of the time.

It costs £3m to move the seats each time from football to an athletics layout - but this all falls to London Stadium and taxpayers, not UKA, meaning this is not one of the costs behind the London Diamond League ticket prices.

Many GB athletics stars love the venue, often praising the size of the crowd and atmosphere as well as its London 2012 legacy.

Tristan Jamieson, 29, a club athlete, is travelling from Bristol to this year's London Diamond League after he paid £40 for an upper tier ticket, but he is now having second thoughts about future years.

"I'm from a very low-income household and I paid the price... I thought that was reasonable, but without knowing what other countries were pricing," he said.

"I would much rather get a cheaper flight to Rome."

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