Still time left to plug the A-League crowd drain
Roar Guru By Jesse Fink, 26 Sep 2008 Jesse Fink is a Roar Guru
Related coverage
Your redoubtable blogger got hammered by readers of my The World Game column in the first round of the season for saying A-League crowds were “going south”.
It wasn’t just a hunch.
The attendance figure for the Sydney-Melbourne blockbuster at the Sydney Football Stadium was under half of what it should have been.
Normally you would posit that 35,000 people at the very least would turn up for the derby between Australia’s two biggest clubs (there was a time when such a clash was getting over 50,000; albeit at a bigger stadium). Instead, just 16,000 rocked up and that figure was reckoned to be highly generous.
Anecdotally, what I’ve been hearing for a while now is that Sydney crowd figures are being routinely inflated; and not just Sydney. It’s happening across the league. Reminds me of the bad old Super League–Australian Rugby League stoush when the two warring camps were vying for supremacy and inflating their crowd figures to get one up on each other.
Now the FFA, surprisingly, has admitted there is a problem.
Over the past weekend the Sydney–Adelaide and Queensland–Newcastle matches only drew 12,000 punters through the turnstiles, with less than 10,000 stumping up to Bluetongue Stadium to see Central Coast face off with a rampant Melbourne Victory. Perth drew a pitiful 4000 for the game against Wellington in the west, but this was Perth, after all.
Obviously the numbers are affected by the fact rugby league is deep into the business end of the season, but that is a red herring. So is the global financial squeeze and the summer versus winter argument.
Also dismiss the notion that simply lifting advertising spend is going to arrest the slide.
People aren’t that stupid.
The problem as I see it is that there simply aren’t enough incentives for people to actually make the effort to go to the games when they are freely available, live, on pay television. The dollars it costs for a family and bunch of mates to sit in front of the box with a spread of food and sufficient liquid refreshment is still considerably lower than the damage it would have just to buy entry tickets.
It’s cheaper, more comfortable and far less hassle just to stay at home.
Now if someone truly special, like a Juninho, for instance, was turning out for Sydney FC, I would be tempted to make the effort to go to the Sydney Football Stadium. I would want to see his skills up close and in the flesh.
But Sydney doesn’t have Juninho anymore. There’s no razzle dazzle; nothing to elevate the team beyond the good and capable unit they are.
People are drawn to spectacle, and Sydney doesn’t offer it.
When Tony Lockett played for the Sydney Swans, for example, the club had to beat fans away with a stick. They couldn’t get enough of going to the Sydney Cricket Ground to see this magnetic, brutal, flawed but extraordinarily talented sportsman who was then at his peak.
After Lockett retired, the Swans struggled to regain the level of support they had enjoyed during the Lockett era. His “replacement”, Barry Hall, never quite cut it.
As for Sydney FC, I said back in March at the time of John Aloisi’s signing that he wouldn’t pull the crowds and was ridiculously overpriced and I feel I have been more than vindicated. He’s just coming back from injury, yes, but a good test for a player’s pull is how many people are talking about him on the street.
No one is talking about Aloisi. He’s a top bloke but yesterday’s news.
Sydney people are fickle and demand to see the best talent available; it’s a fact of life.
If the A-League wants to restore some robustness to crowd figures across the competition it could do a lot worse than put the feelers out for some ex-European or J-League players currently out of contract or on their way up and bring them in en masse for “Version 5.0″.
And not plodders. Real entertainers. Dare I say it, Nicky Carle.
Look at the impact young Jin-Hyung Song, a mesmerizing talent, has had at the Jets. Costa Rican Carlos Hernandez is also showing some silky touches for Victory.
It’ll cost a packet, but it’s a better investment for the future than over-the-top and flashy advertising.
Recommend this story.
September 26th 2008 @ 9:49am
Pippinu said | September 26th 2008 @ 9:49am | Report comment
Firstly, good on Jesse for taking an honest look at the first 5 weeks of the HAL (as opposed to some recent articles by other Roar contributors that have read more like PR exercises).
Con S wrote on this issue only a couple of days ago, and I thought his piece put it all in good perspective – that it is far too early to be slitting wrists, and that the proof of the pudding is really decades away. Others have rightly commented on the two steps forward, one step backwards progress of both the J-League and MLS over the past 15 years, and the likelihood that the HAL will be no different.
I thought the Swans analogy with Plugger Lockett was a good one, and there is no doubt that big names with marketable qualities pull people through the turnstiles, regardless of the sport.
September 26th 2008 @ 10:18am
jimbo said | September 26th 2008 @ 10:18am | Report comment
Pip,
none of us have been ‘dishonest’ about A-League crowds. We all acknowledge that crowds are down this year. Football fans are looking for reasons and explainations and remain positive about their game, as you would expect them to.
At the end of V4.0 the avge crowds may well be a couple of thousand down on last year.
The difference these days is that we have a well managed League and a well regulated central governing body in the FFA.
We also have a number of well administered competitions and national teams. Continued success for the Socceroos will have flow on for the domestic competitions and so on.
And if crowds for teams like Perth and Wellington continue to fall and they are not viable, there are a number of bids urging the FFA to be able to step up and take their place.
The FFA and clubs will act to maintain or even increase attendances.
Attendances at the ground is not the only measure of a sport’s commercial viability or popularity.
September 26th 2008 @ 10:24am
Sammy C said | September 26th 2008 @ 10:24am | Report comment
Dave,
Yes, Adelaide beat the Antlers on Wednesday which I watched, and I thought was a very entertaining game. The best game I’ve watched by an A-League team this season.
My comment is in relation to the decline of the standard of play over the years. I believe that it has been steadily declining since the A-Leagues inception this as well as the whole “novelty” of the HAL has had a direct result crowd figures reflect this. At no time did I compare the HAL with the likes of the EPL etc.
For me, the best match I’ve ever seen a HAL team play was Sydney FC vs Urawa in the 1st leg of the 1st round a few years back with Brankos first match as coach. The standard of play in that match was fantastic, however – when I struggle to think of the number of games where I have been genuinely impressed by the standard of play vs those games which have been poor…. well…. you work it out.
September 26th 2008 @ 10:39am
Michael C said | September 26th 2008 @ 10:39am | Report comment
Reasons -
someone presented the ‘pulsating’ NRL finals series. HOwever, really, only a couple of Storm games have been really close, they’ve been 3 blow out matches, and the first round of 4 finals matches drew the least ever aggregate crowd since the final 8 system began in 1999 (and for the first time in that period, not one first week crowd cracked 20,000).
SO – - that perhaps indicates there’s a broader issue than just HAL stand alone, perhaps – - it really is a depressed financial environment.
I have also presented stats that show that for the first 5 rounds of HAL (v1,v2, v3 and v4) – that this year is the lowest yet, and 40,000 down comparative to same time last year.
Taken in isolation – it’s hard to attach any absolute meaning,
but, taken in combination with the NRL finals crowd figures, and the general Sydney crowd decline in NRL this season, along with sluggish results for the Sydney Swans capped with a sub 20K first final at Stad.Aust…………..well, it all paints a picture of an landscape in which expectations should be lowered a fraction.
see……………….I’ve actually been a bit magnanamous (did I butcher that spelling)…………..and not code parochial and avoiding entirely any references to AFL in Victoria this year!!!!!!
September 26th 2008 @ 10:40am
Dave said | September 26th 2008 @ 10:40am | Report comment
Sammy C
I support MV and we are playing some terrific stuff which is entertaining also (no doubt l’ve put the curse on MV and this week will be a drab 0-0
). We are playing light years ahead of what we played last season and probably even better than season 2.. As you know football, more than any other code, you run the risk of going to a game with no guarantee of goals or even few chances to score. If you are a football fan maybe now is the time to give the game another go. If your in Melb or Adlelaide for sure…if you live in Sydenee then l can understand why you wouldn’t watch that shite 
September 26th 2008 @ 10:42am
Dave said | September 26th 2008 @ 10:42am | Report comment
MC
still just climbing back up off the floor
September 26th 2008 @ 10:42am
Michael C said | September 26th 2008 @ 10:42am | Report comment
btw -
this is interesting :
While Football Federation Australian still refuses to allow A-League chief Rob Abernathy to speak with the media,
what’s this secretive approach about? Gagging the fellow…………geeze……..it’s hard enough tracking down an ANnual Report of the FFA and now this, it all just seems a little too ‘closed shop’……………but, with a Frank Lowy around, one shouldn’t expect open and upfront business practices!!!!!
September 26th 2008 @ 10:47am
Pippinu said | September 26th 2008 @ 10:47am | Report comment
Jimbo
I wasn’t accusing anyone of dishonesty (least of all, your kind self) – I was applauding Jesse for taking a hard, cold, objective look at it, mainly because personally, I get a little bored with the “we’re really going places” type of articles that one often comes across.
But you will note that I have stated that at the end of the day, it is not a big deal (at least it’s far too early to jump to conclusions) – I said a similar thing in Con S’ article from the other day.
Take it easy man!
September 26th 2008 @ 10:56am
jimbo said | September 26th 2008 @ 10:56am | Report comment
No worries Pip,
Just giving these guys credit for being positive about their sport – which is what we all do.
Cheers
September 26th 2008 @ 11:01am
True Tah said | September 26th 2008 @ 11:01am | Report comment
MC,
Im sure the FFA have to release their annual report, aren’t they accountable to the Australian public? The ARU,NSWRU and QRU all have their latest accounts on their websites, although the Force and Brumbies don’t.
Anyway who cares about the drop in crowd figures, its not like futbol is that departed from everyday life that it can expect to impervious to the effects of the so-called credit crisis and people having less to spend on so-called luxuries in life? There is not a lot that the HAL clubs can do to stem this, it is going to have to live with it.
The FFA will help out any club in trouble, and the Federal Government has made it clear that it will not let futbol struggle, and I suspect it would come in to help out as well…whilst Lowy is a businessman before a futbol man, Im sure he can arrange plenty of debt finance to keep Sydney FC afloat.