Is the FFA taking the franchise structure too far?

Roar Pro

By NUFCMVFC, 25 Jul 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: A-League, football

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Extending slightly on Jesse Fink’s article Is the Bundesliga a model for the A-League?, part of the discussion addresses Geoff Lord’s mooted attempts at branching out into other sports such as basketball and rugby union.

There has been a mixed response from Melbourne fans, given some are thinking the focus and investment should be in terms of the football side of things only and others seeing some merit in branching out and cross-networking amongst “alternative” sports in order to have more influence in an AFL dominated market.

The matter is very interesting and there are some arguments with merit on both sides of the equation.

This has apparently been shot down by the FFA if Michael Lynch’s article in The Age is anything to go by.

There are some elements to the FFA’s policy directive that I found very interesting, though.

Firstly, regarding the element of the FFA’s mooted provision along the lines of prohibiting an “A League club and/or individual shareholders holding any form of ownership, shareholding or investment position within any club or franchise in either football or any other sporting code.”

To a degree, I can understand the FFA’s position. As a governing body, they want to protect and focus investment into the sport of football, and in terms of the business side of things, they are trying to protect the integrity of the A League.

This relates rightly to a larger prospective danger whereby outsiders buy into football and “screw it over” from within.

But once again this raises questions about the FFA’s attitudes to the clubs.

There is merit in the franchise structure being used in Australia. There needs to be centralisation to prevent issues of infighting that used to plague football in years past, but the local football economy simply can’t sustain a European pyramid-style structure and there is a need to be able to jettison ailing clubs such as the New Zealand Knights and replace them with better outfits when necessary.

But the FFA is taking the whole franchisor/franchisee thing a bit too far. Even Con Constantine was speaking of the FFA as a “big business” on the weekend, which is not quite correct.

The A League and football clubs in general are hybrid business/community institutions. Too far in either direction and you have an unhealthy dynamic. In years past, the focus was excessively community oriented. And within that, far too narrow to the point where some elements of the football fraternity felt excluded, meaning that despite enormous base, interest attendances were low.

The business side of things was a shambles, football was barely solvent and had few sponsors.

But there are signs that the dynamic is swinging unhealthily too far in the other direction now, which can have similar effects.

In this instance, the FFA are being over literal with the franchise structure, the impact of which will be, despite enormous base interest in football and sport in general, people (hard core football fans in particular) will feel excluded.

Fans aren’t just mere consumers but want to support something which means something to them and is not a soulless business franchise.

Generally speaking, football is only just moving into the mainstream. There is some merit to an argument that this can be facilitated and consolidated by prominent involvement by football institutions or their owners into other sports, such as Don Matheson with the Townsville Basketball club and Clive Palmer with the Gold Coast Basketball club.

Obviously football wants to avoid an issue, as with Carlton Soccer club and the Collingwood Warriors, but this needs more reasoned debate

Perhaps the solution lies in allowing only a certain percentage of investment in other sports, or have a review of ownership on its individual merits to separate the Carltons from something that may just be workable, similar to how Governments review prospective mergers to ensure they aren’t anti-competitive.

Either way, these are issues that requires some healthy discussion.

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The Crowd Says (13) | Page 1 of Comments

MVDave said | July 25th 2009 @ 8:46am | Report comment

An interesting dilemma and to an extent shows how far football has come in a short time when clubs are looking to invest in other sporting franchises. However first and foremost football has to be the main concern of the clubs and their owners. The league is only 5 years old and signs are good that this latest encumbment of a national league will work…but time is needed to consolidate the gains. Take our eyes off the ball and ???
The FFA are taking the right course of action to protect their interests as those responsible for the sport and its future. The FFA need to be in complete control because unltimately they will be the ones hauling clubs out of financial holes eg PG, AU and BR. In the past some of the mentioned clubs may well have just folded but now the FFA are in a strong position they can manage clubs through difficult times…whether we like it or not, particularly in the embryonic years of the league we need a super strong FFA to manage and develop the show.

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Midfielder said | July 25th 2009 @ 9:39am | Report comment

What a great article TBH I am not sure where to start.

Member driven clubs Franchise clubs, owing or investing in other sports…FFA rules … the management of footbball into the mainstream….

Will do a little more thinking … but need to take the wife out for Saturday monning coffe and cake and get ready for my match… (totally off topic if we win we stand a good chance of making the finals if we loose we are gone for the season)

But a very good and throughful article …

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NUFCMVFC said | July 25th 2009 @ 12:41pm | Report comment

Once again it’s not complete but anyway…I

t is a tricky issue, on the one hand we have Clive Palmer and Lord ready to be proactive on behalf of A League clubs etc and on the other end of the spectrum we have Bianco pulling out, ownership issues with Brisbane and previously with Perth.

Obviously on the one hand we need the proactive clubs to be able to take the A League forward and competitive on the continental stage, on the other hand we have to ensure we can support and subsidiseclubs where there are sudden ownership problems (while ensuring they are attractive to prospective investors, too restricted a regulatory environment and they will be put off)

On the one hand, there are issues where in regional Towns, there are only so many wealthy people with capability to back sporting teams, I am generally thinking of Townsville etc here, under which circumstances banning cross ownership may prove to be problematic, because we can have a bid like the Thunder come up, it had everything – except money, now if there is a clause preventing cross ownership of any kind that could prove problematic

Have to remember, A League has plenty of bids for new clubs/franchises, but these bids finding backers is something else, there is talk of a Sheikh to back Tasmania, doesen’t he have investment in Ethipian football? Doesen’t DOn Matheson own Gold Courses? MVFC just bought a fitness club, to strengthen the clubs brand with healthy living etc

While as a counter point to the ‘Townsville” type argument above, there is a need to avoid teams like Collingwood or Carlton, whre in Victoria the fact they were seen as too aligned with one AFL club proved to be problematic. This is why it’s good MVFC avoided the TeaMelbourne thing, wouldhave been too close to Melbourne Demons. Also, there is an issue to avoid people with blatant interest in other sports from buying into football via A League, similar to how the AFL is buying into Stadiums I guess, Etihad will come to be owned by the AFL in a few years, Fitzgerald recently bought into Stadium Australia as well which obvously makes League fans a bit nervous and this is also an issue for the WS team that is thinking of playing out of there, but ANZ needs the tenants. Another issue, is obviously if revenue streams for football really open up due to being part of Asia and this filters into A League via ACL and to its owners, then if they are effectively people mostly active in foreign sports there is a concern that it could merely be diverted into those other sports, which is why I would personally want football events to avoid Docklands as much as possible in future, and depending on how the ownership situation goes with ANZ, one may have to be a bit wary of that too, as people have probably noticed with Canberra’s mooted proposal and Gold Coast, Perth and Adelaide as well there is a bit of a Stadium development competition going on

So there are good arguments on both sides.

With the MVRUFC and BBall though, there were visible benefits, in that it isn’t too close to AFL, but MVRUFC would play at Rectangular Stadium in winter, MVFC in Summer, obviously MVFC comes with worldly contacts but at same time Union with establishment contacts (which can be useful ins say, I don’t know expanding the capacity of the Rectangular Stadium so we don’t have to play big games in Docklands, it was Union which got it built in the first place). In this sense, MVFC fill the stadium to near capacity, Union would have done much better than VRU team if it had pre-existing MVFC fanbase to go along + brand. Not to mention Basketball, which would be played in same precinct just across the road.

So one could see what Lord was getting at, at the same time, if MVRUFC would struggle in early years due to startup costs etc, then does this mean MVFC propping up MVRUFC instead of money into football? Similar to how Parramatta RL club used to prop up Parramatta Power, as it was able to do thanks to Pokies revenue from Leagues clubs etc, so can understand why they wouldn’t want a reverse situation, where football related (and it WILL grow) revenue is being diverted into other sports

Regarding A League intellectual property, this sounds like it’s a throw away line but it could prove to be problematic, as they have basically just said that all the symbolism is communally meaningless, there is a reason for the V on Melourne strips but now it’s just FFA intellectual property. The notion won’t go down well, as th epoint of expanding Victory brand into other sports was that it was seen as a Victorian institution, and a Victorian sporting institution. FFA have just undermined Victorian community resonance with the “brand” which can undermine attachment to the club.

Same with the Glory, a teams colours are sacred, but it sounds like the FFA just tried to change Perth’s colours because shirt sale volumes are down (maybe it’s beause most of the Perth fans still bothering to show up still have some shirts from the old days and aren’t bothering to buy a new one, and there aren’t any new fans being attracted to the club in the first few years of HAL, while the opposite, so there aren’t and new people to buy new shirts) and the FFA don’t seem to like the “marketability” of purple (Fiorentina are purple and I don’t think it is particularly bizarre, unlike the rubbish like “Fury” and their logo and strips which is a laughing stock in football world but FFA – given the fact they know everything – seem to think it’s great).

This is the problem with the FFA, very capable in so many regards, but they also don’t properly understand football fans psyche, or the fact that it isn’t the same everywhere in some homogenous way, fans are slightly different in different cities, so the clubs need a bit of flexibility in catering for this, this was one of the problems with HEM it is one size fits all but dosen’t fit with fan demographic, but that is another discussion…

All in all, a fascinating topic with many talking points, whatever the FFA clauses, they need to think them through carefully.

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Pippinu said | July 25th 2009 @ 12:56pm | Report comment

Bloody hell NU – that last post was almost a seperate article – but you’ve raised plenty of good points – and the facts and conclusions you’ve provided are pretty spot on.

Personally, I was excited about the prospect of the Victory owning the next Super 15 franchise, I saw it as a pretty good fit – not without problems, but on balance, a positive thing.

I’m a bit dismayed that the FFA has stepped in to put a halt to it.

And if any sporting body thinks they somehow own the IP to a white V on dark blue – they’re absolutely kidding themselves.

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- NUFCMVFC said | July 25th 2009 @ 3:13pm | Report comment
  
  lol,
  
  I get that a lot
  
  For me personally, even though I am a hardcore football fan and folow MVFC to help football locally etc, I found myself open because I can see the merits described in a few posts from now
  
  Another reason is I often go to A league games and bring my best friend along, who plays AFL but is of NZ background so naturally a bit of a Union fan, so from that perspective it would have worked out well, I would have gone with him to Union games and would have been able to drag him along to more MVFC games, all played at the same Stadium and so from that perspective both codes kkind of gain. For a lot of football fans, they don’t normally care for BBall in terms of the NBL, but an MV BBall club playing out of the same sporting precinct has similar hallmarks as Euro League, this kind of taps into how MV were able to get away with the V, it was an AFL Victoria V as on the State of Origin tops but also in football terms it was inspired by Bordeaux, so both the hard core football fans and generalist Victorian fans are catered for. And it would have been a bit similar a theme with the other clubs, obviously the BBall and Union would have done well out of MVFC’s pre-existing fanbase, but in turn MVFC and football can get more sports fans from Union or BBall onside
  
  This is important, it is growth via word of mouth in a sense, that is largely how MVFC did well in the first couple of years despite lowish media coverage, it was a mix between euphoria of WC qualification + word of mouth
  
  Not to mention the media coverage, Newspapers wouldn’t be able to talk of up to 3 sports without mentioning “Victory” – even during the A League off-season, which obviously people associate with the football club, therefore even with some heavily pro AFL editors trying to keep football sporting content low, they can’t fail to inadvertently guerilla market football in a sense, and they can’t not mention Basketball or Rugby Union. Obviously works slightly the other way though, eg people mention MVFC and start to think of BBall and Union, but Union largely being played in A League off-season…
  
  I can see what you are saying, I’m a bit surprised at how I’m thinking about it all, but you can’t fail to see the pro arguments in the Melburnian context
  
  Naturally though, football is set for some pretty substantial revenue streams via Asia and the ACL etc as well as the Australian context, so it is good for football to be protective of that, but the issue is one that needs to be well thought out amongst the football fraternity
  
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Midfielder said | July 25th 2009 @ 1:46pm | Report comment

Just poped back and before I leave for the crunch game… some things from over the ditch…

1) given the numbers of bidders trying to get into the A-League but..,,,,,,,>>>>So… I’m hearing from sources that Sky have a new head of football who couldn’t care less about football in this part of the world.

Rumour is they are hacking A-League coverage and having a shake-up of the commentary team for Phoenix matches. Elrick and Harry gone, Dewhurst in, no pre-match build-up. Already yanked highlights and any support for the local game.>>>>>>

http://yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9619

Wonder what this means in terms of the expected coverage of Football in NZ….

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Midfielder said | July 25th 2009 @ 1:47pm | Report comment

The second bit of news is right in line with this thread …but the NZ owner still has plenty of coin.

http://yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9616

NBR Rich List out today has Terry at 72nd and valued at $140m, which is actually $40m more than he was valued last year, which might surprise a few

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NUFCMVFC said | July 25th 2009 @ 2:58pm | Report comment

You have actually raised a pretty good point there Midfielder, the issue of lack of mainstream media coverage obviously impacts on ‘brand awareness’ ability. Obviously from that perspective it feeds into the fact that there is a serious need for football to develop its own meida assets (new media in particular).

Obviously, stifled ability for brand awareness develop is a disincentive for investors. What’s an alternative way to develop brand awareness? Cross marketing with other sports, particularly the smaller sports in the same market, this was obviously the thinking behind TeaMelbourne (with a smaller AFL club). Normally this is an issue obviously, but in terms of the A League, where half the demographic is hard core football fans and the other half is generalist sports fans, its not so much an issue to allow some cross marketing in context of the A League

Obviously AFL don’t want that, I remember a few years back they banned an ad in the Grand Final record relating to an MVFC vs QLD Roar game the next day, but they are in the dominant position trying to protect their patch whereas it’s a bit different with A League and Rugby Union in Melbourne

In fact you can say this even extends to the national Team support, you obviously have your hard cores but a lot of the people who make up Socceroos, State of Origin and Wallabies crowds (not sure about international rules vs Ireland tbh) are ‘event goers’ in terms of them being generalist sports fans

It’s at grassroots level where things get ugly, but even then the AFL expansion into Western Sydney has raised issues of cross sharing of Rectangular facilities, and you can see in the goal posts they often have them as a hybrid of NRL and Football, I have seen this in Canberra myself

Back to MVFC and Union though, the issue in Melbourne with that if in national league terms, the rectangular sports are now effectively cross sharing facilities at the new Rectangular Stadium, MVFC with Storm and soon to be Heart. Not to mention Union. From this perspective, one can simply see a lot of sense in a joint MVFC/MVRUFC entity approaching the Rectangular Stadium as one. From Union’s perspective this is a lot more stronger and more able administration than looks to be the case with the VRU branch which is not as advanced in its institutional development but the crowds of a Super 15 team would be higher if connected to MVFC than not IMO (I would go even though I don’t now). From a lobbying perspective, it was Union that got this stadium underway in the first place, but MVFC and football provide the power to fill it fairly strongly to the point where it was expanded from 20k to 31k, between some Sccceroos and Wallabies games this all adds to a pressure to expand the Stadium, Football provide the statistical basis in terms of attendance averages etc, MVRUFC attendances would be higher if some of the MVFC fans also attend during A League off-season (40% attend AFL remember so there is an openness to other sports).

What happens with this joint lobbying power? We can hopefully see the Govt owned Rectangular Stadium expanded to 40k + sooner rather than later, which obviously benefits football because the Stadium can be used for mid range WCQ like the Australia vs Qatar that was played at TD last year that only required about a 50k stadium and which the MCG is too big as well as Wallabies games which seem to get in the region of 40k or so (at soon to be AFL owned Docklands). Even the Storm would be interested in this, surely the NRL would prefer Origin games to be played at a 40k+ Rectangular stadium that is the home of the local NRL team rather than the (soon to be AFL owned Docklands). Not to mention ACQ although I would like that to go to Perth, Adelaide etc, + the fact that “Marquee” and A League finals matches can be played out of a stadium that is not set to be owned by the AFL, who obviously have an incentive as the major sport in the area to try to control a prospective threat, which means higher rates at Etihad than is nowthe case (MVFC have a very good deal from what I can tell), FFA have no real alternative to Etihad for A League finals atm (in future years this is revenue going to the AFL? Which kind of defeats half the purpose of the principle behind not allowing cross ownership, which is to avoid footballs money going into other sports) ,

This is not AFL bashing as such for AFL fans on here, but we can see the issue the AFL has had with Docklands over the sponsorship with Etihad as a competitor to AFL sponsor Emirates and obviously the big argument over Stadium deals for AFL clubs and a comparison between that and MVFC’s deal, AFL will aggressively protect its interests (as anyone in that position would), and footballs sudden rise out of nowhere has impacted on the pre-existing balance of the sporting landscape in Australia. Which in turn prospectively makes it harder to make ends meet with football ownership which is once again a disincentive to investors

All in all a fascinating discussion topic, obviously no one wants to see the “wrong people” taking cross ownership stakes into A League teams

Personally I think each instance has to be taken on its merits rather than a blanket rule as the Lynch article seems to suggest is being mooted in the license agreements, because obviously Lord was originally an AFL person and you can’t really say he has been bad for football, Palmer a Rugby League person and he is great, matheson owns Golf Courses I think, DO SFC’s new owners have a stake in an eastern European club? What of John Singleton, he was generally a Rugby League person from what I remember, not exactly bad for the Mariners? Not to mention the Footballs grassroots, eg someone like Melissa Fisher (but more reputable…) who owns Altona Magic in the VPL who wanted to invest first in NQ and then Canberra I think

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Gibbo said | July 27th 2009 @ 4:58pm | Report comment

can anyone do a favour for myself and any fellow Gen-Y’s by summarising this into a four line paragraph? I am interested, but not THAT interested…

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Midfielder said | July 27th 2009 @ 5:25pm | Report comment

Gibbo

Many posters on the Roar explain in great detail what they are on about … sometimes it is near impossible to say what you want in 4 lines …

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Pippinu said | July 27th 2009 @ 5:38pm | Report comment

Gibbo
I blame the education system!!!

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