Central Coast Mariners players (L to R) Tom Pendeljak, Matthew Simon and John Hutchinson sit dejected after loosing 0-1 to the Newcastle Jets in the A-League Grand Final in Sydney on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2008. AAP Image/Paul Miller
Everyone invested in making the A-League a success is looking for the ‘magic bullet’ that will translate the success of the national team and the enormous grassroots participation rates in football into bums on seats for the A-League.
So why isn’t there higher crowds at A-League games?
There is no sense of ownership or buy-in from the fans for the domestic league. And the mums, dads and kids who flock to local football grounds every weekend do not feel an association to their A-League club.
They don’t feel they belong or are invested in their A-League club’s success.
The FFA and the A-League clubs themselves have not done a good job in marketing the league or inspiring loyalty. Expensive ads do little to engage the fans.
And email seems to be the communication tool of choice – anyone who has anything to do with a local football club will have received lots of emails promoting the A-League.
Problem is, few people read them – they’re too busy with life, and very few that do are inspired to take up a membership.
On top of which, there is a significant number of parents that don’t have access to a computer or don’t use one.
There is no magic bullet. A-League clubs must get their hands dirty and get their brand in peoples faces, take their message to the streets, the shopping malls, the schools and the local clubs.
They need to open their gates to fans and local clubs, invite them to training sessions, matchday functions. Get the grassroots football community involved in decision making, invite volunteers to be part of committees and project groups.
The ways that A-League clubs can engage the grassroots football community are endless.
A-League clubs that do engage the fans, local clubs and schools, will find that people will volunteer their time to create blogs, cheers squads, coin chants, write to newspapers and demand air-time on radio and TV because they feel passionate and engaged.
The fans will create the culture if the A-League clubs give them a voice and allow them to be stakeholders in the club’s success. And they’ll buy a membership year on year and watch their team because it’s ‘theirs’.
If not, expect the mums and dads to turn up to their local football ground every weekend to watch their kids play and then go home to watch the AFL or NRL or EPL.
Recommend this story.
September 30th 2009 @ 1:22am
Freud of Football said | September 30th 2009 @ 1:22am | Report comment
“Problem is, few people read them – they’re too busy with life, and very few that do are inspired to take up a membership.” – And your suggestion is what? “take their message to the streets, the shopping malls, the schools and the local clubs.”
It’s not that simple, marketing managers love email, you can get a huge message out, quickly and with minimal costs and encourage user interactivity. You need to consider budgets before you suggest your methods above as sending people out costs a lot more money than emailing a list of people.
“On top of which, there is a significant number of parents that don’t have access to a computer or don’t use one.” – http://www.internetworldstats.com/top25.htm
Australia is 8th in the world for internet penetration, yes the technology isn’t as advanced as elsewhere in the world but there is definately enough people with access to the internet and accessing emails is literally easy enough for everyone to do nowadays so this is no longer a valid excuse.
Last but not least, -Mike Tuckermann posted this in his recent piece on the crowd “riots” between Adelaide & Melbourne. I don’t want someone like Aleks speaking on my behalf, I’d rather continue to not have a voice.
September 30th 2009 @ 11:09am
Joe Novella said | September 30th 2009 @ 11:09am | Report comment
Freud of Football, thanks for taking the time to comment, debate is exactly what we need if we’re going to get football to where it needs to be.
The most important factor in any marketing campaign is return on investment per dollar spend. Email still costs time and requires resources to prepare and very few of the mums and dads I talk to have signed up or taken their kids to an A-league game as a result of email (I’ve been involved in grassroots football as a coach, administrator, player, website owner for over 30 years so I get to speak to a lot of parents).
However, get Archie Thompson or Kevin Muscat (as our local club did with Melbourne Victory’s blessing and sponsorship) down to the local clubs to speak to the kids, or take a training session, sign autographs and parents sign up for memberships there and then.
There is certainly a cost to clubs for releasing their players but I don’t think the cost is prohibitive and the results in my experience have been a huge return for the investment.
Many people do read emails on the A-League, but its the mums and dads of grassroots football that the A-League need to win over to ensure growth and prosperity, and I’m not sure the message is getting through to them.
My point on email is that the FFA and A-League clubs should not rely on it as the sole communication method and for winning new members. And getting the message to the grassroots via player visits certainly would not break the bank in terms of cost.
My opinion only and I respect yours and welcome the debate because it’s passionate people like those who are willing to contribute their time to write passionately about football and raise questions that we need.
September 30th 2009 @ 12:05pm
Ryan Steele said | September 30th 2009 @ 12:05pm | Report comment
Freud, as I mentioned earlier, in another of the articles where you mentioned this, Aleks isn’t a spokesperson. No point in carrying on the way you are.
September 30th 2009 @ 7:30am
albe said | September 30th 2009 @ 7:30am | Report comment
More assistance from clubs and FFA for supporter groups would be a big help. Its this atmosphere thats a major draw for football, and for getting people off the couch and out to the live games.
Also tapping into the local associations is varied from club to club. Sydney seem to be doing it better, the Mariners also. But most other clubs have a ways to go on this front.
“There is no sense of ownership or buy-in from the fans for the domestic league..”
a pretty sweeping statement. There is plenty of interest in the A-League, even if the debate online seems dominated by people talking it down. But there’s clearly more to be done in connecting to the grassroots.
Its great to want things to progress further. But people lose touch with where we are. We have a five-year old competition that already out-draws many other leagues and clubs in Asia as well as some mid-level European teams. A fantastic achievement in a short time.
September 30th 2009 @ 7:37am
Gaz said | September 30th 2009 @ 7:37am | Report comment
Good article. I couldn’t help thinking about how many footballing families are closely involved with their kids’ own clubs, and how much time and effort they give to those clubs. I think the problem is that working families nowadays are very busy and have limited free time, and limited money. Giving away more free tickets to kids would certainly be a good way to bring the whole family into the stadium.
Also there exists a disconnect between the A-League and the local clubs, so even top-division players don’t feel any special affiliation with their regional A-League. Maybe I am just speaking about what I see on the Gold Coast here, but certainly the flow-through from the local clubs to the AL team could be much better. And that’s despite GCU playing friendly pre-season trials against nearly all the local teams.
Of course, there is a political component there – local clubs can see the A-League team as a competitor, whereas they should be encouraged to see them as a partner. Maybe that’s something the FFA can work on?
September 30th 2009 @ 9:39am
melbvictory87 said | September 30th 2009 @ 9:39am | Report comment
no gaz what your saying is true. melbourne victory is the same and i also think they should connect with state league sides
September 30th 2009 @ 8:29am
steven said | September 30th 2009 @ 8:29am | Report comment
Top article.This sentence “There is no magic bullet. A-League clubs must get their hands dirty ”
is so true.They think the success will just happen on its own just by riding on the back of the socceroos “WAVE”.
They need to go to local clubs and offer something back in return for promoting and signing new members to the clubs.I know adelaide a few years ago was giving local clubs 20% of any new membership money.What a win/win for all.
The a-league club gets new members from the most obvious source and the local club gets some money in return.
So to sum up GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES CLUBS AND MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Because it wont happen on its own.
September 30th 2009 @ 8:29am
Ben said | September 30th 2009 @ 8:29am | Report comment
“There is no sense of ownership or buy-in from the fans for the domestic league. And the mums, dads and kids who flock to local football grounds every weekend do not feel an association to their A-League club.
“They don’t feel they belong or are invested in their A-League club’s success.”
Never a wiser thing was said about the A-League. Spot-on, great article.
September 30th 2009 @ 9:44am
melbvictory87 said | September 30th 2009 @ 9:44am | Report comment
the article is spot on and it just frustrates me because i have been complaining about this for ages. im at odds on how comfortable i am with the future of our sport, the amount of casual fans i know is enourmous if all of them actually attended we would sell out the mcg week in week in, furthermore the participation rates is unbelieveable, we have more kids playing football than afl and rugby league put together. what needs to be addressed tho in order to make the league work (and we do need it to work) is how the clubs connect with fans and local communities. i have many many many ideas of what they could be doing and im sure that will help my team but theres basicly no outlet to do so. melb victory has made quite a few mistakes already by not listening to their fans and it has cost them attendances. furthermore, brisbane roar continues to rob its fans in broad daylight. a working football competition is a dream for me and i just wish they had some avenue for our views to be heard.
September 30th 2009 @ 9:55am
Pippinu said | September 30th 2009 @ 9:55am | Report comment
But what does that mean exactly: “There is no sense of ownership or buy-in from the fans for the domestic league.” ?
September 30th 2009 @ 11:25am
Joe Novella said | September 30th 2009 @ 11:25am | Report comment
Hi Pippinu, yep, good question.
In a nutshell, when I talk about ownership and buy in I talk about kids and adults using terms like “my club is Adelaide”, “Our family supports Sydney.” I talk about the sense that people have of belonging to the community of a club and investing their time and emotions into the success of that club by going to fan days, matches, award nights, by creating blogs, putting pictures of their favourite A-league players on their facebook or myspace pages and so on. By doing this they have bought into the clubs future and feel a sense of ownership by using “My”, “Ours”.
I talk to a lot of kids these days who play fooball and when I ask them who they support, they say, Chelsea, Man U etc and it breaks my heart. Even parents that are passionate about football, still haven’t bought into the A-league and still talk in terms of Celtic, Juventus…
There’s nothing wrong with ex-pats supporting their old country teams and feeling an association to them but I dream of the day when I ask a bunch of kids who they support and they all yell out an A-league club, or when a parent says I’ll always follow Celtic but now that I’m here in Australia I’ll follow Perth Glory as well because they’re ‘My’ team.
cheers
Joe.
September 30th 2009 @ 10:27am
David V. said | September 30th 2009 @ 10:27am | Report comment
Poor scheduling is to blame a lot of the time. Scheduling games when local clubs have awards nights isn’t a smart idea.
But maybe another problem is the fact that many football supporters consider the A-League a comedown compared to overseas leagues they watch. The quality of players in this league is as good as ever, but is the standard improving? Entertainment value is clearly not great, and we can see painful deficiencies that can so easily be rectified.
Football people in this country are also more likely to resort to cliches and generalisations instead of taking time to think. Look at what a player like Charlie Miller brings to this league despite not having the exotic name and background the clueless marketers would prefer a player to have.
The game also needs to position itself as intelligent and socially responsible. Curbing the teen/adolescent imbecile element the league unfortunately attracts (in my experience, heck read half the A-League forums out there for proof) would be a good start.
September 30th 2009 @ 6:56pm
melbvictory87 said | September 30th 2009 @ 6:56pm | Report comment
i dont thinkso curbing the adolescents is a good idea. these ppl are the future, in fact the attendances dropped when mvfc restricted their seating from level 1 to level 3. unethical behaviour will not be tolerated but to be honest despite the bullshit that news ltd spills, the hyundai a-league is safe and very very family friendly
September 30th 2009 @ 10:37am
Spanner said | September 30th 2009 @ 10:37am | Report comment
Nice work Joe. The sense of ownership is the key ingredient missing in the community for these clubs. Visiting many stadiums over the past four years and enjoying the atmosphere during the game I found the next day there was nothing to suggest a game was even played. Very little TV, radio, newspaper content. My point being is if you dont get the chance to get to the game again for a while you quickly lose touch completely with the club as it is not in your face to remind you. You have to go and find it. The A League will only grow with the investment in mainstream media which give community interest and therefore banter over the water cooler at work or at a bbq. You have to pay for this it doesnt come for free as the other sports are trying to keep you out.
September 30th 2009 @ 11:28am
Joe Novella said | September 30th 2009 @ 11:28am | Report comment
Thanks Spanner. You’ve wrapped up exactly what I’m trying to get across. Couldn’t agree more.
September 30th 2009 @ 11:24am
Koala Bear said | September 30th 2009 @ 11:24am | Report comment
Nice article Joe and I fully concur… Every A-League club needs to engage more at the grass roots level by putting on an open house training session for the youngsters; at least one late evening session a week during the season, with free ticket giveaways for those kids who turn up to watch the team train…
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KB