By Davidde Corran
October 14th 2009 @ 12:35am
Related coverage
Crowds aren’t just FFA’s responsibility
Melbourne Victory's Archie Thompson (right) walks past as the Central Coast Mariners players celebrate winning round 1 of the 2009/10 A-League season in Melbourne, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. The Mariners beat Victory 2-0. AAP Image/Joe Castro
There have been some exceptionally good pieces written over the last few days from members of the football media. Even more exciting is that they’ve all come from the next generation of local football journalists.
Vitor Sobral and Tony Tannous have both written great analysis of the Socceroos friendly with the Netherlands.
Here at The Roar, Mike Tuckerman has tackled an issue that has been a major gripe of mine since I started following the game.
At the same time Adrian Musolino put forward some new ideas on how we can overcome the challenges facing the A-League at the moment.
It’s warming to know that, despite the challenges our game continues to face, there is a new generation of passionate and educated football journalists coming through the ranks.
It’s something that Simon Hill wrote eloquently on not all that long ago.
Despite these positives it doesn’t take away the challenges facing the game at the moment and Musolino’s article is spot on.
We do need some ‘out of the box’ thinking to solve the drop in crowds. It’s not just the decreasing attendances that are worrying. The A-League’s profile should be growing but instead it’s moving backwards.
However, I’d like to return some of the focus onto the clubs. Promotion from Football Federation Australia can only cut through at the highest levels. It’s up to the clubs to really get people coming through the turnstiles through effectively connecting with your ‘average’ person.
Without wanting to sound too much like Yoda (or Hiro Nakamura depending on the kind of fanboy you are), A-League clubs must be responsible for their own destinies.
There’s an example from Japan that highlights exactly what we need to be seeing from all 12 A-League clubs.
Every Australian football club would no doubt look at J-League side Albirex Niigata with envy. Niigata are currently sitting fifth in the J-League standings and regularly see gates of over 40,000. The thing is, they are only 10 years old so their success is all the more phenomenal but also attainable.
In the early days of the club, the staff from the PR department would go round the entire city, knocking on doors, handing out fliers and encouraging people to go to games.
They invested a lot of time and effort into making the community feel connected to the club. Niigata grew very quickly and by the time they made it into the top flight of the J-League, they were pulling in some of the biggest crowds in the country.
At the time, only Urawa Reds were getting bigger crowds on a consistent basis. In fact in 2003 they were attracting the biggest crowds in the country despite only being in the Japanese second division!
There’s a lesson there for us to learn from Niigata’s approach.
Brisbane Roar’s belated but positive back flip on their ticket prices isn’t the answer either. That will stem the tide of supporters turning away but it wont engage any of the local community who have never been to a Roar game.
Positive, grassroots engagement is the key for every single club. Otherwise there may be very little for some of these new and talented football journalists to write about.
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constantine said | October 14th 2009 @ 2:37am | Report comment
maybe try tell the clubs this. i know for a fact that victory was responsible for their own demise by changing the seating plans at telstra dome in season 3. if they didnt tamper with a working model, the average attendance can be speculated to be 40k by now. eitherway, that aside i agree with you 100% davidde; the amount of grassroots work is negligible in my opinion. what they need to do is connect and partner up with state league sides. sydney did that and their attendance is up this year
AndyRoo said | October 14th 2009 @ 8:43am | Report comment
Constatine, MV did just complete their 5 a side comp
http://www.melbournevictory.com.au/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=29938
Note the kids get visited and coached by MV players (Men and Women) and receive MV merchandise.
I think in regards to State League there is not much teams can do. They should all be playing their preseason friendlies against State League teams rather than other A league teams of course (we see all the a league match ups at least 3 times a year we don’t need to see them in pre season). Possible exceptions is when the games are taken tonew areas like Darwin, Tasmania and the CCM game in Country NSW.
Some teams have done a deal witht heir state league teams to give them more than the 3k the FFA say is adequate compensation for signing a player.
Killer_Tomatoes said | October 14th 2009 @ 12:16pm | Report comment
Ummm, Victory changed the seating plan at the order of the FFA, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Pull out said | March 13th 2010 @ 11:41pm (2 weeks ago) | Report comment
Rubbish. Pure and simple.
No way would the average be 40k.
It was new and people just assumed it was the Australian EPL. Then you go to matches and realise it is 3rd division in nice stadiums.
Get the players standards up and the crowds will follow. We know quality, it is on tv every week.
Freud of Football said | October 14th 2009 @ 4:34am | Report comment
Davidde, you are right, there are some very good journalists coming through but unfortunately the exposure on tv isn’t there. This is of course still the biggest form of media in Australia and until the level picks up here we won’t see vast improvements in the sport or its coverage.
However you cannot compare the A-League with the J-League. Just the population density is a whole different ball game and a factor not to be underestimated. I’ve found it’s hard for people who’ve never been to Australia to grasp the vastness of the country, how ridiculously big WA is or how sparsely populated a state like SA is. Japan is much more compact with a much higher population and density with a proper transport infrastructure whereby fans don’t have to fly to almost every away game – the advantages there are obvious.
Although I’m sure every A-League club would love to send teams of people out to door-knock and build interest in the game it’s financially impractical, I can’t imagine a club like Brisbane for example being able to gather enough volunteers to make significant inroads into the broader Brisbane area for it to be worthwhile although sitting around twiddling their thumbs is obviously not the right answer either.
That being said, the focus and responsibility for the gates must remain with the clubs, advertising a league in its infancy and at the level the A-League is won’t be as successful as building up the brands of the individual clubs, building the organisations behind them and making each like a mini empire.
The best thing the clubs can do in my opinion is look to garner the support of their fans. They have thousands of paying members who are obviously interested in the game and the club, get them on board to help spread the word, it’s in the members interests that their clubs perform well both on and off the pitch and by being a little more pro-active (bring a friend get 50% off type deal) it also develops a certain bond with the club.
Mr cheese said | October 14th 2009 @ 6:59am | Report comment
Aha,
making a club grow through bringing in local supporters. Couldn’t agree more.
That’s the best thing for football in Australia. In Holland. And………………….in England.
By the way, Freud, did you see New Z versus Bahrain the other day ? I didn’t, but I understand that people are giving NZ a pretty good chance of getting through. Seems strange that either of them could get there because it seems that neither can play.
What would the reaction be in Aussie if NZ qualified ? I don’t understand le rapport between these two countries. Is it like that between us and the Scots ? i.e. one qualifies and the other doesn’t ????
Freud of Football said | October 14th 2009 @ 4:53pm | Report comment
Mr Cheese, I see your very thinly veiled pro-England stance thrown in there and I too agree. The EPL wouldn’t be what it is without the english fans and the histories and old rivalries, that being said, the league would survive (not prosper but someohow survive) without them.
Further, the England-Scotland relationship is totally different than the Aus-NZ. Aus-NZ doesn’t have the whole monarchy behind it, the government, they’re not bound by land, the languages are more similar etc etc etc etc. England-Scotland have hated each other for longer than Australia or NZ has even existed as a country.
Personally I’d like to see the Kiwi’s do well for the simple reason that Wellington is based on the All-Whites squad and vice-versa, the more international football they get the better.
Mr cheese said | October 14th 2009 @ 7:43pm | Report comment
I like that “the languages are more similar” line. The Scots would be pretty upset about that, but we can’t really understand what they say so that makes no difference, perhaps.
Jason Gillespie was working for the BBC during The Ashes, and he said a few harsh things about New Zealanders, not just their cricket team.
The New Zealand football should go to South Africa if only so that they can wear their away strip: All Black.
Davidde Corran said | October 14th 2009 @ 6:36am | Report comment
Freud, I haven’t compared the A-League and J-League with one another. It is simply a matter of looking at the approach one Japanese club has taken.
For what it’s worth Niigata is quite a small city (around 850,000) and in a prefecture of a little over two million people. Travel between cities in Japan is comfortable but expensive. The cost of traveling from Kyoto to Tokyo can be as expensive as a flight between Sydney and Melbourne and takes much longer. Even within Tokyo it’s difficult to travel to games. For example it takes around four hours return to go from Omiya to Kawasaki (both cities have J1 teams). But the point still remains that it’s the approach Niigata has taken to interacting with it’s local community that I’ve put up for discussion.
David V. said | October 14th 2009 @ 10:42am | Report comment
Talking about travel costs in Japan is another thing altogether. Keep in mind that in Japan, most people don’t own their own home, have no mortgage to pay off, and hence have higher disposable income they can use for a fancy car, travel, etc.
Freud of Football said | October 14th 2009 @ 5:04pm | Report comment
As I pointed out, it’s not the population, it’s the density that you need to consider. Yes 2.4 Million isn’t huge, but 2.4 million people in an area of 12.587 square/km. A-League teams are more-or-less state orientated, given the majority of the population is in the capitals and this is where a good deal of the fans will come from but these capitals are spread nothing like Japan.
Travel. This is simply incomparable. Have you ever taken a bus between cities in Aus? My god, it’s one of the worst experiences imaginable.
Flying isn’t always an option (lots of people don’t like flying) and it isn’t exactly cheap, flights for a family of 4 plus A-League tickets, that’s gonna be pretty damn expensive.
Further, the Japanese, similar to Europeans are dependent on public transport to a far greater extent. In Aus, most people on a decent wage own a car or two and drive everywhere, in Japan people don’t necessarily need to own cars as the public transport available is of a much better standard than that of Australia’s cities and further it is also inter-regional and nationally connected, unlike Australia’s. In Aus, without a car you will struggle.
Killer_Tomatoes said | October 14th 2009 @ 12:13pm | Report comment
“A-League clubs need to be responsible for their own destinies”, couldn’t agree more, now how about the FFA actually loosen the reigns a little and let them do so.
Midfielder said | October 14th 2009 @ 12:54pm | Report comment
Davidde
Good on ya…. I prefer the writing of many of the newer journalist .. they don’t seem to carry baggage of what use to be… nor do they expect Champions League levels from the start… they are pushing the game forward and report on game and it’s characters…
They bring a freshness and objectivity to reporting …. I was talking about this with a mate at the world masters and he believes that whereas in the past it was SBS and nothing … maybe get a gig as a reporter but on many things not only football…. Today Fox, SBS, Fairfax, The Roar, 442 all have paid journalist and thus not the need to conform to the thinking of any one organisation…
News to are adding football reporters to the stable…
My new favorite is Sebastian Hassett he has done some excellent work…
David V. said | October 14th 2009 @ 3:05pm | Report comment
Attracting fans who aren’t volatile, sociopathic, egotistical teens/adolescents would be a good start.
Midfielder said | October 14th 2009 @ 3:22pm | Report comment
David V
That counts most out on this forum…
Rob said | October 14th 2009 @ 5:28pm | Report comment
Heres my crazy…way out of the box solution to the issue of crowds…Yes Im serious and yes I think its crazy enough to actually work.
Times are tough and frankly the A-league is way over priced for what it delivers ( and Im a football tragic so what must the average blow in think). So I think we need a brave solution to make football truly the game of the people… Here goes
- FFA takes over all stadium and ticketing agreements, re negotiates hire arrangements. Franky is surely good at that sort of thing.
- FFA pays all venue costs out of a loan secured on the back of the upcoming TV deal.
….and heres the punch line ……-Make all seats at all grounds for the next 5 yrs $10 flat rate.( yes Im serious)
- Clubs only get gate reciepts after FFA costs are met, which at these ticket prices probably means crowds of about 15k. but because of the FFA backing/subsidy they are able to put more resources into marketing locally.
Now tell me that wont make the A-league more popular than a lifeboat on the Titanic!!
gazz said | October 14th 2009 @ 5:29pm | Report comment
Yeah, that’s true Davidde. But the FFA must facilitate good crowds and some of the timeslots this season havent been ideal.
In Perth for example, Glory matches clashed with Round 21 and 22 of the AFL and the WAFL grand final in September. That eliminated plenty of the locals who enjoy all sports, thus dropping attendances slightly. I know its not a huge number, but the FFA needs to work a bit harder on its fixturing. Maybe some more consistency in times too.
Paul said | October 14th 2009 @ 11:09pm | Report comment
Dare I say that after tonight’s game in Melbourne, a live match in the Asian cup no less, that the low crowd of 20,000 in a non AFL period, shows that soccer is fading in Australia. It will never become a mainstream professional sport.
Yikes said | October 14th 2009 @ 11:18pm | Report comment
I was wondering about this too. 20,000 did seem rather low. We’ve had a few people on the Roar seem to suggest that with the A-League and Socceroos in the World Cup soccer is now an unstoppable behemoth.
I do not in any way wish soccer ill. I hope it prospers and I will support my country in any sport. But I wonder if soccer’s supporters are as cocky as rugby’s were while on the crest of the wave of the RWC2003?
constantine said | October 15th 2009 @ 12:34am | Report comment
its a wednesday night clas against a country nobody has even heard of. thats hardly any cause for alarm. usually i know 15 people that go, tonight only me and another friend went. victory drew 30k on friday and thats victory, every1 follows australia, but when you play on a working night against a team that barely gets pulses racing thats what you get. its the same thing as the cricket team having a test match against nicaragua on a wednesday. hardly any cause for concern
AndyRoo said | October 15th 2009 @ 8:39am | Report comment
Well obviously the novelty of seeing Timmy and Lucas is wearing off a little, so tickets starting from $50 seem a bit steep.
The fact the Victory got 30k last Friday means the issues are clouded
constantine said | October 15th 2009 @ 12:37am | Report comment
yikes: there is a major difference btw football and rugby. i admit that i like union, more than league by miles but football has a very good presence in australia and really could become a giant here. rugby has few juniors playing whereas football has double the amount of players that afl and league have combined. also football is the worlds sport, its the sport of planet earth, you cant keep something like that shackled completely.
Davidde Corran said | October 15th 2009 @ 3:17am | Report comment
Gazz great point. The Fox Sports TV deal FFA are tied to certainly has it’s drawbacks. Namely fitting all the games in at times where they can be broadcast live. That’s why you end up with such awkward scheduling. To think Melbourne Victory were originally set to play the Gold Coast during the AFL Grand Final! That it was even considered, let alone nearly happened, is shocking.
The fact FFA protects this exclusivity deal with Fox Sports by limiting the mainstream media’s access to the Socceroos doesn’t help things either.
I wouldn’t get too upset by the crowd last night. Tickets aren’t cheap to Socceroos games and most Australian sports followers still don’t quite understand that teams like Oman can actually play football and are worth seeing. Lets not forget the 70,000 who turned up to see the Socceroos play against Japan in what was effectively a dead rubber in June.
That said it was still a disappointing crowd and personally I’ll be kicking all my friends up the backside for not turning up.