Fan should protest against Crowd Cap
Roar Pro
By Danny_Mac, 19 Aug 2010 Danny_Mac is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- A-League, Clive Palmer, FFA, football, Gold Coast United
So, the crowd cap is back. It is very easy for fans to get upset, but really, can you blame Clive Palmer? There have been many calls from fans for Big Clive to “dig deep” and foot the bill. After all, he’s not short of a quid.
This ignores the fact that you don’t become successful through poor business practice and excess. The Chairman of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, is one of the richest people in the world (11th), but famously flies around the world in economy.
Palmer claims that Gold Coast United bled him of $5 million last year. That is a lot of money.
Any smart business-person isn’t going to stand for that. The crowd cap is estimated to save the club $1million this season, that’s a reduction of 20%, which is nothing to be sneezed at.
But the cap is a black eye for the game, an acknowledgment that despite its massive success over the last five years, the game still has struggles.
So where does the blame lie?
The FFA have responsibility of promoting the game in this country, and it is fair to say that they have taken their eye off the ball domestically in recent time due to their devotion of 100% focus on the world cup bid. There is also some blame that can be levelled their way in admitting the team at all.
The admission of Gold Coast United has hurt Brisbane crowds, and is really starting to seem like they have tried to pony up to Clive Palmer, a wealthy mining magnate with an outspoken love of football.
The fans are no innocents here, either.
This is a controversial sentiment, but the reality is that without the fans, the club doesn’t exist. And where there is inaction from the club, the fans should try and pick up some of the slack. This is as simple as trying to drag a friend along to a game.
Who hasn’t been dragged along to something they otherwise wouldn’t have gone to, but actually enjoyed it, or at very least enjoyed the experience of going to a game with friends.
If every second person that attends a Gold Coast United game brought a friend, a niece or nephew, or a friend of their child along to the game, the crowd numbers spike dramatically.
The other guilty party is the administrators (both club and FFA). As it stands, the club needs to get 8,000 through the gate to break even. The club isn’t getting anywhere near that.
So the administrators should have negotiated a much better deal for the game. After all it in the interests of Stadiums QLD to have the ground used in some capacity, it is a world class venue and deserves to be used for more than just the Titans.
Ironically, the Brisbane Roar have been looking to get out of Suncorp Stadium as quickly as they can because that deal – also with Stadiums QLD – is bleeding them dry.
Finally, it is worth noting that closing sections of stadia and limiting crowd numbers isn’t uncommon, Etihad stadium regularly closes sections of the top tier when crowds are low, and if you have a close look at the Storm games at AAMI Park, the top tier on the side that the TV cameras are on is usually closed. It is done to reduce overhead.
The problem that Gold Coast United has is that they have to pay extensive levies for extra security and the use of the Robina train station (which the stadium is practically a part of) as soon as the crowd reaches 5,001. The levy is the same should the game be sold out.
There is a simple solution to this: as fans, vote with your feet. Turn up to the game, only to have them turn you away because the ground is “full”.
As soon as people start getting turned away, the policy will soon change.
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- Explore:
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Farqwar said | August 19th 2010 @ 8:39am | Report comment
Completley agree Danny Mac
Brett McKay said | August 19th 2010 @ 10:15am | Report comment
I just hope there’s more than one fan to protest….
Axel V said | August 19th 2010 @ 10:54am | Report comment
I don’t understand, why they can’t close off 2 stands, and have the other 2 free? e.g have 1 north stand and 1 west stand open, that’s half the stadium and will give a maximum capacity of 13000, where as the other half won’t be touched, surely that will save the management money without kicking the fans in the face?
Danny_Mac said | August 19th 2010 @ 12:14pm | Report comment
Axel, I don’t think it is as simple as that. They have to start paying extra levies for the transport, extra police etc. but you cant just ring up and say, yeah the 5001st person has just gone through, can you send a few more divvie vans down. All of these things are planned ahead of the match.
It appears that the holy grail figure is 5000, which would be covered in the main stand alone. Anything beyond that number it seems that it doesn’t really matter if you have the whole ground open.
An interesting solution would be to see if they could come to some arrangement where members of “the Beach” might be able to special access to behind one of the goals, but having it limited to only people with “the Beach” memberships of some kind, and not actually having anything other than a toilet open. Its not ideal, but it is a compromise.
The practice of closing stands happens regularly, it just isn’t widely acknowledged publicly. The Victory have closed large swathes of Etihad, particularly during their ACL campaign last year, because the pre-sales and expected interest was very low. However they didn’t come out and say that they were capping the crowd at 12,000.
It would have made more sense to just only have the one stand available this season from the very beginning, and then when the demand for tickets increases beyond that, then open up more…
Rob Gremio said | August 19th 2010 @ 11:37am | Report comment
Just one thing, the Roar have just re-signed with Suncorp stadium, so your argument that the Roar have been looking to get out of Suncorp as quickly as possible has some rather bus-sized holes in it. However, there was a fair bit of talk about moving to Ballymore, but everyone knows that that is not a decent option (transport issues, tucked into suburbia, no way to really redevelop the place due to active resistance from residents groups, outdated facilities, etc), and I’m pretty sure that the new Roar owners have managed to secure a better deal from Stadiums Queensland.
That said, I agree with pretty much everything else that you’ve said.
Danny_Mac said | August 19th 2010 @ 12:01pm | Report comment
Sorry Rob, I was unaware of the Roar’s extension to their Suncorp deal. However, it has been well documented that the deal they have with Suncorp is awful, and the Roar don’t actually break even on their games. This was why the previous owners pulled the pin, requiring the FFA to step in.
As far as I was aware, the ARU/QRU (QLD Reds) are also very unhappy with their Suncorp deal, and were looking to massively overhaul the Ballymore site, with training and sport science facilities, offices and a 20 to 25,000 seat stadium, plus upgrade the public transport to go with it. Although I don’t know what the progress on this upgrade is, although I know that they were very keen to get the Roar onboard.
The Roar will have needed a place to play in the interim, so that would explain an extension to the deal, however it would interesting to know if it was negotiated while under FFA control. Threatening Stadiums-QLD with Socceroos matches could have been a powerful bargaining chip!
Rob Gremio said | August 19th 2010 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
That’s cool, Danny_Mac.
Yeah, the Reds are trying to overhaul Ballymore, increase its capacity, etc, but as I mentioned, there is a great deal of resistance to the idea from local residents. It’s tucked into a nice, leafy suburb close to the city (behind Royal Brisbane Hospital) full of character “timber and tin” houses – Queenslanders – and the owners tend to be relatively well-heeled (its an expensive area).
The sports science stuff I believe is going ahead, as is the redevelopment of training facilities, so no dramas there, but increasing the capacity of Ballymore? I would be surprised if it happened. The transport corridors aren’t there (see leafy suburb comment above) and would be difficult to build.
And given the Roar are using Ballymore as their training ground, yes, the QRU are keen for the Roar to get on board the stadium redevelopment bandwagon. The Roar are keen to see the training facilities and sports science stuff built, but from what the Roar owners are saying, Ballymore, even with an overhaul of the stadium, just can’t supply the corporate facilities and ease of access that Suncorp can.
I think the Roar signed another 5-year deal with Suncorp.
Also, the Roar owners refused FFA’s offer of financial aid, as has been well documented elsewhere. They did, however, ask for assistance from the FFA to renegotiate the stadium deal, and that is where the Socceroos games bargaining chip comes in. I believe that extra socceroos games were offered to Suncorp in return for a better deal for the Roar.
Danny_Mac said | August 19th 2010 @ 12:27pm | Report comment
“I believe that extra socceroos games were offered to Suncorp in return for a better deal for the Roar.”
I suspected that this would be the case, although it remains to be seen what they FFA could do to improve GCU’s deal, short of getting Asian cup qualifiers, similar to the game played in Canberra, and really any of those types of games would have more than likely been promised to Suncorp in the Roar deal! (so many puns there… but i’ll let them through to the keeper)
Rob Gremio said | August 19th 2010 @ 5:37pm | Report comment
Aw, c’mon Danny, you’ve just gotta throw at least one or two of them out there. You already got the ball rolling with the “Roar deal”.
Skilled would be a great place to host Asian Cup games if we do indeed get the hosting rights for 2015 – it’s a good size for group games anyway, and games could be shared between Brisbane and Gold Coast…
Victer said | August 19th 2010 @ 12:20pm | Report comment
Now is the time for the fans to show they want this team, period.
Rob of Perth said | August 19th 2010 @ 1:39pm | Report comment
Gold Coast Fans are just as guilty as the GC Owner & Administrators
AndyRoo said | August 20th 2010 @ 9:03am | Report comment
Disagree.
I live in the Brisbane area so don’t care either way but this club started of poorly (huge ticket prices) and then became a circus about 1 month (and 2 home games) into existence.
Why would you sign up to support that?
BrisbaneBhoy said | August 22nd 2010 @ 1:17am | Report comment
AndyRoo, what don’t you care about (either way)? Gold Coast fans protesting against the cap? Or whether the Gold Coast lives or dies??
If it is the latter, I will have to disagree with you. A healthy Gold Coast is a good thing in the long term for Brisbane (IMO).
AndyRoo said | August 22nd 2010 @ 12:08pm | Report comment
Just pointing out my position as neuatral between the spat between the fans and palmer.
A strong gold coast would be good for Brisbane I just don’t see Palmers GCU ever beeing that side. The best thing to happen would be what the FFA have done for the Fury at the end of the year and then a few years of stability.