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The real problem with GWS Giants? Nobody's supporting them

6th August, 2014
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The Giants Academy has produced premiership players. (Slattery Media)
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6th August, 2014
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The GWS Giants have a big problem that the AFL fails to properly acknowledge – support for the Giants is low.

What’s more, it doesn’t look like increasing any time soon.

While the Giants are still in their infancy it is to be expected that crowd attendances will vary, and that membership numbers will be lower than those of other AFL clubs.

It is also to be expected that, as the Giants play more seasons of AFL, these numbers will increase.

However, this is not going to be an easy task. Not only are the Giants trying to expand the brand of AFL in a state which traditionally follows NRL, they are also trying to expand into the heartland of two of the NRL’s most established clubs: the Penrith Panthers and the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs.

These clubs, founded in 1966 and 1934 respectively, have a long-standing affiliation with the people of western Sydney. It will be a difficult task for the Giants to capture the hearts – and pocket strings – of the supporters of these two clubs, particularly given the crossover of the AFL and NRL seasons.

This hard truth is compounded by the popular support of another team which calls western Sydney home.

Despite the team being founded in 2012, just like the GWS Giants, the Western Sydney Wanderers have managed to grab the attention of the ethnically diverse people of Sydney’s west.

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By the end of last year’s 2013-14 A-League season, the Wanderers had signed up 16,000 members. The Giants, by comparison, have managed less than 14,000 signatures this year. More disappointingly, the Giants have averaged less than 9,000 supporters at homes games this year, whereas the Wanderers averaged almost 15,000 last season.

These two clubs were established at the same time, but they share little else in common. The Wanderers finished on top of the A-League table in 2012-13 and were runners-up in 2013-14. The Giants, on the other hand, collected the wooden spoon in both 2012 and 2013.

It may be unfair to compare the Giants with the Wanderers, because the Wanderers came into the A-League only seven years after its creation, whereas the Giants have come into a league which has a history spanning over 100 years. What’s more, the AFL is a much larger competition. There are 18 clubs, compared to the A-League’s 10. Therefore, the odds are in the Wanderers’ favour to perform better than the Giants.

These favourable odds may appear to have little to do with external factors, such as crowd attendances and membership numbers. However, success on the field invariably leads to success off the field. Crowds want to see an exciting brand of football, whether that be in the A-League or the AFL, and members have a propensity to jump on the bandwagon when their team is winning.

Unfortunately for the Giants, their paltry four wins this season are not only discouraging membership growth, but may also be pushing potential members to support western Sydney’s success story – the Wanderers.

Indeed, the Wanderers already have 10,000 members signed up for the forthcoming A-League season.

In a state where NRL is king, the last thing the Giants need is a successful team from another code of football crowding their space. But that is the exact card that they have been dealt.

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Hopefully 2015 sees the Giants with more wins, because on-field success is what the team needs in order to capture the attention of western Sydney.

If it came down to supporting the Giants or the Wanderers, I’d choose the team that was winning, too.

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