Good signing and good start to the transfer window

Would it be the case the networks are using the sports as a form of loss-leader? Eg while making a loss on the sport itself they use them as a conduit to advertise other shows/content that are profitable etc

Yeah I think it’s case of every attendance being down as people are nervous about the Coof or if they aren’t there’s the matter of getting back in the habit of attending

Either way it’s great that instead of the lower intensity and lower attendance game on the Friday being the FTA match we are getting the better games instead like the derby’s

While in the past AAMI park would have been full for this fixture, this nevertheless shows they may slowly be on the right track once there is better societal clarity over societal measures

Next we have to hope Sydney derby’s pick up attendances too and the WS fans start to travel again to nearby suburban games

As for Macarthur and WU, concerning they are in front of NSL-sized crowds, but they are the 3rd teams for Sydney/Melbourne and it’s a matter of whether they think the broadcast revenue benefits outweigh the attendance issues

Hopefully they pick up in time and are viable but we’ll see

I had actually hoped to see APIA Lechardts and even Wollongong Wolves when they played CCM crowds bigger than they were as would have traditionally been the case against HAL teams but I guess they are down like everyone else

Well done to Ange, that will give him further confidence going forward.

Great to see him leading the way, and just as we have Muscat coaching effectively in Asia following his footsteps hopefully we can have people follow in Anges footsteps

I’d imagine the point is if the game of your local city is on FTA, it acts as a deterrent to physically attending with the knock impact on attendances etc

I did notice the Goal Rush style PiP for when WUN scored vs City so that was a good measure

While I can consider entertaining the possibility there are conscious or subconscious biases relating to major metropolitan teams in the interests of maximising broadcast revenue

It’s worth mentioning that given the build-up in the city etc the preference would have very much been for a Jets win on that particular GF just as they would have preferred WSW to win when CCM beat them so any preferences can go either way when it comes to metro/regional depending on circumstances

Yeah there’s a fine balance in ensuring the cap covered by broadcast rights ensures viable teams and general competitiveness if teams are well coached

Other side is teams with the means to do so need to be able to acquire quality in order to help competitiveness in the ACL which represents the profile of the league internationally

I can understand WU as it is half regional based in Geelong/Ballarat which aren’t strong enough for their own team and half based on melbournes western suburbs.

Similarly I could understand Charlesworth wanting CCM to also encompass northern Sydney

Hard to escape the sense that Macarthur would have been better off being Wollongong or a “South Coast” side encompassing Wollongong and southern Sydney. There is certainly a better relationship with the local council going by them allowing WPFC to use it as a home base

Agree, I had been hoping Canberra and perhaps Tasmania had picked up teams but Canberra and Wollongong would have been fine. Hopefully Gold Coast and FNQ are viable in the long term

Tbf there was benefit to the “unite the tribes” approach to having a singular team in Melbourne and Sydney for the first couple of years and the billboards having the City name at the centre line emphasised supporting the given team for that city

Expanding for WSW made sense, Heart less so and ironically WU would have made sense at the time as it is quasi regional but as it stands when Heart turned into City and a proper identity was established the issue sorted itself out

As for Brisbane, QLD has always been considered important as evidenced by the fact that two of the early expansion teams were on Gold Coast and FNQ and it is majorly unfortunate at least one of those teams was unable to remain viable

Having 3rd Melbourne and Sydney teams at the expense of expanding the greater footprint doesen’t make sense to me especially as TV broadcast revenue has ended up halving anyway

Managing fans/active support wasn’t done well but that goes for every stakeholder though as FFA eventually got team owners and players offside as well.

MV result was good in that it might be good time in re-engaging the AL support given attendance disruptions and pull the averages up etc

The away win against WU could just of easily been a 0-0 draw and it is to MV’s advantage the matches have been in Victoria so far

With Sydney it’s a bit of a mix in the sense that surprisingly they haven’t scored in two games but at the same time only conceding one goal in the two games points to a fairly robust defence and if you are creating chances as a team while one result may go against your team ultimately the team will do fine

What was encouraging was seeing the Matildas crowd and good FTA coverage so in time I do feel Channel 10 driven publicity will bear fruit although it will take time with Wellington and Macarthur playing in front of empty home away from home stadiums dragging down the average and looking heinous on TV

That type of dynamic leads to the “is Viduka or Kewell” playing question everytime the Socceroos played and attendances weren’t great

There was a point in the early 2010’s to mid 2010’s where the support of WSW, SFC and MVFC were quite healthy and robust and brand wise it was starting to equal a fading Socceroos brand and sociologically it was arguably getting bigger given the week-to-week contact

So for mine it’s a matter of if you make attending AL games part of ones social staple you can develop quite a bit of robustness and depth and it is this type of thing that helps English football league go 4 tiers deep

Interesting article.

There was some shooting of self in the foot with how the active support has been mismanaged as the hit pieces started when WSW was doing well and MV earlier

That said there are many issues, Western United and Macarthur were chosen because of metro broadcast reasons but the non-crowd for Macarthur due to pitch and Western United getting just 3000 isn’t a good look

I can somewhat understand Western United as it is a quasi regional Vic team but hard to escape the sense Canberra should have been chosen instead and instead of Macarthur have a team based out of Wollongong instead to expand the games footprint

A 2nd division may help over time being a mix of upcoming expansion teams and NSL teams. I think the FFA Cup has done a lot of good work in bringing those old NSL teams back into the fold though it should have occurred 5 years earlier than it did

There’s a lot of good going on though compared to where we just were though, COVID has made a mess of a lot of things including the acquisition of marquee players to help on the field and leveragte for marketing purposes so TV $ is going to be harder to come by but the core production values 10 are bringing are reasonable and P+ has to work out the teething issues and gremlins

Seeing RBB and MV support while lower in numbers was encouraging on Sunday and the Cove seemed OK as well, so there is a core that can be built on

It’s an interesting topic and one I was thinking about on the weekend. Obviously COVID has disrupted a lot of things and being able to attend sport is one of them

In terms of size SFC Cover are smaller but this somewhat works in the smaller stadium and so is still rather atmospheric

The production worked well in the first week, if MVFC NT and ST and WSW RBB can start to swell the numbers this should work well with the Channel 10 utilising in-stadium coverage instead of the Studio for the Saturday night games

Of course larger active support means high energy and we have to hope the new FA and APL handle a few people getting over-excited and throwing a bottle or two than their predecessors who lacked the wit to see media co’s with an incentive to help “rival” codes with hit pieces about A League fan behaviour and joined in the pile-on.

Of course being aligned with a mainstream commercial network in Ch10 I’m optimistic the dynamic has actually changed and we can expect more mainstream media support and while I wouldn’t agree for O/S leagues like the EPL I can actually see some sense in allowing a small stake of media ownership in the A-Leagues

Yeah while I can understand the “3rd Metro Sydney team for broadcast $” argument I’m wondering if it is better to have a Wollongong/Southern NSW Sydney/Southern Sydney team rather than a further West WSW team

Great improvement by MVFC.

A bit cagey like everyone else and I’m wondering at this time if we are missing a potent striker but we’ll see as it is worth considering we were “away”. One guy had a good ball put into him but came off his shoulder

Yeah one thing that irritates me is navigating P+ App on my Fetch box leads to Socceroos or HAL but to watch FFA Cup and ACL I have to use the Android TV app

You can do it like the Goal Rush for the English 3pm kickoffs of the FFA Cup coverage (without the annoying sound effect), basically they bring in a smaller PiP showing goals or other major highlights while keeping the main game on screen

This would serve to keep promote Paramount+ on Channel 10 without breaking from the broadcast game completely

Yeah the cost for HAL coverage in isolation is now good because of the reduced cost of a P+ subscription as a HAL club member

That said adding it onto separate subscriptions for the other comps is now adding up, eg my phone is with Optus but I have to upscale my Stan subscription for UCL/UEL and BeIn for other football which makes it 4 subscriptions in total when in the past about 2 would do it with UCL/UEL being on either Bein or Optus

Good article

I agree about Brisbane, the goal shouldn’t have been chalked off. It’s actually a bit confusing the relationship between VAR and refs on the pitch and when they step in

In terms of the coverage, I was confused at simultaneous kick offs but as I watched Ch10 I realised what the point was when they crossed over to “Matchday Saturday” on Paramount+ and this combined with hosting the Ch10 game in the stadium amongst the atmosphere is actually a good promotional idea as atmosphere is a major selling pont of the A League

I agree there needs to be more halftime crossovers etc but I would say the priority would be to fix the Gremlins on the P+ app first as the audio eventually game through of MVFC and WUFC but we were stuck on the team sheets for a fair while but thankfully didn’t miss any early goals

The timing of the replays needs refining, though I noticed with the Sunday games they were doing a PiP style which is a good idea to get them out in timely fashion

Lastly as for the on-pitch product so to speak, can tell everyones a bit cagey in their football but I’m OK given COVID has disrupted pre-season and travel restrictions has meant getting the marquee quality that gives teams an edge in quality hasn’t been practical financially or logistically

thinking back to “Channel 0” being knocked back for the NSL rights, while SBS did well this does seem to be the final realisation of “what could have been or perhaps “should” have been

Good stuff. I’m looking forward to what Channel 10 and P+ deliver

Good to have a derby on a Saturday night to headline things

Glad to hear. They’ve done a fantastic job and I do enjoy all the extra content during the week. Perhaps Paramount+ would have showed these as well but I enjoy having the actual channel to watch on the Fetch Box and able to record it rather than stream

Special mention goes to 10/Paramount+ which looks like it has made a strong start

Lol, I wrote an entire article on this a few days ago which was supposed to be Part 1

Newcastle’s new owners are symptoms of a wider sickness

This article is to cover the football side of the equation which was supposed to be part 2

I do have a slight concern that if Saudi Arabia launches their own ariline they may be inclined to change the name of the stadium ala Etihad or Emirates Stadium/s, but Stavely is smart enough to know not to do it and it may be a case of changing the Sports Direct signs to something else

In reality the reason this is hyped to the extent it is as a talking point is because of geo-politics and the media’s role in it

Lol they changed my headline which makes “part 2” its own piece

I’ve got no time for Chairmen and people who were going to launch the Super League trying to lecture anyone on anything

As for acquiring Football team, I suspect this is part of a greater “Vision 2030” initiative and sounds like they may be wanting to set up a Emirates/Etihad style airline as well as they were surprisingly persistent in wanting to see the deal through
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/potential-new-newcastle-united-sponsors-21851414

Lol, I don’t think we are going to get “visit Saudi” tourism sponsor for western audiences despite the annual Mecca pilgrimage thing but the Airline would make sense as I suspect much of this is a matter of aiming to build worldwise commercial networks

Real test comes in terms of if they want to go further than merely replacing the Sports Direct signs with a Saudi Airline but I suspect they are clever enough not to want to change the name of St James Park to any kind of equivalency of Emirates/Etihad Stadium

What about playing it in Perth ala AFL GF?