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.
Westy
Guest
Pippinu is correct. football's participation rates have always exceeded the other codes in NSW at least from the 1930's. The dominant participation sport in Western sydney since the end of ww2 has been football. Its position was entrenched even prior to waves of football mad migrants. Rugby league has always been second. I can assure you the code least in need of Auskick program is junior football. U/6 and up junior football has always been even during there dark days a beacon of light and source of strengthfor football in this country. if i can give you an example Penrith rugby club has three junior clubs blue mountains blue tongueds / nepean blues and Campbelltown Harlequins . The same area is covered by 34 junior football clubs in nepean and 33 junior clubs in Macarthur.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Soccer has had the highest participation rates in NSW since the 1930s.
melbvictory87
Guest
adelaides on fire, i love what their doing and i wish they had a bigger stadium. interesting to see if they move more games to aami oval (i think thats it) and see if they can get 25k attendances again. eitherway, adelaides a fantastic model for the league and its a pity scum ltd (news ltd) tried their stunt last week to restrict this teams growth
melbvictory87
Guest
if were already ripping afl in terms of participation then we should keep going and continuously outdraw more. imo that it doesnt matter if more ppl follow afl, because as long as we are australia's most played sport then we will have a healthy future. i am interested in how long we have been our no.1 most played sport for, is this post 2005 or was it always like this.
melbvictory87
Guest
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
AndyRoo
Guest
Resting on the laurels will hurt Football. By having such large fees it creates a great oppurtunity for Auskick to lure the Kids over when they get to 12 and 13. Auskick will grow the AFL at the other codes expense if they ignore it.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Chook/Freud But let's not forget - soccer has the football participation rates absolutely sewn up - it's more than aussie rules/League/Union combined. So I'm not sure if it's correct to say that the FFA needs an auskick program - in truth, the AFL has the program to try an keep up with soccer!! This is one area where the FFA does not need to keep up with the AFL!! But it's probably true to say that if you are wanting to make community connections, you need A-League players out there visiting schools on a daily basis.
AndyRoo
Guest
I think a HAL auskick program is up there with some FTA exposure as the missing ingredient. Would be tough to impliment but charging Football juniors $200 plus compared to auskick juniors $75 to $85 is a huge gap and will hurt Football long term
Freud of Football
Roar Guru
Chook has hit the nail on the head here. The HAL need to look at some type of football Auskick, this has been a hugely successful concept and has allowed continued growth of AFL both in the AFL dominated states as well as the League/Union states. This too enables advertisers a good chance of direct promotion to the kiddies. NAB targets the kiddies as they are looking to bring them on board at a young age as do McDonald's with the same principle and of course with sponsorship partners, you can plough more money into it as there is definately going to be businesses in Aus willing to pay for that kind of exposure to that demographic. If you want to get a message out, thats an excellent way, focus on the kids and make sure they enjoy it, if they do the parents will follow, not a great deal of them force their kids to play one sport over another so by targeting the kids you are also aiming for the parents.
Ryan Steele
Roar Pro
Adelaide United has involved itself in grassroots football for some time, and players regularly make appearances at schools. Kids are also regularly invited to school holiday training camps, beach soccer tournaments, and earlier in the year, a couple of refugee training sessions invited New Australians to play and learn from the players and coaches. Several players have also made hospital visits to children. This also includes several appearances from W-League players, and some of the youth. It's obviously worked, considering there has yet to be a single home game, in the season, that has fallen below an attendance of 10,000. I've noticed a lot more children are coming along, and a lot more people are wearing red (with even more starting to wear Adelaide gear, rather than their Liverpool/Manchester United shirts). Crowd participation is also said to be at its highest, with more noise coming from the stands, even though the results haven't necessarily gone the team's way.
chook
Guest
If western sydney get it right with promotion they will be a good club
chook
Guest
Its all about time in the sporting culture of Australia, look at the other sports, whilst they have been around for a while most havent had the overhaul of football has in Australia. AFL - has 150 years, League - 100 years I think that the A- League is an excellent idea and I only hope that not many teams fodl because they ahve over spent thier $$$. Im concerned that the Brisbane Roars operating profit is more that they can sustain and that they will fold. -Why would I be passionate about a club that has jacked up ticket prices? -Employ a self confessed 'league' fanatic as CEO would probably doesnt even understand the game. ? -Is stuggling with the dollars? Im still amazed that a city the size of Brisbane cannot produce 10,000+ crowds. But maybe thats the reality of football in Qld. But I will still go when I can and support them. In saying all of this if I take my 2 kids and missus, I dont get much change after. $200. Its not a cheap night. I love watching the football and I think the FFA should treat the fans better than what they have. Look at the Auskick program the AFL run, very very good and well structured. The Brisbane Lions recognise the strength of the kids and if you sign up as a young member of the Lions, they get the kids favorite player to write them a birthday card. Whilst it a little tiny promotion its shows the sort of marketing and promotion the Lions to attract the support. The A- League has the strength of both Socceroos giving cross promotion as well. I would expect that 2010 - 2011 to get better crowds after the WC.
Ryan Steele
Roar Pro
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.
Joe Novella
Roar Rookie
Thanks Spanner. You've wrapped up exactly what I'm trying to get across. Couldn't agree more.
Gweeds
Guest
I agree with the main point of this article. But the keyword is 'ownership'. I think that Melbourne Victory has one of the most visible active fans in the A-League. But interestingly the Club didn't have nothing to do with it. It was created spontaneously by the fans themselves and that is why there is so much passion, because the fans have a sense of ownership about their support. However Melbourne Victory recently invited all those who became members in the first season to a special function and a group photograph as a way of acknowledgment and thanks, which was nice. But it is true that the A-League teams need to work harder to connect with their communities. My understanding is that the Central Coast Mariners have been pretty good in this respect. I sincerely hope that the new Western Sydney team works hard to connect to the disparate communities in that part of Australia. It would be a shame if the A-League team that represents one of the more football oriented regions fails to do this.
Joe Novella
Roar Rookie
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.
Koala Bear
Guest
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... ~~~~~~ KB
Joe Novella
Roar Rookie
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.
Spanner
Roar Rookie
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.
David V.
Guest
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.