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Australian soccer fans enjoy the atmosphere at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. AAP Image/Julian Smith
How does football convert the bandwagon Socceroos supporter into a permanent football supporter? That’s the question the football community should be asking itself as it enters the rare period every four years when the code is at the forefront of Australia’s attention.
Craig Foster recently wrote of the need for the game to take full advantage of the opportunity afforded by the World Cup, arguing that “football has to be clever enough to leverage the incredible opportunity that comes courtesy of World Cup qualification to drive some key messages out to mainstream Australia.”
Foster then outlines the messages football needs to get across in this period. They are, in the main, grandiose messages in keeping with Foster’s well-known philosophies on football’s place within Australian society.
But what he and the wider football community are missing are more practical strategies to help the betterment of the game, particularly the A-League.
Foster says one of the key messages should be: “The growth of the A-League and its goal to become number one in Asia and the foremost professional sporting competition in Australia.”
The message should not be just on the growth of the A-League but rather ways in which it can achieve further growth and consolidation.
Pushing and selling the A-League brand should be woven in to the greater Socceroos message when the national team is in the spotlight.
How? Simple marketing. Pushing brand awareness at any opportunity.
At the MCG for the Socceroos versus All Whites clash, there was no visible sign of the A-League and its two clubs, Melbourne Victory and Heart, apart from an interview with Heart coach John van ‘t Schip in the match program.
While corporations like Sony, Foxtel, Optus, Solo and the like were pushing random products emblazoned with their logos and slogans, why weren’t the Victorian clubs and someone from the FFA representing the A-League pushing anything from membership offers, the new season draw, beach balls emblazoned with the club and league logos, whatever, to help increase brand awareness of them to a potential new audience?
It was yet another missed opportunity and this sort of basic marketing should be a necessity at each Socceroos outing – even at events such as Sydney’s Fan Fest during the World Cup, where large numbers of casual fans will gather.
Would it hurt Sydney FC to send Nicky Carle and co to Darling Harbour during Socceroos matches and mingle with the supporters, offering membership packages, telling them the time and date of their season opener, etc?
Every little bit they can do to help push the Sydney FC brand will come in handy, and if they do it right it should have a noticeable impact on crowd numbers at the SFS.
Remember, football has been buried out of sight on Fox Sports and SBS for years, and this is only the second occasion in recent times where the code has such widespread mainstream attention.
Grasp this opportunity and maximise every possible minute of it through advertising, promotion, fan interaction, etc, to preach to the masses and convert them one by one.
These things don’t just happen naturally.