- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Gold Coast's Joel Porter. AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Back by unpopular demand, Gold Coast United has reinstated its controversial 5,000 crowd cap at Skilled Park. In a desperate attempt to save money, the cap is an admission that the club is out of reach of its 8,000 target – the point where they would break even – raising the inevitable question, yet again, about its sustainability.
CEO Clive Mensink told The World Game: “This is one way of sustaining the club and taking it forward. We are hoping it will be a temporary measure.
“If the demand for tickets grows then we will open the ground up fully again.
“But ticket sales for the Melbourne game haven’t been good and we felt this was the only way we had of reining in the costs of putting on home games.”
Financially the cap helps, saving approximately $60,000 per home match. For a club that lost in the region of $5 million in its first season, that sort of saving is imperative.
But the worry for the club is twofold; firstly the damage the crowd cap does to the club’s brand and the response of its fans and secondly why the club continually falls below its 8,000 target.
On the first point, there will inevitably be another backlash from the club’s loyal supporters and the decision will only cast the club in a negative light amongst the Gold Coast population.
With only the Western stand opened during the cap, the club’s main supporter group, The Beach, will be once again sent packing from its home behind the goals.
Last October, when the club tried initiating the crowd cap for the first time, the club suffered a mighty backlash; a crowd of just 2,616 made their way to Skilled Park when they hosted North Queensland Fury.
The game is best remembered for the protests in the stands and the small group of fans who broke ranks to take up their favoured spot behind the goals.
The club is currently bracing itself for a similar backlash, despite a renewed effort to explain the financial considerations to the fans.
A poll on the Gold Coast Bulletin website shows 78 per cent of fans are against the cap, and it will be very difficult for the club to sell it to them, particularly when the club is owned by the wealthiest man in Queensland with a reported worth of over $3 billion.
On the second point, the fundamental question we must ask is why the club is so short of its crowd target.
Mistakes were made in their debut season; ticket prices were too high, the club failed to build a community base and its brash approach may have put some off.
Certainly the ever-present figure of Palmer helped portray Gold Coast United as his club, rather than belonging to the whole region. The club, from day one, lacked a communal feel.
This season, a renewed effort was made to work within the community, with an expanded and impressive community diary, yet they only managed to attract 6,394 to the season opener, of which a significant percentage were travelling Brisbane Roar supporters, and are struggling to sell tickets for the Melbourne Victory match.
The club has a recognised Socceroo who has featured prominently in the last two World Cups (starting all seven of those matches), the league’s leading goal scorer from the past two seasons (and second on the all-time goals list), an opinionated coach always good for a quotable quote, a genuine rivalry with the Brisbane Roar, a team that plays an exciting brand of football, and had a relatively successful debut season, yet it cannot make any headway.
Last season’s crowd average of 5,392 was well short of the 8,000 target, and if the cap precedent from last season is anything to go by, it’s difficult to see the club even matching that figure.
The question must surely be asked again: is an A-League club on the Gold Coast sustainable?
In a region where the Gold Coast Titans do well with an average attendance hovering around the 20,000 mark and with the Gold Coast Suns on the horizon (pardon the pun), already boasting over 7,000 members six months out from its AFL debut, is there room for United?
Or have their mistakes condemned the club for good and isolated it for the Gold Coast community? You sense the crowd cap want help in this regard.
Sporting franchises have typically struggled on the Gold Coast, in a region synonymous with other entertainment options and with a transient population, and perhaps the game simply doesn’t have the supporter base to sustain a club.
If one of Australia’s richest men is no longer willing to cover the losses, then what hope is there?
As callous as it sounds, if Gold Coast United cannot “sellout” its home matches under the cap by season’s end, then it’s time for the FFA to consider pulling the plug on the club.