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Sport is business, in many ways. The key to any business is revenue. The greater the revenue, the more money you have to spend and a greater influence you can have.
Revenue in sport comes from points, media, sponsors, merchandise sales and crowds.
The world of sport today requires a strong media deal. The media deal among other things has brought extra coverage and the media coverage brings in sponsors. This media coverage affects merchandise sales thus sponsors get a free ride with fans wearing sponsors logos for all to see.
The underpinning of all this is the crowd size.
The AFL have the best crowds in Australia and using a figure of 7 million though the gate at an average of, say, $15.00 per person is $105 million in revenue. Selling merchandise to this many also provides additional revenue.
Large crowds also attack over time the media. Even the most biased media cannot ignore large crowds over time.
Football’s next media deal is due sometime over the next 18 months. I think what happens this year and maybe in the early season will determine if football can crack the $500 million maybe even $600 million for its next media deal.
What football needs is to grow its crowds.
Football needs to lift its crowds above the 10,000 average this season. I actually think it will average closer to 11,000 or higher.
However, that the time has come for this to happen is beyond doubt if we want the big media deal.
Crowds bring revenue and with five matches per round, 27 rounds, with 11,000 per match using the same $15.00 per match. This would equate in round terms of 1.5 million fans and 22 million dollars in revenue.
Plus merchandise sales. The extra crowd would help the next media deal.
Assuming the next media deal is over $500 million or $100 million per year, and if we can average 11,000 per match, football’s revenue will be, even without sponsors and merchandise, $122 million per year.
Every one thousand increase in crowd adds just over two million in revenue.
Extra crowds should also bring a better media presentation, more sponsors, and an increase in merchandise sales.
Hopefully all the planning that has gone into this season and the return of Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton will bring back the crowds.
I have attached a spreadsheet which can be used for forecasting, recording or both. The first line in the spreadsheet has 0 written, this is to make it work.
Simply after filling in the first week’s crowd for each team, the 0 can be removed. Home games in grey cells.
It has A-League seasons one to six listed as well for comparisons. So we can all be on the same page.
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