Around Australia, sporting governing bodies are seeking to increase their share of Australia’s increasingly fickle supporters as commerce take hold over sport.
They do this either by expansion, taking their competitions into areas they have not previously been appreciated, or by re-launching their competitions by the creation of new formats and new teams.
However try as they might, administrators and marketing men cannot invent teams and expect fans to support them as they would a team which has existed for decades.
Moreover, by liquidating these traditional teams and replacing them with supposedly more marketable equivalents, they are clutching at the soul of the sports themselves.
This weekend saw Australian cricket enter a new era with the start of the first ever Big Bash League Twenty20 tournament. Where the Big Bash had consisted of the six State teams with an option of foreign guest players such as Dwayne Bravo and Chris Gayle, the Big Bash League will have eight teams, based in the capital cities of these states but with two each in Melbourne and Sydney.
For example rather than Tasmania, there will be the Hobart Hurricanes (playing at ‘Blundstone Arena’ in another nod to the corporate world). These teams have been formed entirely by the minds of marketing men and administrators, and are privately owned.
This notion of relaunching and reformatting to reinvigorate a sport is not new. Perhaps the broadest example is football’s A-League, which replaced the spluttering National Soccer League.
In 2005, in an attempt to re-launch soccer as football, and to make a game which was considered the domain of ethnic agitators more inclusive, Melbourne was united behind Melbourne Victory, Sydney behind Sydney FC and so on. What we have seen is some dramatic growth and some moments where each team has at some point felt they have cracked it.
But for each team, a decline in form and fortune has inevitably led to a decline in support, crowd numbers, and revenue. The loyalty simply does not exist to keep people coming back when the side aren’t winning. ‘Thick and thin’ cannot be created synthetically.
The same could be said of Super Rugby. The Waratahs draw big crowds when they play an attractive and win, but when times are not so good, fifteen years has not produced enough faithful supporters to keep the atmosphere.
I suspect the AFL may face the same problem with Greater Western Sydney and the Gold Coast Suns. Carlton fans will show up in large numbers regardless of their team’s place in the standings because generations before them have done so.
The same can be said of all of the founding teams or those which have been added prior to the last thirty years. Even the Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions have become increasingly solid. But whether the fans can sufficiently embrace two teams pulled out of thin air is another matter. The first season honeymoon cannot be relied upon for longer than that first year.
The NRL has also tried, and did so by removing many established teams. Vale Newtown, North Sydney, Balmain, Western Suburbs, St George, Illawarra and very nearly South Sydney. Mergers do not count as retaining heritage.
You ask a Balmain or Western Suburbs fan, many of them will tell you that the 2005 Premiership did not quite feel the same. Equally I doubt the Dragons’ 2010 triumph would be considered by many to be a crowning moment for rugby league on the South Coast.
In exchange for these long established sides, we have seen a chase for new frontiers. Deleting half a dozen teams in the game’s cradle to let Melbournians have rugby league foisted upon them hardly seems reasonable. The Storm have seen extraordinary success in the last five years, but prior to and even at time during their illegal reign their crowds have struggled to pierce the 15,000 mark.
The Gold Coast Titans’ crowd figures bowed to fickle realities as their team stuttered this season.
Regardless of how they were going, there would always be a core of Balmain faithful. The governing body should have done far more to sustain these teams, rather than torching them to chase the money of the fly-by-nighters.
The point is that you can’t just pull teams out of the ether and expect people to be loyal to them. Once traditional teams are extinguished or mashed together, they very rarely return (Manly is the exception here). With their extinction goes a game’s history, and much of its traditional following.
JVGO
Guest
Yes Tony, equal to the number of articles on the NRL, and in fact bigger, and there was nothing hostile about it. So you think the AFL having two times the coverage of the NRL in the Sydney papers is indicative of hostility. What amount of coverage would be satisfactory I wonder and would be deemed non hostile?
Tony
Guest
I looked in the SMH today & found 1 article about AFL. If that continues JVGO will have a stroke!
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Displaying his usual reluctance to see what is in front of his nose, Republican has completely ignored the NEAFL, the Foxtel Cup and the continued funding of development of Australian Rules by the AFL. This work is being done precisely to strengthen the foundation of the game, while initiatives like GWS broaden it at the top level. Here is just one example http://www.aflnswact.com.au/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/Tina/Umpire_Coach_Manager_Riv_2011.pdf
Rob9
Guest
Republican, Granted it does seem a bit hypocritical to suggest dropping Sydney clubs while continuing to prop up Melbourne whose crowds and bottom line aren’t much healthier than their rivals to the north. But as you’ve quite rightly pointed out, they are one of the most successful ‘brands’ in Australian Sport today due in part to being the solo Rugby League team in the second largest market in the country. It’s more or less for this reason that Melbourne not only should but needs to continue to have a presence in the NRL. Broadcasters and sponsors want them there and as two of the three largest stakeholders who pour money into the game, the NRL has no choice but to take notice. More should have been done and needs to be done to give the Storm the chance to at least achieve the sort of standing the Lions and Swans have in Brisbane and Sydney respectively. Also recognise that the both of these teams have had over a decade longer in entrenching themselves in their cities than the Storm have in Melbourne. I’d also argue that the first 10 to 15 years were hardly easy going for the Bears/Lions and Swans. Being from and now living back in Sydney while spending my schooling/university years in Brisbane, I’ve seen the AFL grow from virtually nothing in these markets. Being Australia’s largest and third largest markets, the AFL recognised early on that they needed to set themselves up in these places for a serious commercial gain down the track. I can’t see how you can suggest that I’m supporting the ‘short term illusion of prosperity’? I’ve acknowledged above (using the Lions and Swans case studies) that prosperity in these ‘new’ markets takes time. It may even involve a short/mid term loss for a long term gain. Hardly the underlying principles that lead to/leading to any GFC. These principles that I go into bat with come from history in sport management which recognises that PROFESSIONAL sport is built with dollars. I think you need to recognise the roles and responsibilities for the different bodies within Rugby League and there relationship with one and other. While junior development is important for any professional national sporting league, it’s not by any stretch their primary concern, and a serious presence in the junior ranks isn't what makes or breaks a professional sporting franchise. In Rugby League, (the real) junior development falls back on the shoulders of the ARL and I agree they need to do more to come up with some Auskick type revolution that they can take to VIC, WA and SA to grow the game at the grassroots. It’s the NRL’s role to produce a strong professional national league that generates revenue for it’s stakeholders with some left over to continue to the ongoing development of the game. The NRL supports junior growth by producing the stars that juniors look up to and there are a range of initiatives that the NRL and the clubs take on to leverage this relationship. With regards to ‘growth’, it’s the potential for growth that an Australian city of 4 million people has to support one NRL team that makes it important for Melbourne to be sustained in the NRL. As I’ve said, achieving some positive results takes time as the Lions and Swans can attest to. The AFL have made the move into the Gold Coast expecting that it will take two decades of investment for the Suns to gain some traction in the market. They’ve made their decisions based on the fact that the Gold Coast is our sixth largest city and the population is booming. They’ve recognised how important this market is for the future as they did 30ish odd years ago when sizing up Sydney and Brisbane. As I’ve said, while ongoing junior development is important, they didn’t make the decision to establish the Suns based on the number of juniors playing in the local Coast competition. Nor should they have as they are operating a PROFESSIONAL national sporting league and this has little bearing on the future success of a professional franchise. Tassie’s sporting landscape is saturated with AFL from juniors up, yet the entire state has a population of half a million people and is growing at a snails pace compared to the mainland. Do you think it’s any wonder that there isn’t and hasn’t been an AFL team established down there? I’d say Andrew D has crunched the numbers and they don’t add up. It’s why the NRL should make the move to set up across the Nullabour. Perth is our fourth largest market and again is booming. Sound familiar?? As I’ve said, Rugby League needs to sort out its junior development and promotion in these new markets to help support the potential growth that a professional club can achieve there. It’s something that the AFL has done much better and they have the runs on the board with two reasonably successful clubs established outside of their traditional boarders. You’ve suggested ‘building from the ground up’ which is what has happened at the elite level in Sydney and now we’re left with an unsustainable situation of 9 clubs out of 9 loosing money. All of the growth in Sydney’s market (which is already RL saturated) has to be divided up 9 times. All I’m suggesting is an adequate number of clubs (both in traditional and large sized non-traditional markets) representing large chunks of the population where revenue generation and growth is achievable with the right initiatives supporting it (including a more serious crack at junior development).
Republican
Guest
Rob9. Define 'growth' and then justify what you consider to be 'growth'. The Melbourne Storm have had more than a decade to become part of the sporting landscape of Vic. They are a success in terms of their brand due in the main to the strategic criteria that sees them based in one of the biggest commercial cities in the country. So where's the real 'growth' pray tell in respect of grass roots or even the gate which hasn't improved one iota since the Storms inception. Still predominately ex pat kiwis and PI's making up the membership while League remains a niche code, as will be the case for Unions Rebels. The Swans have done better admittedly but thats because Australian Footy had more of a cultural presence historically in NSW than League or Union ever did in Vic. Having said that, the Swans could easily have faired better had the AFL based them in a heartland i.e. the ACT. The same applies for GWS and GC who should have been based in Tassie or the ACT or even NT. The banker in you is desensitized to the dated concept of building from the ground up. Those of your ilk are pre disposed to the short term illusion of prosperity, a philosophy that we will all continue to rue and which is clearly evidenced by the recent GFC.
JVGO
Guest
Case in pont. Today in SMH a half page article with picture on GWS, a team who has never played a game and has one player who anybody in Sydney has ever heard of. Entire NRL coverage, one column story on Billy Slater's injury (even some people in Melbourne may have heard of him). Hardly seems hostile to me. They are receiving more positive coverage than the entire NRL.
JVGO
Guest
So Roy is the only one then? What a dream run the AFL enjoys. But perhaps it is an editorial decision.
JD
Guest
Well said. People here are arguing semantics and going off track but the gist of the article is valid. The way sports are operating in Australia you'd think we had 250m people here, not 25m. The default mode of adding more clubs (often with no compelling demand or differentiation to established entities) is a misguided strategy in terms of strengthening a sport.
JD
Guest
I'm struggling to understand the correlation between the Shield cricket non-crowds and the justification of the reinvented BBL. The original version attracted average crowds of 18,000 in 2009/10, and slightly less last year when the Ashes took front and centre stage. By my reckoning the new model is fixing something that wasn't really broke. No one doubts the longer forms of the game are in serious trouble. But this exercise is not only harming the test series this summer and the players' preparations, but its shallowness is a recipe for implosion once the facile gimickry wears off, the enormous publicity dies down and the likes of Warne say farewell once and for all.
stabpass
Guest
@ JVGO, you got it right when you state that you have no idea about the southern media, the Sydney media jumps on anything controversial rugby league, the southern media is ditto for anything controversial in the AFL. It is that way because of their respective popularity, the big difference and one that you can't see (for whatever reason) is the code warring that comes out of Sydney, just recently Masters was at it again, regarding the drafting of Keiran Jack to the Swans, the man just cannot help himself. Wouldn't expect anything less from Roy Masters though. Trying to bring down the son of a League great who now plays Australian Football.
Mark Young
Roar Guru
Tony with respect there is a lot of AFL in the Sydney Media. the SMH has a two page spread every monday plus a story on pretty much every other day, the Sunday Papers both have a large chunk of AFL. Both TV berakfast programs lead every sports bulletin with AFL, even the one which shows the NRL. The newpapers are smart enough to realise that there are AFL fans in Sydney.
Cameron
Guest
I am a South Australian supporter and I would much prefer to go and watch South Australia win the Big Bash again, rather than seeing them being belted over and over again and finish last in the Shield. When I say this, I know that the Carols in Elder Park, Adelaide, were on at the same time as when the Adelaide Strikers played, but even so, the Redbacks would have been able to produce 16,000 plus people to their first home BBL game of the year, not 11,700 like the Strikers did on their first game of the year.
JVGO
Guest
What are you talking about SP? Who cares if it is an editorial decision? The point is that there is more negative stuff written about RL in Sydney on a regular weekly basis than is ever written about AFL in the same media, much of it written by journalists with allegiances to other codes. My point is that there is no analogous situation in the Southern media, at least as far I know. But I have no idea really. I don't read the Southern media. But perhaps as you are an expert on both the Sydney media and the RL you can show me 4 or 5 columnists in melbourne with allegiances to other codes who regularly write negatively about the AFL. Then again perhaps you AFL apologists are simply used to an extremely benign media environment where the AFL is pretty much unquestioned and don't understand that there are all sorts of hostile currents within the Sydney media. The fact is that the AFL gets off relatively lightly in the Sydney media, although i imagine nothing like the dream run that it gets in its heartland.
Rob9
Guest
The only fickled mess here is this joke of an article. Since the weekend it’s been hilarious watching these ‘traditionalists’ come out of the woodwork and jump up on their soapboxes and claim that BBL round one is proof enough that sporting leagues across Australia need to stick to the status quo. Forget about growth, forget about the fact that ‘traditional’ clubs are bleeding money, we’ve got all the proof we need to go on as is. Firstly, BBL round 1 has far from been a flop. Crowds look about on par to those from last year. The only failure has been CA’s lofty ambitions from the get go. Round 1 was a reality check for the CA estimators but it doesn’t mean it was by any stretch a failure. The new format now involves 4 games as opposed to 3 and the competition is now a full 2 rounds longer. With crowds holding steady across the board you don’t have to be a genius to work out that this new model has a far greater potential to generate revenue for the game than the 6 state based team system did previously. With CA operating a professional sporting league, you surely must recognise that profit miximisation is their goal and what’s been introduced will immediately provide them with that and there is huge potential for growth. Loosing the state names and placing second teams in each of our cities with a population of over 4 million means that cricket can be played in Sydney and Melbourne in each round of the competition. It’s clear that CA also has an eye on the future with the potential for placing teams in major regional centres such as the Gold Coast, Geelong and Canberra. How is taking full time cricket (our National sport) to places beyond the boundaries of our capital cities a bad thing? Regardless of all of this, it’s ROUND 1 for Pete’s sake! Give these teams a chance to build a connection with each of their sporting publics. The next example of a supposed revamp flop that has been used is the A-League. I don’t know if people accurately remember back to the NSL days, it wasn’t exactly the EPL. Sure the A-League has it’s issues and is far from the complete package as a national professional sporting league but it’s up at least 10 fold on what it was sent in to replace. What it represents is a prime example of a sporting league that has reinvented itself by building a new structure that is more conducive to today’s professional sporting environment. As a result soccer/football actually has some sort of standing in Australian sport today. With the A-League’s introduction, the domestic game has come such a long way from the NSL days when crowds averaged no more the 4-5,000 and coverage began and ended with a weekly highlights show on SBS. And then the Tahs being thrown up as an example of a ‘non traditional’ team with only 15 years of history for Sydney’s sporting public to endear themselves to their Rugby Union team. Plain and simply not the case and not the sort of case study you should be putting forward to support your argument here. With regards to the NRL, ‘traditionalists’ can harp on about these ‘plastic’ and ‘soulless’ teams destroying Australian sport, but until enough of them get together and fill the stadiums and buy the level of memberships and merchandise that’s required to justify their professional existence, then the issues around their survival are going to remain. The grand daddy of issues for the 9 clubs that are piled on top of each other within Sydney’s boundaries is that they are all loosing money. Until hopes, dreams or fairy floss becomes a currency, such an issue is not sustainable in professional sport. It’s a business and the current NRL business model is conducive to the needs of the market back in the 1950’s. Companies develop and transform themselves over time to remain current and ensure their survival. It’s time that NRL as a business took this approach. You’ve conceded that after 30 odd years the Brisbane Lions and Sydney Swans have entrenched themselves in the sporting landscapes of Brisbane and Sydney respectively. These were teams that were picked up and placed in these non-AFL cities that they had no previous connection with. Yet over time they’ve managed to effectively become successful and an important addition to the environments that they operate within. This is probably the most accurate point in this article and what it proves is it takes time for a team to truly become a part of the local landscape. The Brisbane Broncos have an ounce of the history that the Sydney clubs in the NRL have. When they were introduced in the late 80’s they were one of these new ‘plastic’ and ‘soulless’ teams. Now they are head and shoulders above the pack in terms of off field performance and they provide the league with a model that clubs should be aiming up to. It’s just with Sydney’s pie being divided up 9 times in the current format, these existing clubs don’t realistically have the opportunity to build the sort of empire that the Broncos have. The point is that tradition and clubs entrenching themselves in their local environments takes time. You can’t expect it to occur overnight but it WILL happen given time and resources. What it results in if done effectively is a business model that can survive and prosper in the current day. A far cry from the train wreck of a structure that we’ve been left with in the NRL.
The Bush
Roar Guru
I think I understand where the author is coming from, but perhaps they haven't expressed it perfectly well. You mention the Storm as a failure, but I would strongly disagree - as pointed out they still maintain a crowd average that is at least comparable to any Sydney team and may in fact be better than the worst couple. You then move on to talk about the Brisbane Lions. Is this the Brisbane Lions that still managed to average over 28,000 in the four seasons, 2004 to 2009, without making the finals? Or the team that still averaged 20,000 this year despite coming second last and following on from an equally disappointing season last season? I have grown up in Queensland and I can tell you now that the Brisbane Lions profile is now immense and hugely successful. I won't even dignify the Super Rugby comment as, in Australia at least, the Reds and Waratahs have a history possibly unparalleled in Australian sport (think tours from Great Britain, something AFL clubs can only dream of). Having said all that, I do understand your frustration. I too feel that the most recent additions to the Australian sporting landscape, the BBL and the A-League have slightly tacky parts to them. As a Brisbane Roar fan, I still cringe at the name. But even the A-League is slowly improving - just look how much better the Roar's uniform is this year. The BBL is even worse with respect to "fakeness". The reasons are two (2) fold; a) We had a perfectly good competition before (unlike the NSL); and b) It is especially stupid with respect to colours, names and dragging out old has-beens. On a final note, the unfortunate thing about Australia is that due to our unique factors we were not able to simply have traditional clubs drop down to a lower national level like they do in Europe. In England, Leeds United still lives on and I believe will probably make it back to the Premier League one day. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Newtown...
stabpass
Guest
@JVGO So let me get this straight, you state that Wilson is a pro AF, and negative RL, yet then change your mind and says she now hates everyone, as far as Hinds being the worlds worst journo, there is probably some sort of vendetta against every journo worth his salt, comes with the territory, and i did read some articles from the link you provided and he writes about all sports, and does not seem to me to be seriously biased, perhaps thin skinned people may disagree !.
B.A Sports
I'm not sure i understand the author's point Is he suggesting the NRL should be played by Balmain, Glebe, Newtown, Souths, Easts, Norths, Wests and Newcastle, because creating new teams doesn't work? And this would be sustainable and of interest to the broader population?
Republican
Guest
I don't support any team. I don't even support my beloved AFL anymore however I do maintain a cultural affinity with the indigenous code, for how much longer will be dependant on how much more is compromised in the ensuing years. Clubs are no longer clubs, they are commercially whimsical constructs. You can't expect the fans to be anything more than this, since they are symbiotic of this culture.
sledgeandhammer
Guest
I wrote to Hinds asking him why he suddenly started writing rugby league pieces a couple of years ago (if he's an AFL man) and he replied that his editor had instructed him to write league stories for the Sydney Market. He tries to write off beat or character type stuff, and he says he likes all sports. But it's really an editorial decision.
sledgeandhammer
Guest
I wrote to Hinds asking him why he suddenly started writing rugby league pieces a couple of years ago (if he's an AFL man) and he replied that his editor had instructed him to write league stories for the Sydney Market. He tries to write off beat or character type stuff, and he says he likes all sports. But it's really an editorial decision.