In relative terms, I am new to the game of football. Until a November’s day in 2005, I had never watched an episode of the beautiful game in my life.
I had never heard of any of the players and was unaware of the importance of that famous playoff against Uruguay. I developed an emotional attachment to the game, and as John Aloisi smashed the ball into the back of the net I was on my feet in joyful bliss.
Since that game, I have been swept up by the emotion and passion which was unequivocally shown by all involved. From that moment on, I was hooked.
When watching several A-League matches, it is impossible not to notice the sparsely populated stands which plague several clubs. It is a shame that only a mere few thousand were willing to come and watch the best Australian football could provide.
But why is this? And more importantly, what can be done to rectify this? There are only two ways to fill the stands, both of which require a partnership with the media.
There is off course, the Melbourne Victory solution. Bring in an Australian football legend whom transcends all sporting codes. This generates significant interest and provides a well-needed shot in the arm for the league.
Whilst this has been successful in reaching some within the Australian sporting public, it is not the long term answer. This caused me to reflect on myself as a football follower.
Until the previously mentioned game, I was uninterested in football. I had never been exposed to it, mainly due to the fact that I was 11 and living in an AFL household.
I then realised, people like I are should be the target audience for football. We don’t only need patrons who solely follow football, but we should aim at those who can embrace several codes.
The FFA changing the dates of the season to the summer is such a fantastic move, as people who are never going to give up following AFL do not have can be enjoy the game during their off-season.
But why don’t more people embrace it as part of a balanced sporting diet? The answer is limited access. I wonder how different I would have been had I not watched that game on SBS.
Had it been on pay-TV I would never have stumbled upon one of the greatest moments in Australian sport.
So we must wonder, how will people become interested in the game if they are not able to watch it?
Many people cannot afford to subscribe to Fox Sports and watch their coverage of A-League and Socceroos clashes, and don’t have an interest in attending a game they know little or nothing about.
To bring the people to the game, we need to bring the game to the people. Young kids who could become lifetime football fans are not able to see the game, and as such, it will not be able to blossom.
The next TV rights deal is crucial for football. There are three options which could make or break the future of the sport in this country. They are:
1. Accept a big money deal from Foxtel for both A-League and international fixtures.
2. Split the A-League and international games, awarding the Socceroos games to free-to-air viewers.
3. Award both A-League and international games to free-to-air.
For my perspective, the second option is the only logical path. I was won over by the national team. The Socceroos can act as an advertisement for the game, winning over hearts and minds for the country to watch on free-to-air, whilst still allowing the FFA to make some good coin by selling the ever improving A-League to pay-TV.
As a consequence, more people would watch and attend games due to greater interest, as seen with the increased coverage of Harry Kewell’s return. I call upon the FFA to make an investment.
Sacrifice some of the short term funds generated from TV rights to allow the game to grow, meaning higher attendances and gate takings, as well as a boost in future agreements to televise games.
All it takes is the FFA to take a risk. Imagine seeing the bigger crowds this would result in, and the greater atmosphere this would provide. This would take the game in the country to a new level.
The ball is at your feet, Mr Buckley.
ItsCalledFootball
Roar Guru
Stick with AFL. The Socceroos Qualifier against Uruguay is the highest rating football program of all time on FTA at 8.8M http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2006/4043/ and the socceroos games in Asia were once the highest rating on Pay TV. http://www.foxsports.com.au/other-sports/foxsports-15yr-anniversary You are underestimating the attraction and value of football and the Socceroos in this country.
Adam
Guest
Enolamnerual, you truly are a master-baiter. Nice try mate but head back to the AFL tab.
asanchez
Roar Guru
Great article Tom, welcome to the Football family. This is the biggest battle our code faces, getting our game out there and making it more accessible to everyone. As we've seen by one of the posters on here, our game is not for everyone, and thats fair enough, each to their own. But if we get more people to at least give it a go with an open mind, we'll win more fans than we lose. Your 3 options for the code with TV rights coming up are interesting. I do agree with you, maximum exposure is key, but at what cost? FFA has very little money at the moment, sponsorship is also tough, as the A-league can only be watched by probably 20% of the Aussie population. From what I've read in recent articles and by the Smith report it looks like the FFA will use its friends in high places to take the Socceroos off the anti-siphoning list so they can package them with the A-league again for the next TV rights. They're obviously doing this to maximize the dollars they can get. Hopefully that means we can get a great TV rights deal, but if the coverage and the exposure stays the same, then we really haven't gained anything. Hopefully Buckley knows what he's doing!
It's called soccer
Guest
Thank you, moderators for putting it on after all :-)
Qantas supports Australian Football
Guest
Maybe you should stay on the AFL tab if the game football doesn't interest you.. There's plenty of stuff there you can entertain yourself with.. Why bother coming here on the Football Tab unless your real purpose is to just bait the Author cos that is what the Mods are trying to stop----code wars..!!!!
It's called soccer
Guest
The experience was interesting, but soccer is not for me. And it did not make me a soccer-hater, nor to express that in a troll on A-league posts. The hatred we find about rival codes is very unAustralian (to coin a phrase!)
Punter
Guest
At least you were open minded to try an A-League game, well done. I went to a Swans match years ago against Hawthorne, some girl kept shouting 'go Cindy' I didn't really understand. After a while I couldn't even keep up with the scores & finally bored & didn't even care about the score. So we are all different & the way we should be.
enolamnerual
Guest
Great article Tom. Whilst I would agree with your point that providing FTA coverage will most likely increase the profile of the game, we must first ask ourselves why we would want to do that in the first place. First of all, soccer fans are in many ways the sporting world’s equivalent of ‘indie kids’. They are the people who are essentially too cool to follow what is popular in the mainstream, and rejoice in the fact that they are able to follow a sporting code that the masses have not yet embraced. Why would you want to normalise their ‘alternative’ football league? They seem depressed enough as it is. Furthermore, many aspects of the game do not make sense – and I for one think Australians are intelligent enough to realise this. If you have arms – USE THEM!! It also goes without saying that a game in which the final score is often 0-0 will not generate enough interest to justify a FTA broadcast. And let’s be honest… you really wanted to watch a group of drama queens falling over and essentially doing nothing for 90 minutes you might as well just watch Australia’s Next Top Model. Nevertheless, there is a silver lining. In the absence of FTA soccer on Australian television, the major networks have more time to show Better Homes and Garden’s re-runs!
It's called soccer
Guest
I went to an A-League game - but the moderators weren't interested in my experience :-(
enolamnerual
Guest
Great article Tom. Whilst I would agree with your point that providing FTA coverage will most likely increase the profile of the game, we must first ask ourselves why we would want to do that in the first place. First of all, soccer fans are in many ways the sporting world’s equivalent of ‘indie kids’. They are the people who are essentially too cool to follow what is popular in the mainstream, and rejoice in the fact that they are able to follow a sporting code that the masses have not yet embraced. Why would you want to normalise their ‘alternative’ football league? They seem depressed enough as it is. Furthermore, many aspects of the game do not make sense - and I for one think Australians are intelligent enough to realise this. If you have arms – USE THEM!! It also goes without saying that a game in which the final score is often 0-0 will not generate enough interest to justify a FTA broadcast. And let’s be honest... you really wanted to watch a group of drama queens falling over and essentially doing nothing for 90 minutes you might as well just watch Australia’s Next Top Model. Nevertheless, there is a silver lining. In the absence of FTA soccer on Australian television, the major networks have more time to show Better Homes and Garden’s re-runs!
It's called soccer
Guest
Tomalone7............you do sound like a convert from AFL. Except for the giveaway line, "AFL household". Real Victorians do not live in AFL households, they live in Collingwood, Carlton, Geelong households, etc. The only people who refer to AFL as a sport on these blogs are the soccer & RL fans who hate Aussie Rules. My story, by contrast, is the opposite to yours. I attended a Victory vs Adelaide game. The mistake I made was taking the lady I usually go to AFL games with. She was appalled at the baiting & language of the "so-called" cheer squads. The flare was also a negative. We certainly wouldn't take children to an A-league game. And we will continue to enjoy going to the footy when the season starts. We can't wait for summer to be over.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
But I bet it gets a lot more coverage than korfball. Now there's a real media conspiracy. Korfball would easily be the most popular sport in Australia if the media gave it a fair go.
c
Guest
There are only two ways to fill the stands, both of which require a partnership with the media. – And herein lays our problem. The ingrained avoidance of the positive exposure of every facet of our game at every opportunity in every media forum as is done for the Australian sports will not happen for generations
Camori
Guest
The coverage by the media in Brisbane (while getting better) has been abismal. I think the only time we made the back page of the Courier Mail was when we won the grand final. There is obviously a hidden agenda there with the Courier Mail owning the Broncos and giving them four to six pages a day. The television networks are even worse with old dinasour rugby players from time gone by presenting the sports news giving the roar virtually no coverage. The upside is our crowds are getting bigger every week and we cant go unnoticed anymore. Will be interesting what coverage we will get during the Asian Champions league.
BA81
Guest
Great article tommalone7, and in agreeing with other users like Adam, I'm pretty much past the point of giving a toss about 'the haters' and their opinions - at the end of the day they don't really 'hate' football of their own accord, but merely parrot the negative stereotypes about it they were brainwashed with as kids. The fact is that Frank Lowy and the Crawford Report in 2003 got this rolling, and 16/11/2005 changed not only Australian football but Australian sport forever, period. I think it's fair to say that as time passes and the more the A-League becomes a part of the furniture, the old 'Sheilas Wogs & Poofters' mentality that remains in certain circles will be significantly diminished if not entirely. It takes time, Rome wasn't built in a day and so you can't expect to change people's hardwired attitudes overnight. The point is, football can, must and WILL coexist with Australia's 'traditional' sports - because it's doing a decent job of it right now.
Jaceman
Guest
I have written on other pages that the SMH has at least 2 pages on soccer on most days even when the sport has 6 pages in total. Do more reearch - the SMH coverage of soccer is way over the top for the number who go to Sydney FC games or who watch it on Pay TV at home (as with all codes pub crowds arent counted). Count the number of soccer pages on saturday and Monday and report back. The Telegraph is a different story - they are negotaiting and would be keen to lower interest in soccer this year so the TV deal is less and would be less than impressed that Lowy buys full page ads in the SMH so soccer gets good coverage..There a whole TV network dedicated to soccer
striker
Guest
Qantas its common knowledge these papers are anti football always have been I reckon up in Brisbane its worse than here.
Adam
Guest
Agree Phillip and Striker. My weekends are saved in summer sport due to the great shows Fox provide for football.
Adam
Guest
I'm glad to hear things are improving up there striker, it is the same here as well. In fact in my opinion the Herald Sun has been unprecedented in it's quality coverage of A League this summer. You will always cop the haters but if you love somethign then you love something, i don't see a need to pretend or hide cause i do. It makes for rather interesting nights out when someone pulls out the age old line bagging soccer, assuming everyone in the room is an AFL supporter cause we're "fair dinkum aussie" !!
Qantas supports Australian Football
Guest
Check today's Telegraph and it's way back in the pecking order behind the NRL... Football is hidden 9 pages back from the back page..