The Roar exclusive:When the FFA unveiled the findings of the Strategic Review of the Hyundai A-League almost a year ago, there was one, clear mission – put more bums on seats.
I’m delighted to report that the changes have ultimately proved to be successful. This week the numbers show that more Australians and New Zealanders have attended the Hyundai A-League than ever before.
The new aggregate attendance record was set for the 2011/12 regular season. The cumulative total of 1,416,157 fans for the season bettered the previous season-high total of 1,393,933 in Season 6 (2010/11).
The match average of 10,490 was a healthy 24% jump on the previous season. But we know there’s much more work to do.
Although the negatives sometimes get more coverage than the positives, there have been plenty of other good news stories to celebrate across the Hyundai A-League 2011/12 season.
TV audience average is up 48 percent. Club membership is up 20 percent.
The successful schedule change to run the season from October to April allowed the league to launch in clear air and obtain greater coverage and support. Opening the season with marquee matches also helped.
Rivalry Round produced the all-time high aggregate attendance for a Hyundai A-League round.
There was the implementation of standard kick off times – for fans in stadiums and at home on TV, tailored for specific markets. Mid-week rounds were fewer, but strategically placed in the festive season.
The Community Round took our competition to new markets in Morwell (Regional Victoria), Dunedin (NZ), Campbelltown (Western Sydney), Launceston (Tasmania) and Bathurst (Western NSW).
And the world-first Hyundai A-League Marathon on 4 January 2012 saw five matches back-to-back with over 12 hours of broadcast.
Our new digital partnership with Optus has also been a great success for the Hyundai A-League and our National Teams.
Since launching, our web traffic has increased by 20 percent, Twitter and Facebook followers are up 15 percent to over 610,000, and we have recorded over 200,000 downloads for our Qantas Socceroos and Hyundai A-League mobile applications. Our digital presence has become an integral part of our communications strategy, with exclusive content now giving fans the information they desire.
In addition to the successes of the Hyundai A-League, another important moment in the history of the sport occurred in December last year at our Annual General Meeting when our Chairman, Mr Frank Lowy AC, was elected unopposed for another four-year term by the membership.
This provides stability for the game and its many stakeholders. Having worked closely with Frank for the past five and a half years, I can say that football is fortunate to have a man of his business knowledge, experience and passion for the sport at the helm.
On the same day the FFA also published the FFA five-year strategic plan for 2011-2015.
I have spoken at length regarding the details of this plan in the past, but in summary our long-term vision for the future is to stabilise Australia as one of the top ten football nations in the world.
This will require developing a football culture ingrained with unique Australian characteristics; producing gifted Australian players from an elite player pathway that equals the world’s best; building a Hyundai A-League that rivals the best in Asia; and making football a sporting and social powerhouse in Australia.
It is well known that football has a very high participation rate of 1.7 million boys, girls, men and women nationwide from all walks of life, according to the Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Our mission and the greatest challenge that we face is to create value for and convert mass participation to active support of our senior national teams (Qantas Socceroos and Westfield Matildas) and national domestic competitions (Hyundai A-League and Westfield W-League).
With our vision stated and our mission set, the FFA Strategic Plan has four pillars.
One is ensuring the excellence of our national teams and elite player development. Two is ensuring a sustainable and vibrant Hyundai A-League. Three is a greater connection with football’s grassroots. Four is delivering a successful 2015 AFC Asian Cup that leaves a beneficial legacy for our game.
As far as the first pillar goes, the Qantas Socceroos are currently ranked 20th in the FIFA World Rankings and are the top-ranked Men’s team in Asia. Since being appointed coach of the Qantas Socceroos, Holger Osieck has successfully assembled a group of players that has the right balance of youth and experience that we believe will take the Qantas Socceroos through to the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
There were plenty of doubters when Holger was announced, but we believe that we found the perfect candidate who understood the unique nature of being head coach of the Qantas Socceroos. This was best evidenced by our appearance at the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011, where we narrowly lost to Japan in the final. Our current FIFA ranking also has a lot to do with Holger’s results of 15 wins and 4 draws from his 22 matches in charge.
In the women’s national team program, we aim to see the Westfield Matildas successfully defend the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, once again qualify for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and continue to hold a top-10 ranking. We are currently 10th in the world and third team in Asia.
But it’s not just the senior men’s and women’s teams that we are focused on. The production line below our national teams is equally important.
To deliver world-class players, we need to have world-class coaches to develop these players from a young age. Our new coach education programs have received international praise and we are providing more education and coaching opportunities than ever before from the grassroots to the professional level.
Our National Curriculum, under the supervision of National Technical Director Han Berger, is currently being rolled out from the grassroots to the elite levels of the game. This ambitious project has completely changed the way we look at our sport, and the benefits will be seen in the next five to ten years.
Our second strategic pillar is the Hyundai A-League and the sustainability of the competition.
There has been much said about our recent issues with Gold Coast United’s previous ownership which I will not discuss further here, due to ongoing litigation, suffice to say that it has been a unnecessary distraction for the game.
But instead, what does need to be remembered is that over the past 12 months, there has been significant new investment for the Newcastle Jets, Adelaide United, Brisbane Roar and Wellington Phoenix clubs which shows that our competition is vibrant, credible and viable – and attractive to new investors.
The overall health of the Hyundai A-League is directly related to the number of fans following the clubs.
In short, as I mentioned before, it’s about getting bums on seats and eyeballs on screens.
To do this, we have to give the fans what they want – a high-quality, exciting competition and an active engagement with their clubs.
Our goal in the initial years of the Strategic Plan timeframe is still to have 10 stable clubs and a sustainable economic model for the Hyundai A-League.
There is a natural public debate around expansion, usually around Western Sydney, which is the heartland of the game, and also Canberra and Tasmania.
However, in the Strategic Plan period to 2015 expansion will only occur when those economic pre-conditions of stability and sustainability exist.
The third pillar of our strategic plan is all about connecting with the grassroots. As I stated earlier in our mission it’s all about conversion of participant to fan. But we recognise that this conversion can only occur if we build loyalty with our grassroots community and provide them with support or benefits that are valued.
Our Strategic Plan includes the biggest online registration roll out ever seen in Australian sport.
MyFootballClub.com.au is a national database that will, for the first time in the game’s history, bring everyone together and allow us to share and collaborate much more effectively. It’s provided free of charge to clubs and associations.
We will deliver benefits to all tiers. Players will be part of a virtual community with the benefits of our numbers: ticket offers for Qantas Socceroos matches, discounts on playing equipment, information on coaching and healthy lifestyles.
Clubs and associations will have lower IT costs and greater ability to organise and service players.
The professional tier (National Teams and A-League clubs) will gave a real connection to the grassroots and an efficient and sophisticated way to communicate in this digital age.
The strategic plan target for the MyFootballClub.com.au database is to have half a million registrations by June 2012 and one million by 2015.
Once we achieve this target Australian football will be in an unprecedented position to connect and convert our numbers.
This project is the game changer for Australian football.
Our fourth pillar involves the hosting of the AFC Asian Cup in 2015.
This is the biggest sporting event in Asia, with an estimated cumulative viewing audience of around 2.5 billion, and will be the biggest sporting event to be hosted in Australia since the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
Of course on the field, we want to Qantas Socceroos to go one better than 2011 and win the tournament, but the off-field opportunities are just as important.
A tournament budget surplus would ensure a financial legacy for Australian football. We would have sold out Qantas Socceroos matches and sold out finals matches.
It would leverage the business and commercial connection of Australian football with Asia. It would leverage and convert awareness and support for football into increased participation and Hyundai A-League attendances.
As a first step, we will develop the AFC Asian Cup Strategic Plan and establish a Local Organising Committee supported by highly skilled and experienced people. This first milestone has already been reached with the appointment of the highly respected sports administrator Michael Brown as the CEO of the Local Organising Committee for the AFC Asian Cup Australia 2015.
Over the coming months Michael will assemble his management team and we are very confident that his team will be able to deliver a fantastic tournament.
Michael and his team are already in the process of formulating engagement plans with Hyundai A-League clubs, public/private sectors, Australian governments, the Australian football community and the media.
Our goal is to not only ensure we run a world-class event, but that Australian football accrues a lasting legacy benefit as a result.
To achieve the ambitious targets that we have set ourselves in the Strategic Plan, we need capital to invest.
Our next TV rights agreement is the opportunity to secure the financial footing of the game.
We are saying to the free-to-air, pay TV and digital networks that football has the potential to provide the biggest reach of any sport in Australia – across social class, gender, ethnicity and age demographics – and it’s a truly national footprint.
Football has more participants than all the other codes combined and as mentioned is the fastest-growing sport among women and girls.
Importantly, our demographic skew towards youth means we are a growth story, particularly in this digital age.
The next four years are truly exciting times for the football in Australia, and with the cooperation and support of all our stakeholders there will be plenty more positives to be proud of for future generations of our football family.
The Roar’s CEO Series: In this series of articles, John O’Neill (Australian Rugby Union), James Sutherland (Cricket Australia), David Gallop (NRL), Andrew Demetriou (AFL), and Ben Buckley (FFA) all share with The Roar their thoughts on the year that was, or will be, for their respective codes.
Simmo
Guest
Frankly, I am appalled to see that our national teams no longer include the name of our country! Just who are our top players representing now? QANTAS shareholders and the Lowy family? WTF??? Any reasonable observer could be forgiven for thinking that these teams are simply domestic franchises, not the best of the best that Australia has to offer. But if this is the way of the future...well, I can't wait to see our boys play the Siemens Mannschaft and the FIAT Azzurri in the Facebook World Series Cup in 2014!
phutbol
Guest
I wonder if he's related to Rebecca....
PeterK
Guest
Mick and King, I have no interest in whether we are bigger than others or not, or whether we are better than others or not. My great interest and passion is for football, even though I have a passing interest in the others. It's a bit like tasting wine. How the judges say this one is better than that one I don't know -- they're different, and both can be good (or I suppose both can be bad). Also a bit like loving one's kids. You can even like one better than another but you'll never love one better than another (I hope) -- because they're different.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Okay, I have to say that a chunk of this isn't necessarily the fault of the club itself. The FFA meddled heavily early on and tried to remould Perth Glory at the start of the A-League in ways it really shouldn't have. If they had left well alone with the old "not broke, don't fix it" things probably would never have dipped quite so low. But the club certainly has its own culpability.
Midfielder
Guest
Jb Well argued... the expansion has been the major error of judgement by FFA... Two things about the expansion concern me.... first the lack of a plan to move forward... IMO WS and Woolongong were and are the two obovious teams to be 9 & 10... settle things down ... add second Melbourne & a new region ... look at Canberra, Gold Coast, Tassie, Nt QLD & Dawin... Second the lack of control by FFA in some areas but over control in others... over control in operational matters but little control over whether the owner has to stay in... Nothing that in time cannot be fixed, but in the grand scheme of things a massive error ...
jbinnie
Guest
Kasey - Like you with me, I thought you a reasoning,logical thinker,& I still do, but you keep citing dangerous areas in your discussions that have very little or any bearing on the theme being put by other writers. Global economics like the GFC, (a name probably generated by a sensationalist press) probably has very little to do with the size of a football crowd in Australia. You venture into another dangerous area when you cite what is going on in the MLS ,for in fact that esteemed body is almost the same age as our HAL but it should also be spelled out that it has taken over 40 years & 2 failed attempts to get it to it's present status.(Van.Whitecaps started in 1974). Now to get positive.I agree with your "bullet" in what happened to cause the FFA to be formed. However since the league was formed there has been consistent errors made & it is in the area of measuring success by using crowd figure, that some of these major errors come to the fore.That is why I cite expansion as a major error & yet discussion constantly refers to more expansion.Forgetting all the things like shiny new syndrome (which I agree with & was borne out this year with Kewell & Emerton debut crowds) I tend to look at the overall picture & try to separate what I term are poor attendance figures from the norm, & unfortunately it was the 3 expansion clubs that ,after 3 seasons, were dragging that average crowd figure lower than it should be.The figures I showed prove that with no argument. My view of the HAL?. Only 7 years ago someone ,somewhere,decided we should have a "super" football league in Australasia consisting of 8 teams. Why 8?. I like to think that it was because that someone thought that it was the number of teams this country could support in terms of playing standard, travel costs,suitable grounds,finance, management experience & skill,coaching expertise et. al. for remember, I ,as a positive thinker,hope to see the day all these positions will be filled with Australasian talent. Will I see that day? This season has seen 2 "local" coaches again dominate in the HAL,we have seen the emergence of some outstanding young talent at HAL club level (but not at international level?????), we have seen a growth in crowds & hopefully the grass roots figure is still on the increase despite the costs being widely debated. Now to the personal.Sarcastic to you? not intentional but if you took it that way my apologies. Keep scribing. jb
Damiano
Guest
Bendon, I don't agree with this. Many so called Euro snobs have formed a strong emotional connection with the clubs of their forefathers. They either haven't been able to form an emotional connection with a local team, or find that incompatible with supporting their traditional team. Its incumbant upon the FFA to engage these supporters in the local product. You can continue to support your traditional team, and make a new tradition, especially for those who are second or third generation migrants.
Kasey
Guest
C’mon jb, I thought we’ve both been here long enough to have developed a basic rapport, there’s no need to get sarcastic on me. I would have thought my point was clear. Keeping in mind I am that rare creature in Australian football. The optimist. My point – in bullet form for ease of digestion. -The existing Soc/Aus-NSL structure failing to grow the game to new audiences. - Govt supported Crawford report to determine what needs to be done. -FFA created to implement report. - NSL disbanded. -A-League created. NB: When the new league was created, the level of optimism in the game was pretty high. The profile was also high as at launch is where the corresponding ‘maximum spend’ on Advertising occurred. Also include the contra coverage of ‘new soccer league launched’ as a general news media story on many TV stations. The shiny new thing syndrome ensured that the HAL had much positive publicity in its infancy. Worldwide experience in any product you care to name would indicate that the ‘honeymoon period' is of a limited time only. - The HAL grew very well from its smallbase in its first 2 seasons. This lead to unrealistic expectations amongst the many fans of the game that thought their time in the sun and a chance to stick it back to the other codes – who had long looked down upon poor old Soccer had finally arrived. - In implementing the HAL, FFA made some crucial (in hindsight) mistakes in only creating one team to service the whole Sydney basin. This is a mistake hat continues to haunt FFA to this day. - As the gloss wore off the new league (remember the same 8 teams played over the first 3 seasons (the away team always in white) lead to a sense of sameness and driving of the desire to expand. -We as fans practically demanded the FFA expand to take advantage of the 3 years of growth. We as fans generally had unrealistic expectations that the growth would just continue as before. What we couldn’t see coming was the GFC. The GFC cruelled Don Matheson and basically screwed NQ Fury from the beginning. It appears thatFFA failed to do basic due diligence on the background of Clive Palmer and once admitted, his inability to run one single club lead to many inches of negative press for the HAL and the game. Clive’s failure to spend wisely in engaging the local community lead to the criminally low attendance on the glitter strip. By contrast, each of the last 4-5 MLS expansion teams(Seattle, Portland, Toronto and Vancouver) has entered that league and posted numbers above the previous seasons crowd average(Montreal will likely do the same this year) this grows the league. No expansion team has done that in Australia. No matter which way you cut it, blame it on the GFC or not, FFA has botched expansion. The way they look to rush in perhaps a team from West Sydney rather than give them time to build the structures before playing a game indicate that they have not learned their lessons yet. This is almost as disappointing as the failure of FFA to have effective communication with us the fans.
Kasey
Guest
AUFC's crowd figure are misleading as I'll bet you've inncluded the 2,300 crowd of the 'home' game at Bathurst. Hardly a fair indication of the level of support for United in Adelaide. The belief in the Reds just hasn't been there at hindmarsh from the fans this year. Many crowd favourites were moved on at the close season by Rini Coolen and the performance of the team would not have endeared them to casual fans, heck as a die hard even I found it difficult to motivate myself some weeks to attend! In season 2010-11, AUFC also had two games a Adelaide Oval (drawing 21,083 and 16,429) No AO games this season.
Bondy
Guest
Womens football is just as important as Mens which of the two sex's will obtain better results Internationally thats a no brainer . And watching the womens W League the top few teams put down some very decent football .
Paul
Guest
Sydney and Brisbane would be best playing in smaller stadiums. If they can be found.
Brendon
Guest
Most Euro snobs aren't real football fans but rather fat world of warcraft nerds who got picked on at school by Aussie Rules/League/Union players and think they're being sophisticated and superior by liking the European football.
Paul
Guest
It would be too disastrous to give Australia a football league dominated by teams from Sydney and Melbourne. Some balance needs to be achieved. There's nothing wrong with a team like Central Coast winning the Premiers' Plate on merit rather than its bank balance, a la EPL.
asanchez
Roar Guru
The A-league has had a good year this season no matter which way you look at it. After the last 2 seasons of terrible publicity, many doom and gloom articles and terrible crowds, we are definetely back on the right path. Some would argue this is where the game should've been 2 years ago when the FFA went on the WC bid trail and didn't put enough resources into the A-league. IMO the WC bid may have been a little early in our Football history but we had a good crack nonetheless, and the positives had we achieved it would've heavily outweighed the negatives that have been coming out now all with the benefit of hindsight. But there was definetely some mistakes made on the domestic front. Not even the FFA could deny this. The A-league just as the J-league and the MLS, has made mistakes in its early stages, and will probably continue to do so, but its how it backs up, and learns from its mistakes that will drive it forward quicker. Some clubs will fall, which is a shame, but it will happen. The business plans and backround work around expansion clubs needs to be spot on to minimise failure. I think this season we are back on the right track. That's gotta now continue next season and beyond. The 'We Are Football' slogan worked well and the overall greater hype about this season was a positive for the game. The October start definetely helped that. Less midweek games in a much improved fixture made a big difference. Obviously getting Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton also helped garner greater interest this season. But when any domestic league is going well, and well administered, this should happen naturally, clubs get better and smarter with their recruiting, which drives more bums on seats. This will no doubt continue, and sooner or later, if the league keeps progressing, one day our clubs will be signing players of the quality of Robbie Keane, Thierry Henry, Freddy Ljungberg and Kris Boyd instead of leagues like the MLS. I'm wrapped with how this season has gone, except for the Clive Palmer sideshow, but the FFA now needs to make some crucial decisions and quickly, to make sure that next season the league keeps building. We need 10 teams next season, hopefully keeping GCU for at least another season, while getting a team from West Sydney or elsewhere ready to go for the season after. I'm hoping BB can get a TV and media rights deal that the game deserves, which would also answer his critics and keep the knockers away. Obviously we're not going to a deal like the NRL or the AFL, we dont need that, as long as we get enough money for us not only to survive, but to grow and keep building.
Commo
Guest
Ben Buckley, it's called European football.
Midfielder
Guest
Thanks Nathan.. you make a lot of sense and that rebuilding process is important ... or maybe reconnecting..
j binnie
Guest
Daryl -You've spelled it out again but I don't think Kasey will get your message for, from his reply to me, he is too busy comparing our performances with countries that have 300.million populations &, in the case of the USA have reduced their area of operations into smaller,more workable sections (greatly reducing the cost of travel). He then introduces the GFC as a reason for reduced attendances but ignores completely the much smaller crowds being attracted to the new entries which had a DIRECT effect on the average crowd figure being calculated.This was despite the actual figures being presented to him.We then wander a bit blaming Roar's bad management,Ange's super team, & the mining boom protecting us,all basic schoolboy economics.Then after a further lecture on this subject he tells us what we all know,that is,if everything remains the same & Adelaide,Victory,(he forgot Perth),improve their playing performances & add the lowest support (GCU) being taken out of the equation things will get even better next year.Thanks Kasey for working all that out for us. Cheers jb.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
He's right about why the crowds went backwards, since we couldn't duplicate the Robbie Fowler effect. Also the club missed a number of opportunities by racking up ugly defeats in games like the one against Sydney right before a big home game that dampened enthusiasm amongst people who were being lured back. As for why things didn't go forward... There are however long-term systemic issues, such as the steep decline of the efficacy and helpfulness of the front office. A lot of off-field matters have not been handled well. These are all things that have been eroding numbers over years. Ailing media links to the local news, causing us to get progressively buried (when I'm heading in on game day I still get "oh are they playing today?"). Loss of some of the pre-game traditions, friction between club and supporters over a variety of things (sometimes justified, such as when they get at us about the We Hate Sydney FC chant). Highly priced memberships and tickets. There are some alienated supporters out there. Seven years of false dawns... A lot of this stuff got a LOT better this year, however it takes time to turn these sorts of trends around. The fact we had our down patch right after the strong start seemed to confirm for all those waiting in the wings that Glory was SNAFU again.
Bondy
Guest
One of the difficulties we face with football in Australia is most participants who play football (amateur) young or old, go home after playing football on Saturday or Sunday mornings / arvo's and watch Aussie Rules or Rugby League and then butter up for Cricket in summer they are sports were in which those consumers have really had no other option than those three sports on F.T.A. for over 35 years and subsequently football can be treated like a throw around toy buy some of our participants and their parents . One thing I would like to see is and I know things are tuff financially for everyone concerned especially the F.F.A. but I would like to see a greater emphasis put on club football (grassroots ) and perhaps for every registered child they get given two free H.A.L. tickets to there nearest H.A.L. club "force them to think" . Most football supportes on this website Ben couldn't give two hoots about Real Madrid or Liverpool were all connected to the A League in a big way . I can only speak for myself ofcourse but my only interests are Australian Football - youth players boys and girls and senior mens and womens teams . I've heard this is not a bad destination for a holiday ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJU31rqlSiE ) . Good Luck Ben .
Midfielder
Guest
Thanks KR.... they do make sense...