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As the current season is drawing to a close with the final series still to play and lots of excitement to come in April, one shadow hangs over the A-League – Gold Coast United’s future and thus whether there’ll be nine or 10 teams next season.
Is it going to go back to a nine-team competition with a bye each week and a drop in attendances as a result? With less games to play and some teams’ supporters missing out on their team out on the park, it can’t be a good look for re-negotiating a new television deal.
To be fair to the FFA, it was left without choice of stripping Gold Coast United owner Clive Palmer of his club as his indiscretions were bringing the game into disrepute. Since he resisted all attempts to stop his statements, the FFA had to act to in order not to lose credibility as the ultimate guardian of the code in Australia.
However, by acting when they did, they got themselves into a bind even though they negotiated with the players and coach to complete the season. Here we are now with a season drawing to a close and another one beginning and we’re in a state of limbo.
Sure the FFA may be able to kick-start a new franchise in Western Sydney, but it’ll be touch and go. As seen previously when things went pear shaped, it’s not as easy as it should be. Once you go with it, better you don’t look back of what should have or could have been.
The FFA can’t afford another ill conceived franchise on shaky foundations. Whatever the FFA decides, time is of the essence. No 10th team can make the proper preparations to have a competitive team next year unless they start their set ups now.
Now I’m going to go out on a limb and try to demonstrate that a Western Sydney team is not a corollary to a Gold Coast demise. As a matter of fact, I’ll propose here that a Gold Coast franchise, if ran properly, should be easier to make a success than many of the existing teams in the competition now.
In order to argue this let me just say that had Palmer not just used one side of an equation of his sponsorship of the team, that is using it as a tax break, but the other side too, as a revenue raiser, he would have been successful both on the pitch and with attendances.
When he put his Minerology logo on the jerseys and around the stadium, he abandoned any serious thought of actually finding sponsors who may want to promote their goods and services.
Furthermore, when he closed down most of the stadium to save money, he damaged the brand for spectators and on TV broadcasts. How can the FFA get a good price on a new TV deal when it looks as they’re playing to an empty stadium?
In all likelihood a better deal will be available to hire Skilled Park for next year with the new government in Queensland, but quite apart from that seats in the stadium should be seen as assets to be traded off for sponsorships.
This idea could be used for any stadium in Australia but especially on the Gold Coast where interstate and overseas tourists are numbering many multiples of the local population, which is around 600,000.
If a team has hardcore support of, say, 5000 patrons, that leaves, in Skilled Park for instance, a surplus of 22,000 seats on game day. These seats have been paid for but are idle and even if given away, don’t represent any losses any more.
Use them as freebies by tourism operators who are in the “ticketing business”. For example, theme parks which number six or more and have single entrance tickets at around $60 could incorporate GCU vouchers as part of their admission fee for free entry to the home games.
The theme parks would be given the surplus seats as a value added items in their tickets as freebies. Of course they’d expect sponsorship dollars in return. As we know from the club opened the stadium for free and 12,000 showed up, people like to get something for nothing.
Tourists would come to our home games as part of their holiday experience and activity. Theme parks would get an increase of attendances too as now their tickets have more value. They’d also get extra crowds by being on TV, plus they could provide half time entertainment to publicise their shows.
The tourism industry bring in approximately $3.5 billion to the Gold Coast area. Interstate visitors, many from Sydney and Melbourne, are already football fans. Surely they’d come to see a game, especially free with free transport, too. Add to that overseas visitors, a bulk of whom from Asia where football has a monopoly of any ball game, and one can see bumper crowds at Gold Coast home games.
Obviously the voucher system I alluded to for theme parks could be used for tour operators, hotel chains etc and more related to tourism.
The problem until now with people connected to the Gold Coast team was that they only factored in the local fans who admittedly didn’t show in their many thousands at a lot of home games.
But using lateral thinking and the hordes of visitors on the Gold Coast at any one time, they should have been considered as potential attendees. So my template takes care of that.
But now I give you another idea to think about. The Asian professional leagues by and large are successful ones. People over there don’t have to compete with rugby and AFL, for example.
In a number of cases these clubs in Asia with plenty of money buy foreign players for their rosters. Matt Simon of Central Coast Mariners was a case in point. Josh Kennedy is another of many.
A lot of these imports are Aussies and many more will ply their trade in overseas teams on our doorsteps.
Why wouldn’t it be a viable option for one of these cashed up clubs to buy into GCU and thereby have access to their players for loan periods, off-season stints and exchange deals?
Why not if part/full owners these clubs could have their good players play in Australia in a Gold Coast team, thereby guaranteeing a connection for traveling fans? Another way to have more people in the stadium, surely.
Furthermore, there are immigration benefits to potential owner/investors which could sway them. When and if GCU manages to play in the Asian Champions League, they’ll reap more benefits. The permutations of benefits are limitless.
I think by now most of you get my drift. The Gold Coast being in a unique position in a tourist mecca should consider not just the locals but the many visitors as part of their attendances.
It’s eminently doable and the FFA should consider it as a strong argument for maintaining the franchise. Even if the FFA has to temporarily stand good for any potential shortfalls they should underwrite it because it’s potentially a good business but was mismanaged by the previous owner.
Keep the franchise, follow my template and you can’t go wrong.
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