Confronting A-League's challenges

What an A-League season it has been. Ratings up, crowds up, net hits up, media coverage up.

Next year live free-to-air broadcasting of the A-League will commence, with Socceroo World Cup qualifiers and A-League finals on a one hour delay. 

My hope/expectation/desire is the A-League over this time will establish itself as the clear third football competition in Australia and the Socceroos as Australia’s leading national team.

We had some real luck this year and we need to accept the lady smiled on us a few times.

The three main bits of luck were the marquees all worked on and off the field (which, history has shown, will not always be so), the drugs in sport which affected rugby league and AFL the most and took some gloss of their media, and lastly the NRL scheduled nothing against the A-League grand final, meaning the Sydney press needed something to fill space the week prior and to talk about on Monday and Tuesday after the A-League’s final game.

The season has been arguably the best the A-League has had. Signs of being belatedly accepted by the mainstream media are emerging.

We have 10 teams, playing over 32 weeks, with an average crowd of 12,678 and a pay TV rating of 80,000 per A-League match. There are nine national teams of which, to be fair, the Socceroos are the only real draw card. There is also an eight team W-League and senior national women’s side.

The issue is in another four years there will be a new media deal and we need to lift all our key performance indicators (KPIs) to new levels.

The challenge is huge and will require a lot of hard work. At some point realistic goals need to be set and aimed for. To achieve this requires a continuation and increase of quality both on and off field.

Let me set a simple target, to establish football as the clear number three football code, hot on the heels of the NRL and AFL, resulting in the next media deal being valued at 600 million dollars.

Remember the Socceroos’ World Cup and Asian Cup matches are not for sale, as the rights are owned by the Asian Football Federation, so the A-League alone must be worth 600 million. 

Let’s compare our position relative to other codes. If I am wrong, especially with rugby and cricket, please correct me.

AFL
Annual crowds: 6,400,000
Average crowd: 36, 000
Pay TV average per match: 181,000
(I have left out free-to-air as football has no FTA to measure against.)

NRL
3,250,000
16,500
232,000

Cricket
1,050,000
21,000
N/A

(Cricket includes T20, Tests, one day internationals and domestic one day matches. Most of cricket is on FTA, however T20 rates just below the NRL and domestic matches hardly rate at all.)

Rugby
550,000
20,000
88,000

Football
1,800,000
12,600
80,000

The big KPIs are ratings, crowds, net hits, and media space. If we can increase crowds to between 15,000 and 16,000 and lift pay TV ratings over 130,000, with FTA averaging over 350,000, I can see a 600 million dollar deal.

The key things that need to improve are a continual improvement in the standard of the A-League and the media (especially SBS) increasing its positive coverage.

Love the thoughts of my fellow Roarers.