How will the FIFA World Cup affect the A-League?

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WSW at 7,613. Hoping to see a spike when ACL tickets are announced.

MVFC have moved beyond 10k season ticket holders. Still 9 weeks before the new season kicks off & we're nearly 50% of the total membership last season. A good pre-season & FFA Cup run & we could aim for 25k.

Agreed. I saw the change in my office - everyone knew it was on, the TV in the lunchroom saw to that, and the Dutch and Argies had their flags and banners up. It was the topic of conversation and the usual jokes about football were absent. For the first time I didnt have to debate the value of football, there was an acceptance. Pretty sure I can recruit a few more newbies and drag em along to The Den next season.

Hopefully we get something like this MVFC 23k WSW 16k BR 15k SFC 12k NEW 12k MCFC 10k AU 8k PG 7k CCM 6k Nix 6k Total 115k Avg 11.5k

Wow the Roar had no membership department ... you may hit 15 K by kick off ...

Apparently the Roar had never had their own membership department, and Ticketmaster has always looked after their memberships. It's amazing what your own team can do! Our little league is growing up, in more ways than one! Imagine where we'll be in 10 years??? The sky is the limit... I can't wait!

asanchez Very astute observations, memberships up and that Roar figure OMG ,, I hope your right on SBS they could take a lot of what they did with the WC and apply to their local coverage ... The Asian Cup will affect as you suggested ...

Good read Mid. There's no doubt that the media is slowly coming around, slowly, but at least the wheels are turning. The coming A-league season will be the biggest yet, without a doubt! And the WC will play its part in that. As with every WC we make, regardless of the Socceroos results in them, this has a positive effect on the overall code in Oz. That's why it's imperative we keep making it to them. The importance of qualifying for World Cups for the entire sport can never be underestimated. I think we'll see an increase in all the metrics, attendance, TV viewers and memberships. The clubs have already sold nearly 50k memberships as of today, with over 2 months still to go till the start of the season. They'll surely eclipse last year's figures of 95k or so members. At the moment, Victory are close to the 10k mark, Wanderers are almost at 7.5k, City has passed 6000 and will surely smash their last year's record of 7300 members, but it's in Brisbane where we're seeing the biggest increase so far, as they've passed 8500 season members, their highest membership figures ever. These figures, plus more interest by the mainstream media, and the fact that we've just had a very successful WC for SBS, and with the Asian Cup coming up here at home in January, I think attendances will also rise on last year. And hopefully with the TV coverage, SBS learn their lessons from their A-league coverage of last season, and they can raise their game in Season 10, and viewership should also rise. Fox will just keep doing what their doing, which has been fantastic.

Excellent news ...

Further to the goodnews MCFC have just hit over 6000 members. Last years membership total of 7300 is going to be blown out of the water. I can see the league passing the 100000 membership mark this season with ease!

This is all great. Again, if the stars align, we top our group and go on to win the Asian Cup the exposure would rival anything football has seen in Australia. In this scenario , that would mean finals matches in Melbourne than 2 in Sydney. The FFA should go full on with an open air bus through Sydney. Then have Ang and as many Socceroos players as possible do a tour of Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth with the trophy. Hell , why not Hobart and Canberra too. The media couldn't ignore this one and wouldn't. One game at a time first though.

you'll find it's the coalition wanting to run a knife through the ABC/SBS. that Peppa Pig is first on the chopping block.

Thank you! I always seem to be saying this point to people and they just don't get it. Biggest sport in Australia is football across numerous measures. Biggest domestic comp in Australia is the AFL. Turning the biggest sport into the biggest domestic comp is the aim of the FFA.

The Nix siged a youg [22] Dutch player today, the Mariners singed a 25 year old Senegalese international ... and said they had another recruit to announce over the next few days... Add what other teams are doing and the A-League is starting to look a very reasonable competition ... and the coaches mostly seem excellent .. maybe only Kenny Lowe has a question mark ...

Hamish's situation is interesting as it is a different one to mine. I always grew up with football (soccer) at a very young age as I was brought up on it from my parents who immigrated from Europe. It was always the sport I was going to choose (like all wogs) if I ever made it in anything. There was no other choice. I did however play cricket at school and watched a lot of rugby league. They were the main games at the time (everyone at school got into it) and I thought both RL and cricket were also exciting sports. But football (soccer) was always number one. Fast forward 20 years and a lot has changed. Cricket is still a great game but the competition between nations is diabolical these days and it has all but lost me. The 1992 and 1996 World Cups was cricket at its pinnacle. RL has also changed for the worse. Too much wrestling and robotic play/moves. Too much reliance on SOO as the pinnacle when the club competition was it's great feature. Kangaroo Tours were exciting to watch. Now they don't exist anymore. I would say Football in Australia is at a place now where it has to keep progressing forward. If it doesn't it will fall back and history shows us how much easier it is to fall than to grow. Marquees are big marketing tool for the a-league (Del Piero, Villa, Lampard etc) as is community engagement (active support groups, membership drives etc). Those two things will drive people through the gates. At the moment I see a good future for the league and the best scenario is if the 5 teams from the 3 big east coast cities get their acts together and start bossing the competition (sorry to other teams but this is simply the best scenario).I think this will get the average crowds up and the rivalries will be even greater than they currently are. It will also mean these big clubs get bigger and will be able to afford even better players.

Don't think you're right about this. I was brought up with R League and the rest of my family are still RL. But truly, as I got into adlutlhood I wasn't really into any sports. Out of tradition I watched State of origin (had watched it from the first after all) but frankly it now bores me to tears. I didn't discover sport and in a way I still don't consider myself 'into sport'. It is specifically soccer that seduced me, about 9 or 10 years ago. 2002 WC was the beginning, when I was at Uni and the games would be played in the Red Room (Uni of QLD). Each day a different two crews of ethnic students would be packing the place with colour and sound. That was the beginning, when I realised this was more than sport. And this was something for me. It's been a journey, but importantly not just for me. The two people I've been going to games with for the past three years are also new fans, one never interested in sport before and the other only ever been to AFL games. The latter has stopped getting his AFL season tickets for the last two years and just gets his A-League ones. Soccer (forgive me; it's the term I grew up with and a perfectly god one as far as I can see) is a unique phenomenon. People will come to it from anywhere, for all manner of reasons. If anything - but this of course only reflects my differing POV - I think brand new sports fans - people who've never liked Ozzie team sports because they are course and unsophisticated - are a *better* market to aim for than 'Eurosnobs'. Oddly, soccer can actually be a quiet rebellon against the Australian, hard-drinking yob culture. It's international, it's intellectual, it's a richer mine of metaphors for life. Rave finished.

I had notices a few tweets about that. It is getting some good online feedback too.

That is a good list. FFA has been pushing 16 hard this week and is a long overdue resource for grassroots and up.

I have to agree fadida. This off-season has not been as painful because of the World Cup but still I wish the A-League started yesterday. I don't think the World Cup will have any significant influence on the season. All teams are preparing and trying to improve, even if they some go the long way about it. HAL8 seem to me to be a turning point in the MSM accepting there was another sport domestically to report about, which to me seem to consolidate last season in HAL9. Expecting the game on the pitch to improve again and influence the following seasons growth, and the MSM will get better at reporting that. Off field Melbourne City may influence some endeavours (will they be successful even with money behind them? Not guaranteed imo), but other HAL clubs are influencing preparation. All this going on over the A-Leagues history. World Cup is a bonus, but not sure if new fans will come and stay. The Asian Cup may be a bit different, however, especially if we win it...