Reading through recent musings concerning A-League expansion and speculation about the opportunity for significantly increased revenue into the sport from broadcast sources, football is clearly facing some important policy decisions in the short term, and is also at a crucial point in the medium term.
Taking the wider view, we are reaching the end of a phase that began in the early 2000s with the Oceania Cup flop, which paved the way for the formation of the FFA and the A-League, culminating in Asian Cup glory at home.
This has by no means been perfect and can be characterised by two steps forward and one step back.
As the sport heads into the next phase it is important to identify where football’s competitive advantage lies and most crucially hedge against the potential risks posed to professional sport posed by a sports business model increasingly focused on institutional broadcast revenue.
‘Leanness’, ‘stability’ and ‘pervasiveness’ are key words, and it is useful to understand that the gravity of power is set to transition away from the national team to the A-League teams as individual entities.
Leanness in the sense that the incoming increase of revenue and the energy it represents must not be channelled in such a way to make the A-League and its structure bloated.
Listening to David Gallop’s sentiments about learning from the mistakes of North Queensland and Gold Coast United and looking to putting teams in metropolitan areas – or “fishing where the fish are” – it struck me that this was once again an over-correction on the expansion failures of the past, and an excessive focus on gearing the structure of the A-League to suit broadcast conditions.
In terms of adapting the analogy used, it’s worth noting that “fishing where the fish are” and focusing too much fishing industry resources in one area prospectively leads to over-fishing. Despite initially higher yields of fish a crash in population occurs, which brings down the industry built around it.
Live by broadcast revenue, die by broadcast revenue.
Institutional broadcast revenues can ensure spectacular highs in income can be reached, but the inverse of that is that any crash in income can be potentially crippling.
Consequently, in terms of ensuring stability, it isn’t necessarily a good idea for football to hedge itself unhealthily close to an industry experiencing transitional instability when pondering the benefits of ‘higher yielding’ mainstream free-to-air exposure in place of ‘lower yielding’ government-backed networks because of the risks involved.
A good precedent can be seen in the impact on the lower English Football League tiers of the collapse of ITV Digital back in 2002.
Pervasiveness applies in terms of expansion.
It would be a mistake to over-correct the mistakes of previously expanding into regional teams and put third metropolitan teams in Melbourne and Sydney, where there is no organic demand for them, in order to artificially maximise short-term cyclical broadcast revenue.
In terms of the business model, the FFA should avoid the mistake of putting too many proverbial eggs in the institutional broadcast revenue basket and instead should look to diversify – a topic covered in part 2.
Waz
Guest
I'm as little confused, you use a lot of words but don't actually say anything! Is that in part 2? All the comments that follow are pretty much people's pre-existing opinions I suspect so for an article with such a worthy title I was left a little disappointed.
Kasey
Guest
I shake my head at the shift over the years.. I definitely remember the Nobody Screws Soccer like 7 shemozzle...despite the AFL fanbois writing it off as Sokkah fan paranoia! the fact remains testimony was given admitteing that Ch7 set out to harm football to curry favour with the AFL. Ch10 is all BBL....they have no commercial imperitive to sayanything nice about a Summer Sport competitor.
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
Melbourne is tricky as there is no discernible organic demand calling out for a team. Maybe a team could be put in Geelong at some point and the SE corridoor is a growth area but has no stadiums, best case for a 3rd Melbourne team is a niche SMFC which we know will get relatively low crowds of about 5k but this is OK if their stadium leasing costs are low and broadcast revenue covers the salary cap. Sydney I think maybe can have a 3rd team if we look at Wollongong as a hybrid South Sydney/Wollongong team in addition to CCM being a hybrid North Sydney team. Obviously this pushes SFC into being a East Sydney CBD team which personally I think is find as it suits the Bling tag and that is what they seem to be anyway There seems to be more fault lines in Sydney than Melbourne
MarkfromCroydon
Guest
Heard Carlos Alberto Diego on the radio today talking about the whisper for a 3rd Melbourne team. That actually seems quite logical. Victory and City are both now secure (Victory by virtue of their popularity and City the long term financial commitment of the City Football Group). Therefore, both of these clubs can continue without worrying about the competition from the new entity. The only question then, will the 3rd Melbourne club be able to get itself in a position of being a legitimate ongoing concern quickly enough. Similar for the city of Sydney, with 2 current secure clubs, WSW seeming to be going from strength to strength in popularity, and SFC having a reasonable base of rusted on support. However I'm not so sure about SFC's owners long term financial capability, and if a 3rd club came in and there was some threat to FC, then FC may have to 're-position' itself as less bling, and cut some of their expenses. The strong positives are that we could have 2 new expansion teams in the 2 biggest cities in the country, thus having more potential new fans, and more importantly, (if we keep current model of each team playing each other 3 times) each city would have 9 Derby matches per season rather than the current 3. Plenty of opportunity for the new teams to 'cash in' on some away fans going to 2-4 derby matches at new teams home ground and paying for tickets.
Bondy
Guest
NUFCMVFC I agree those who suggest shipping in players form abroad only see the HAL as a televised event and dont understand or care about the production of Australian footballers professionally. If we relied on foreign players to play in and develop the HAL then we'd have a 20 team comp by next summer easy, but it offers no pathways for local juniors that way .. WSW vs QUA 0-1 . 43 mins in . We are our future ....
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
Agree, any increase in TV revenue IMO once it can mean a sustainable league should be oriented towards FFA Cup but capital infrastructure that football owns, meaning our own training facilities but also Womens and youth structure in particular. EG players will push for a raise in the salary cap but it's better to "export this inflation in wages" so to speak basically to Asia and keep our own cost structures low, after all we can raise wages but will never be able to compete against Asian clubs wage wise (funny how the dearth in wages doesen't necassarily translate to a proportionate dearth in ACL competitiveness). The real trick for Australia is to develop a youth program that can consistently develop miniature gems, the youth department and fan retention is the most important of clubs. If we can keep cost structures lean and develop good players that clubs on-sell we can be quite profitable
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
oh wow how times change Nobody screws Soccer like Seven etc I would have thought Channel 10 the most inclined to be open to Football That said they invested in the Big Bash League instead, which is a Summer competitor to the A-League which would explain any hostility if they are looking to expand Cricket coverage Could be a generational shift in editors some FTA media, of course we have a general tradition of AFL in winter covered by 7 and Cricket in Summer by 9, this is now changing and perhaps Channel 7 are seeing value in having A-League as summer content in addition to their January tennis coverage
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
Getting cheap players from overseas is fine if you don't care about Australian player development Cue the Robbie Slater style arguments about foriegn players being great as long as they add to the quality of the team rather than just being filler squad players etc In terms of a commercial product itself it would be fine for the A-League, ala the EPL but not for an Australian national league that is supposed to serve the national interest Ultimately the talent pool issue is similar to the idea of further increasing the number of participating teams at the Asian Cup Atm I think the AFC have the sweet spot at 16, more teams can mean more interest and more revenue etc, but it was clear to the trained football eye how standards were a level below world class in many cases. It was OK as this meant goals and an interesting competition but if they have too many teams and the quality falls an extra level becomes an issue and the AFC risks a perspective of the Asian Cup as a "second rate" competition The fishing line doesen't relate to player cultivation but to skewing the Business Model of the A-League too much in a way to elicit broadcast revenue, sure you can get more money in the short term, but if you build a structure and Business Model reliant on that, as soon as there is a problem with that income stream it causes a jolt which can hit very hard
Bill
Guest
"Talent pool issues are you kidding football is a global sport and players are everywhere on the planet just gotta go find them" My thoughts exactly
aladdin sane
Guest
Next big step is for clubs to view youth academies as a source of income rather than a cost. Basically every league besides EPL, La Liga and Bundesliga are selling leagues - where clubs develop players and sell them on as one of their main sources of income. We are still a long way behind in this respect. Granted, we are not yet producing talent that can generate millions of dollars in transfer fees - but hopefully that is not too far off. The development of academies from jnrs right through to u21s will only help the situation.
chris
Guest
Talent pool issues are you kidding football is a global sport and players are everywhere on the planet just gotta go find them . Standards will not decrease unlike Australian based sports i.e AFL where the talent pool is miniscule. Your article strikes me as a naive view of professional sport. Professional sport all over the planet is based on TV revenue and the growth of the game any game is based on the share you can attract. you talk about over fishing are you joking. melbourne has 3 mill people and Sydney 4 mill on those population numbers I dont think over fishing as you put it is an issue in fact under fishing is more to the point. The growth of football in this country will be driven by the share of media revenue the sport can attract and on those scores football is being under paid. football is a global sport and our domestic games can now be on sold to networks all over the planet something unique to football, coupled with that the hits online for football content has soared . all the KPIs are trending up which leads to expansion to make that continue. and expansion will come where the eyes are that means big cities. Sydney and Brisbane will get new teams next followed by Adelaide and Perth.
Bondy
Guest
Bill I agree with that we only watch Ch 7 News at least they give the sport a fair go .. Good observation .
Towser
Guest
"If there is too many teams, amateurish mistakes creep in which undermines the perception of the competition which is bad marketing and brand wise despite the fact we could be getting more $ in accounting terms" Couldn't agree more NUFCMVFC, amateurish mistakes are not just a turn off to the trained football eye,but hold back the game as a spectacle in general,especially in promising attacking move breakdowns as follows. Player on the wing crosses with big striker in the middle,over hit into the stands. Player surging forward to receive pass,heavy first touch ,turnover. Player running with ball at feet, but poor control,pushes it over the line for a goalkick. I still see these and more,mistakes today, and unfortunately its generally an Australian player who makes them. The imports who are in general just solid professionals from overseas leagues are noticeably better regarding the above type of mistakes,so any suggestion of restricting the import quota is sheer nonsense for eons yet. In fact I believe that the A-League has stagnated at the playing level over the last 2 years and to move to the next level of support the playing standard has to rise. That IMO is the driver of everything else ,including the only thing that can make it all happen for football moolah.
ciudadmarron
Guest
Kenny went though and gave us a good wrap. I often wonder just how much editorial sway the journos have, it appears that they do influence it a fair bit if you look at the differences between the general reporting by 7 and 9. That Gilbert (?) buffoon is probably a big part of why channel 9 don't have as much coverage - he cannot resist a dig at every possibly opportunity, even his tone of voice when reporting on a goal fest in front of a packed house is contemptuous.
AZ_RBB
Guest
Ch7 are big fans of WSW. Two of their main reporters are ambassadors of the club and they were one of the few to follow us to Riyadh.
Bill
Guest
Like you and many, many, many of my fellowAustralians, I watch camparatively little commercial fta tv. But if you watched ONLY the commercial fta tv news you would soon notice that ONLY CH 7 are giving either the A-League in particular or Football more generally any attention at all. CH 10 in particular are conducting some pathetic and totally ineffective campaign against the Wanderers in particular and Football in general where the ONLY losers are CH 10 themselves - who are virtually bankrupt, while the Wanderers continue on their way conquering western Sydney and trampling league, cricket and aussie rules underfoot.
Bill
Guest
"Give every kid between 10-15 years old, for example, that’s a registered player at local level a 5 game pass for any game played in his or her home state. For example Johny is 11, he plays for Doncaster Rovers u12’s. Johny automatically gets a 5-game A-league pass, where he can choose when he wants to attend, and which team he wants to watch that seson. Make it just 1 ticket for each game, and that means that he must be accompanied by a parent/guardian/adult to every game." Excellent idea!
Bill
Guest
Nonsence
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
Yeah I've been impressed with the media coverage I don't watch FTA channels much, but just watching the Sky News channel for example, they go to cover sport and it has been great to listen to them discuss rather innocuous HAL team news as naturally as they discuss innocuous team news in other sports Not only would we get no coverage at all in the NSL days in the early HAL days it was only the big one-off fixtures which got this type of coverage for the one-off big games and outside of that we would be covered similar to Basketball or Netball perhaps and not quite like the other Football codes Thing is that how the mainstream inches and minutes is conveyed and consumed is changing, and in relative terms we will benefit as we aren't vested or have systemic advantage in the old system Eg this website is a great example, instead of waiting to watch the news sports report or sports section of the newspaper, people are clicking on direct links to highlights, the way it is presented is in a series of small icon boxes rather than sequentially as was traditionally the case. Click bait is becoming more important than what page an article is on A lot of it lies in generational shifts, in the media but amongst sports fans A-League fans most specifically, people point to the grassroots participation base and talk of "converting". IMO it is more about retention of the first generation of A-League fans, as growth will occur more through these people bringing children or other family along than converting Soccer Mums and ensuring the appeal to the general public. Socceroos are relevant to the general public as we saw with the Asian Cup but the A-League relates more to the committed football fraternity IMO This is covered in part 3 though
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
I think Gold Coast is the proper place for a 2 QLD team but damage has been done After that Canberra and then we are good for the short term After that have to start laying foundation for an A2 League