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A-League fan engagement is second to none. However, the marketing of matches needs work.
On Sunday, I attended the A-League/W-League double-header in the nation’s capital, starting with the Central Coast Mariners and Adelaide United match-up, then the semi-final between Canberra United and Melbourne City. I went with a friend of mine and we were both hoping for a half-decent crowd to turn up as it was a lovely afternoon for football.
“What do you reckon the attendance figure will be?” I asked him.
“Dude, we’d be lucky to get over the five or so thousand that attended the Phoenix game,” he replied with a sigh.
As we arrived at the ticket booth, there wasn’t much of a queue of people buying tickets, which was a worrying sign, even though it was half an hour from kickoff.
Walking through the gate, I noticed there were a few families lining up at a tent that was handing out free Mariners hats and posters. I then remembered that children got free admission into the ground, which seems like a decent enough ploy to get people through the gate.
Yet, there was almost zero attempt at marketing this in the months leading up to the day.
During the first game you didn’t have to be a mathematical genius to see that the stadium looked very empty. There were dribs and drabs of people around, but most of the fans were in the main grandstands. Fortunately, the majority stayed to watch the women’s semi-final, which was quite surprising considering it was a Sunday night with work and school the next day.
After the first game finished, the Mariners had a “family photo” with all the players and fans, which I thought was a lovely gesture, even though it was not a home game technically. The players then did the usual slow walk around the ground signing hats and scarves. It’s nice of them to appreciate their fans that made the four hour trip from Gosford, as well as the small Canberra contingent that are jumping on the bandwagon as there isn’t a men’s team to call our own. Yet.
The last players out talking to fans were Isaias, Tarek Elrich and Eugene Galekovic from Adelaide as well as Trent Buhagiar from the Mariners.
Buhagiar was signing a few kids’ hats and scarves until my friend and I went up to him and congratulated him on the win. He seemed very appreciative of the small conversation – I mean the guy had been out on the field for 90 minutes and probably wanted to sit in the changerooms with an airconditioner, but he gave up his time for the younger fans and to share a quick chat with some neutrals.
My friend admitted that Buhagiar was in his fantasy team, to which Trent laughed, thanked him and promised to try and score some more goals for him too.
Some of the kids who got to meet their heroes will never forget that Sunday at GIO stadium.
But unfortunately, it will be the last time this season that Canberra will get to see a competitive football game until the start of the local NPL.
The hunger for an A-League side is there, although there were only 5,400 people on a sunny Sunday afternoon. If it wasn’t for the poor advertising and marketing, there could have been a few more thousand fans in the stands.
The sad reality is that the FFA will use the poor crowd figure as an excuse to not grant Canberra a licence.
The winners on the pitch were the Mariners and Melbourne City respectively.
But the winners off the pitch, were the players that spent some time with their fans.
Because at the end of the day without the fans, there is no football.
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