When Bill Clinton was first running for president of the US against George H.W. Bush, a sign in his campaign headquarters read, among other things, “The economy, stupid.”
Professional football in Australia has, in over 80 years, not been able to connect to its player base. The importance of connecting to the player base cannot be overstated.
Why is this so? What could they do for football? Answers later.
Three teams in my lifetime have connected to the associations and were amazingly successful. Perth Glory, The Northern Spirit who copied PG and KN United years before.
No other team to my knowledge has connected to the player base in a meaningful way.
Today feels to me like a bit of history with many people proclaiming new systems will be a fix all. P&R is the current flavour of the month with advocates believing it is the Holy Grail itself.
P&R will be a huge part of our growth but we need to have people caring about football first.
Ange Postecoglou said on Offsiders why he felt like an outsider, he said he wants to appeal to all Australia culture, not just the football culture which is what many in football believe.
To my earlier questions, why they are so important and what can they do?
The often quoted 18% player base connection to the professional game is the core issue. Increasing this will result in revenue gains the like we have never seen.
I want to break this down to a single imaginary team and introduce Human Behavioural Science [HBS], techniques and models. Assume a team has 16 players with subs. Now apply the 18% factor and you get between two or three players per side interested in the A-League.
HBS models will tell you two to three people in a group carry some but limited effect on group think and human dynamics.
Growth the interest level to say 30% to 32% and you grow the group to five to six players. HBS models will tell you the growth in interest and with the number between five and six, there is a real possibility to grow this number to between 60 and 70% quite quickly.
A connection of anything around 40% would generate rating and revenue we have never seen before, anything around 70% is mind-blowing.
With 780 clubs and over a million players and arguably another 50,000 volunteers, add parents and friends and we are looking at maybe 2 million people.
Each club has a president or chairman or similarly titled leader and a committee that runs the club. Canteen, training schedules, kits, dressing fields, arranging coaches and so on.
The president and their committees are usually trusted by their player base and have some influence over this group.
Marketers will tell you a recommendation from a trusted source counts very high with most people.
Most of the people who work on committees are football folk, and most are willing to help so long as it does not create a huge amount of work for them.
My frustration that FFA and the clubs have been unable or even tried to connect to this base, and that our media historically give credit for the player base to the professional game when it has always been the district associations and their park team and their volunteers who have grown the player base.
FFA and clubs should go and ask the associations how they can help. The associations hold the keys to the gold mine.
Midfielder
Guest
Tow Thanks mate.... more latter... great reply am busy for a while .. have missed your posts welcome back mate. BTW agree with most of what you said I am basing my observations on Human Behavioural Models ... but as I said more latter.
Towser
Guest
Interesting article Mid but probably poses more questions than answers. Let me put an outside perspective on this, and IMO it essentially boils down to sporting culture. Any migrant who comes from a background where this is a strong football culture and are themselves a passionate football fan finds the Sporting culture in Australia alien. This particularly applied Post war and was the reason migrants set up their own clubs for Football.. The concept of Johnny Warrens "Sheilas wogs and poofters" is alien, it makes no sense to an outsider. The concept of Mums dictating the sport "Little Johnny " plays is alien, men dictated which sport their son played and their son played in their own right without parental influence because their pals did and they looked up to the players in the Two professional clubs in Sheffield. Women had and having been back their recently still have zilch influence or in deed interest in football. Conclusion football is paternal and you can replicate that across all established football cultures across the planet, only in migrant communities and amongst migrants is football paternal in Australia in a wholistic sense, hence VIdukas, Kewells, Zelic,Bresciano, Slaters etc in Australia. What is being referred to in this article is the player base whose fathers did not have a paternal influence on their sons football at a professional level and neither did their mates influence them in that direction, except of course the non connective in a physical sense gaze towards overseas football(another issue and problem in this country for football as we know). As a junior coach many years ago I lost count of the number of times kids when directing adulation towards professional sports referred to Rugby League/Union and having lived in other states just slot in AFL for those sports. Even at post season barbies they didn't play football, out came the oval ball or cricket stumps. If professional football was mentioned it was always overseas as stated above. So without casting aspersions, but looking at the subject factually, the Anglo/Celtic element involved in football in Australia made a historical rod for their own back. How to change that, well to be frank I think it will take bit more than 13 years, however on the optimistic side, the change since when I stepped off the boat in terms of interest in those 13 years has been IMO a revelation. A crucial moment is coming up next week, but its a little different from crucial moments in the past, which were mainly balls ups. Prior to the NSL and post war migration football was amateur at best, after better football, but division on migrant and Association lines. After NSL dump the past , bring in the A-League which has now reached its zenith, and precipitated and emphasised that divisions still remain resulting a a possible FIFA takeover. As I said what happens after next week is crucial, Throw the twigs on the ground, just walk along and snap each one easily, put them all into a solid bungle and tie them up with bullrope, different story.
AR
Guest
For all this silly pettiness, it’s quite amazing that Fuss - who worships at the altar of Kevin Muscat - feels he sits on some high horse on the issue.
Midfielder
Guest
FFA n JON JON admits the biggest mistake of his career was how they turned away about 60 percentage of the Glory fans and lost to the A-League Nick Tana.
Midfielder
Guest
You're right it's as easy as that
Andrew
Guest
Don't disagree, but that is really just preaching to the football indoctrinated anyway. You may get a few local supporters extra, but it is largely servicing the passionate fan by giving them something local to cheer for, it isn't growing the base substantially. Lower tier competitions have existed in soccer and the other codes (in this country) for many years and all are becoming less and less supported and require significant investment to deliver.
Lionheart
Guest
Good article Midfielder, thanks. But I must ask, if Glory have done this so successfully why don't we see results in bigger crowds at NIB stadium?
Lionheart
Guest
the player can’t really be tackling a kid I only saw it on TV from two angles, but it looked pretty clear top me that Marrone was trying to grab the ball off the kid, quite understandable under the circumstance. What caused the kid to go down? It looked like a dive, but also understand that he be given the benefit of the doubt that he was knocked over. The kid should be banned, outright, from doing that duty again at any level, and the ball-boy mentor, whoever that is, needs to get active and teach these kids something about their responsibilities.
Midfielder
Guest
Agree If it were me I would have a 16 Team competition next year
Grobbelaar
Roar Guru
Very important point. We need to get to 16 clubs in the top division as soon as possible and then we need to have two divisions below that with full P&R. All football supporters around the land need to feel as if their small club may one day rise up the rankings and play in the top division.
mattq
Roar Rookie
one of the problems which gets overlooked is that large portions of Australia do not have a professional club to connect with. Why would Wollongong grass roots support Sydney fc or WSW? why would Mt Gambier or Whyalla support Adelaide United? Why would Townsville or Cairns support the Roar? We need to plug these gaps through expansion first. The rest will begin to follow.
Andrew
Guest
I don't have the answer. All I can do is speak as an example of the person Midfielder wants to connect with. I grew up playing the game, I stood behind the goal during the penalty shootout against Canada back in 1993 when a young Mark Schwarzer got Australia through to the next stage. I had the first media pass ever issued by the A-League, but the last A-League game I went to was Sydney v the Mariners in Oct 2009 (i know because I went to the NRL Grand Final that weekend also). I could name 7 or 8 players from the 93 national side and plenty from those sides of the early 2000's but could name two maybe three players in the current squad. The A-League resonates with passionate fans and that is great, but it struggles to connect with more general sports fans. Why? Don't know. Maybe more people watch the NRL so they can be part of the water cooler conversation on a Monday. Maybe our culture is that soccer is a sport we play and NRL/AFL is a sport we watch - because it is the way it has always been. Some fear the old NSL concerns of crowd violence and now as parents don't take their kids along. A-League fans will tell you the atmosphere is fun and safe and it probably is as safe and fun as any other sport, but making cultural shifts doesn't happen over night. All you can do is continue to improve the product, and get away from the old school ways of promoting the sport: Market in different ways - more short sharp online video content, get players infront of potential fans - do more to teach them how to engage with people both face to face and online. I think you need to get away from the concept of junior participation equates to fans and think broader about where fans can come from.
Nick
Roar Guru
Your so called "coward punches" have never existed or been tolerated in either the AFL or NRL. When a coward punch has taken place, such as Melbourne's Danny Williams against the tigers about 12 years ago, they are suspended for 18 weeks and get a complete savaging in the media. Barry Hall will never be able to escape his past, and he is openly acknowledging on the embarrassment he has caused himself. Punches in the AFL are given a month's suspension at the minimum, while in the NRL a player is sin-binned and then given a suspension. They are being eradicated from the game. You claim not to watch these games - ever - but yet to seem to be very au fait with how they are played and what the fans want? It's also ironic that you make these comments considering the current Victory coach was the best exponent of outright thuggery football in Australia has known. A man who thought a good elbow to the face or a studs up tackle from behind was more effective than playing football. Did Muscat ever apologise or feel a sense of shame for his antics?
Nick
Roar Guru
Yeah, but that can NEVER be an excuse for doing that to the kid. The kid is a kid, and more prone to making immature mistakes in big situations. The adult however, should be rational enough to respond in a more mature way. In the same way a player can't tackle a referee when they make a mistake in the heat of the moment, the player can't really be tackling a kid.
apaway
Guest
No Billy, the full house happened the week before in a real international game.
Nick Symonds
Guest
"With 780 clubs and over a million players and arguably another 50,000 volunteers, add parents and friends and we are looking at maybe 2 million people." Things like banners don't cost much. Just give $1,000 to every club for A-League signage = $780,000 for marketing. Also give each club enough money to set up a decent website.
Redondo
Guest
Midfielder - good article. I think you are on the right track - it's all about critical mass. Everyone will remain anxious about the A-League until it is clearly self-sustaining. It's close now but frustratingly not there. So connecting the grassroots is a great place to start - much more effective than expensive advertising. Once the A-League ireaches critical mass, the revenue will bring in better players, better coaches, more teams, more advertising and then more revenue etc. The A-League will never be the EPL but it could match the AFL one day.
Nick Symonds
Guest
"Many of the participation numbers include people who play 5-a-side." I think that overall futsal has around 100,000 players in Australia. Twice that of Rugby Union.
Post_hoc
Guest
Going to take a suggestion to our committee, FC v WSW fun skills session. The kids dress in either blue or red/black might work best for 6-7's get some banners up from the club and have a small sided game, maybe some skills games, battleship vs submarines, british bulldog type games. Might be a good way to introduce new mum/dad coaches to some skill games for the 6's and 7's. We are lucky to have Steve O'Connor as the TD for our Association, it might be something we can get him to help with.
Post_hoc
Guest
You have to be careful, got into strife (jovial way) from my Sydney FC loving relatives when I was talking to them about my practices and I told our striker to loom at Santalab LOL. But it was to illustrate his movement at the top of the box. The real issue is us losing players like Mooy and Maclaren (great poacher, great example of someone going in for the second and third phase balls) I need to watch more FC games as I don't use their players as example, institutional bias maybe. The issue with EPL etc, most of the kids only see the highlights, so thats the goals, what i want to show them is the work off the ball players do, the runs that draw players but might not end in goals, the defending which NEVER makes highlights.