Will Western United be the A-League's first super club?

This is simply pie in the sky stuff, never going to happen. And if my memory serves me correct, hasn't this been attempted before? Perhaps prior to the A-League, but it didnt work then, and I doubt it will work now. And just because you align yourself with another professional sporting club, how does that make you a 'super club'? Only one thing makes a 'super club', and that's winning....alot...and often. Until then......your just another hopeful startup franchise looking for some oxygen.

#Punter What you might find is that male sports participation isn't a big growth metric for most codes. Any code relying on that is in great danger of stagnating. Female participation is and has been the key - and was the big winner for soccer in this country about 10-15 years ago. (and for basketball too). However - from the FFA's own numbers (Annual reports) - that has pretty well plateaued in recent times. 'Growth' in participation is from other avenues than from 'outdoor participation'. Other avenues include the FFA's 2017 effort of adding coaches and referees to the bottom line. And like the AFL, increasing a focus on school comps and programs and for the FFA about a third of total participation is via "Tournaments, Events and Community Programs" (what does that mean and how many participants are double counted - - i.e. involved in school or club comps/programs). It's all murkey. Anyway - re 'saturation' - the AFL for example has grown competition based participation in recent years via their on 'boom' based on female participation. And that boom too will plateau at some point - but I must say it's far exceeded my expectations. And perhaps, in the AFL heartland Victoria, this helps explain why the FFV actually reported a drop in what they label as "outdoor affiliated football" participants (a minor drop -25 but -394 across miniRoos and Youth offset by +369 in senior ranks). That looks like stagnation to me. It seems to me that the female driven growth in soccer in Vic has hit the wall. Note in the 2016-2018 time frame AFL competition participation has increased 16% in Vic alone.....based on....wait for it.....mainly the growth in female comps. The question then is - can the NRL do something similar in NSW (which is the home to about 60% of the national participation base for soccer)? That's a battle ground now. We've seen the anti-AFLW commentary from some from within the soccer fanbase come through on theRoar - 'jealousy' is one word that might describe it. **qualifier. The AFL includes School comps in their 'competition' stats but do NOT count Auskick. The FFA DO count MiniRoos in their outdoor comp but do NOT count School comps. It's hard to get real apples with apples but you can map trends.

So Western United is the new Melbourne team, or Sydney? Across 3 codes there will be: West Sydney Wanderers Wests Tigers Greater Western Sydney Giants Western Bulldogs West Coast Eagles Western United? whats the other one - Not East Sydney FC?

Ah....yeah...okay. Firstly - Australian Football and Netball have for decades shared a symbiotic relationship. In footy territory almost every country town sees the footy club and netball club based out of the same 'recreation reserve' - the winter sports running concurrently, shared club rooms and canteen - - such that so many clubs are 'FNC' (football netball club) and leagues are 'FNL' (football netball league). The GWS and Collingwood involvement in top level netball is far from desperation - it's a top level reflection of what's being going on a grass roots for generations. What perhaps was desperate was the old NSL when Collingwood and Carlton bought into that. For Western United - I'd suspect their best bet might be to align with basketball or baseball. re the notion of the opening statement - "While most other codes have reached peak saturation, football in Australia is growing." This is interesting. One might argue that the Australian sports market in general is past saturation point. Is Super Rugby requiring rationalisation? or the NRL (merger/relocation?). The A-League is hoping expansion will generate a successful 'build it and they will come' model; given the lack of crowds/ratings/broadcast lucre. Opportunity for the optimistic. The NRL is saturated where it is - but they see opportunity - - like the early Americans - 'Go West'!! The Sydney market in particular looks somewhat saturated and that is the heartland of soccer in this country - between NSW/Canberra almost 2/3rds of all soccer participation resides there. The 2018 annual report showed drops in key participation metrics for FFV. The FFA has had some interesting 'participation' accounting in recent years. As far as their 'outdoor competition' stats go - from 2016 to 2018 a growth of about 28,000. But in that time they've added counting coaches and refs to the total tally and had an increase of 393,000 from "Tournaments, Events and Community Programs" which in 2018 accounted for over 550K. Does the FFA believe they can sweep the rest of the nation to create an NSW-modeled homogeneity across the nation?? Tough ask. Why? Well - love or hate the AFL - the AFL has done what the other codes struggle with - they've monetized support. 2018 saw paid up club memberships exceed 1 million for the first time. Ratings are excellent (especially when you drill down intelligently), revenue is excellent and despite the broadcast options - attendances are still excellent (2018 saw record aggregate H&W and Finals). What I'd suggest the perspective ought be is that the AFL has set the example of fan engagement 2nd to none in Australia. It's not like Australia is a 'ludis-nullius' landscape...the soccer fan base seems under 'exploited' but the days of optimism for unbridled expansion of that fan base....well, push for an increase in immigration?? (see how I wrapped that back on itself?)

Not that Fury would benefit from a partnership with the Cowboys but always felt they were hard done by getting binned so early. Their crowds were actually quite decent for a regional city of 170,000, they just didn't have the commercial strength to survive a lean year. I wonder if they would've fared better had they'd entered after Townsville's shiny new stadium is completed (and when the different levels of government are looking for extra tenants to help recoup some of their costs on it).

"They are linked to the financially embattled Birmingham City FC" - Are you talking about Western United? I haven't seen anything about their links to Birmingham City FC.

It's just that there are some odd decisions sometimes in terms of which types of stadia are acceptable, which countries are supported in bids, quotas of several sort, player jersey numbering, fines for lack of adequate buffets for supremely important officials etc etc Good for a laugh. But yes I agree the less influence media hacks have the better. They are a scourge on the local Australian scene.

You're referring to the NSL. This is about the A-League. They are completely different. Collingwood Warriors? That was twenty years ago.

When CFG took over Melbourne Heart, they purchased 80% of Heart for $12M and 20% was retained by 3 businessmen who had connections to Melb Storm. So, Storm didn't own 20% of Heart. 3 businessmen who had some small share in Storm had 20% share in Heart.

I watch games on My Football app. I'm sure many others do. Do Fox ratings include this?

never heard that - Storm are owned by a couple (three I think) of businessmen whose primary interest is making $. Storm was owned by Murrdoch's News Ltd a few years back, and had some big problems managing their salary cap. From my limited research, one's a Kiwi who owns a Sports Management company, another is a senior exec with the Crown casino in Melbourne, and the other owns Jayco caravans. They're considering a fan ownership model apparently, which has been in the news a couple of years now.

I believe that when they transitioned from heart to city the Storm had a 20% stake.

cats or bulldogs

Thanks for clarifying. It sounded like an odd claim to make, but I wasn't sure one way or the other.

Silly article. We've seen this movie before, it was called Collingwood Warriors and it was a miserable failure.

"Who actually makes some of these absurd AFC regulations." AFC Regulations would be tabled by AFC Council who are elected by AFC Congress & most likely they need to ratified by the 47 Members of AFC. Unlike other sports in Australia where the talkback radio or TV broadcasters tell the sport what to do, for AFC regulations you need to get the support of 24 nations in Asia.

If I'm not mistaken, the Panthers actually own one of the bigger Ovens and Murray Australian Football Clubs.

"How does integrating with the Melbourne Storm sound?" It sounds ridiculous. Melbourne Storm moving from playing in the CBD to playing in Tarneit? And, WMG owners have publicly stated that the home stadium they build will be purely used by football. Nothing but football. No concerts. No other sports. Football and only football. For sure you could suggest MVFC & MelbStorm could form a super club. It won't happen, but you could suggest it. But to suggest WMG and MelbStorm could form a super club is devoid of logic & rational thought.

I understand that, and we all hope both teams can bounce back next season. By the way, even on a good night for the wanderers, their Fox ratings were only 17k, which is a shockingly low number. It's about as close as you can get to no one watching without the ratings needle falling off the radar.

Who actually makes some of these absurd AFC regulations? Not that I'd expect common sense and transparency from the AFC given the countries which tend to run it.