Make no mistake, the A-League is at a crossroads.
On August 2008 it was announced that both North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United were to be admitted into the A-League.
Upon hearing the news I casually dropped a comment on social media saying these two teams won’t last, and the Gold Coast will be lucky to average 7,000.
Turns out that was overly optimistic.
I was gobsmacked when I later checked my comment at the torrent of abuse and disagreement I received. That I was delusional and I was out of touch.
To me it was simple. The FFA had (and still has) significant administrative issues and it had not undertaken the proper due diligence in two markets where it would be notoriously difficult to capture long-term sustainable support.
But some fans to this day still have their heads buried in the sand. Talk abounds about a 14-team competition – no let’s try a 16-team competition! Let’s throw in a second division while we are at it. It seems many fans have lost touch with reality and created their own collective fantasy league in the process.
We have had four new teams participate in the A-League since its inception. Two have fallen over. The other two remain but not without some issues.
One (Melbourne City) has no identity, struggles for fans and have owners who have no real interest in utilising their overseas networks.
The other is the Wanderers. If you couldn’t succeed with a team in football’s heartland then you may as well pack up and go home. But remember when the Wanderers were admitted the FFA (an organisation which needed a bail out to survive) was on its knees.
It had no choice but to give the fans a voice. But hey, I suppose a success rate of one out of four isn’t bad. Oh and lets also not forget the New Zealand Knights.
Even worse is this constant talk among fans of scrapping, re-naming or re-branding struggling teams (Central Coast Mariners and until this season the Wellington Phoenix). These are football teams not consumer products on the shelf of your local Woolworths.
How are you going to build generational support when your loyalty and commitment to team is about as strong as a republican’s love for the monarchy? Overlay this with poor administration and lack of due diligence and well, the results are pretty easy to predict.
FFA CEO David Gallop (left) and FFA Chairman Chris Nikou (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
The two new teams? Well make no mistake, this was purely a cash grab. The organisation needed two new teams in Melbourne and Sydney to unlock extra cash from Foxtel. You can see here, the issue of a business-based model as opposed to a fan-based model.
Firstly, these are two areas that weren’t screaming for a team.
Western United is a sparsely populated area and you have to seriously question whether the FFA will stick with it for ten years while development occurs in the region (even then it will be a tough ask).
The team will struggle. Credit goes to them though for the initiative of a new stadium. That is something other clubs should have had a ten-year plan for in order to generate new revenue streams.
Sure the brand spanking new Bankwest Stadium in Western Sydney is impressive, but it will charge an arm and a leg for its use. Focus then will shift to promoting corporate boxes while many loyal longstanding Wanderers members have been pushed to less desirable seats in the stadiums corners.
The South West Sydney initiative will also struggle. No one was really shouting for a team in the area.
It looks like the FFA’s desperate cash grab may have fallen over. It has been widely reported that Foxtel have sent the FFA a concise letter indicating that unless they clean up their act, they can expect a significantly reduced TV deal.
Have people had the pleasure (or misfortune) of looking at the latest Foxtel ratings? A few years ago the league averaged 60–70,000 people on Fox per game.
In recent rounds this has collapsed to about 25,000 people. And all the while various factions are bickering for power and a piece of the collapsing castle. If they are not careful all they will have is ruins.
These ratings make no mistake do not make it worth Foxtel’s while. We have not only failed to attract new fans for the first time in our history we are losing rusted on fans who have simply had enough en masse.
The new FFA board seems just as inept as the old one, being a laughing stock of Australian sport. The current impasse between them, the clubs and other stakeholders needs to be resolved and soon. There is a myriad of issues here including who gets what percentage of the TV revenue and will the national team and juniors be disadvantaged as a result.
Ratings collapse, declining crowds, mounting unsustainable club debt, and a youth system in ruins (don’t kid yourself) the proof is in the pudding. A recent report claimed that the value of the A-League has collapsed by 35 per cent.
This is a game in crisis. Sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same. Probably no more symbolic than the fact that today we are asking ourselves the same question we have been for 30 years.
“How do we convert our large junior base to long term fans?”
Jordan Klingsporn
Roar Guru
Jets vs Wanderers was actually 10,001. I watched on Kayo.
chris
Guest
I know a lot of ppl who watch the A-League via Kayo or via their phone carrier. They used to watch it on Fox. The way the ratings are captured these days is just antiquated and needs to be revamped.
Alicesprings
Guest
12k (excluding the millions that streamed online and the tens of thousands that packed Suncorp stadium!) Fox must be overjoyed.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Ben McKay, who I think used to be a regular contributor on the Roar, wrote an article yesterday for AAP: "Already enduring a downturn in attendances, viewerships and interest, alarm bells rang across the code when last weekend's Big Blue drew just 25,000 viewers on subscription channel Fox Sports. Newcastle's clash with Western Sydney earlier that - two teams unlikely to make the finals - drew just 10,000 people on Fox Sports. The woeful figures, some of the worst ever registered in the competition's 14-year history, saw the domestic competition drop below Super Rugby and surfing's Quiksilver Pro. The domestic soccer competition has always been out-ranked by AFL and NRL, but this year it has been left in the shade by Supercars, which peaked on the weekend with 199,000 viewers for racing at Symmons Plains in Tasmania. "
David V
Guest
How would Usain Bolt have saved the league? Why does the A-League need short-term fixes and publicity stunts rather than long-term building? It sums up everything wrong with Australian football since the A-League started.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
I would like to put up the Fox ratings for last night's game, but they are so low, at an all-time historically low level for a Friday night, I'm worried that if I put them up, someone will complain and I'll get banned again.
jbinnie
Guest
Buddy - Your final sentence in this comment speaks volumes for the malaise that has haunted the HAL from the days of it's inception,the failure of the competition to sell itself to a football public already in place. This responsibility has been passed back and forth like the proverbial "hot potato" as the FFA tries to protect it's income source from franchises, franchises. that in their embryo state, should have had "marketing" to that public as being of the highest priority, in their day to day operation. Even today,some 13 years down the track,it is a flaw in the system that is just not going to go away. Cheers jb.
Nemesis
Guest
So much nonsense in this article. This sentence "Western United is a sparsely populated area and you have to seriously question whether the FFA will stick with it for ten years" captures the lack of awareness of structural reform about to transform domestic football in Australia. Anyone who doesn't understand the reasons behind a national 2nd Div & Pro Rel doesn't understand football. Stick to watching other sports & event-watching football from Europe. Australian football is not for you.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
There are still great stories surrounding the A-League. We should not dispair. Victory and socceroos great, Carl Valeri, has just announced his retirement. He has achieved a fair bit: - 2 championships - one premiership - one FFA cup - 52 socceroo caps Also, he was one of the first to take on a position made his own by one of the golden generation, and he did so with aplomb. Early on in his international career, he was even known affectionately as "little Vinnie". Well done to him, and we wish him all the best.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Foxtel are the biggest losers. So they sent a letter, they are stuck paying for the A-league or another four seasons inclusing the expansion. Giving the A-league free to every Telstra user has cost them big time as well. The game has basically been dumping a pile of manure on itself for the last two seasons. Nikou said it all Lowy is a billionaire and he is a nobody. Every journalist has dumped on the A-league for the last two seasons. If you only get a single article a day on the A-league if your lucky or a single news reports. They collectively all decided to use it to dump on Lowy to get rid of him. The NPL clubs have done nothing for the game instead of ripping off juniors for thousands of dollars. Now they spent two seasons dumping on Lowy now its spend the time from now on trying to get promotion and relegation for the greedy interests of the NPL clubs and self serving Euro wannabees trying to fawn to their big European leagues. So no articles on the actual A-league itself and you wonder why no one is watching. The attacks on Bolt were incredible everyone come out of the woodwork to dump on the potential saviour of the A-league. In four years time things could be very disastrous in the meantime Foxtel will bleed to pay the bills/
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
Good comment Waz. If you can't see the enthusiasm that's bubbling up from below the A League you just aren't looking. I have great hopes for the future of football in Oz, and for our Roar too I'd add. Ride the bumps but look beyond, we're moving in the right direction.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Nick this is a necessary article, and I congratulate you for writing it. Re the blunders with Gold Coast United and the Fury, it's important to put their inclusion in its historical context. At the end of season 3, A-League attendances were booming, finishing at a touch under 15k. Big crowds in anyone's language. Numbers we have failed to approach ever since, but at the time, the FFA was right to strike while the iron was hot. One problem though: five year exlusivity deal with all of the original clubs, meaning no new clubs in the big cities for another two years. The FFA had no choice, if they wanted to expand by season 5, it had to be the Gold Coast and whoever else put their hand up, and as it was, at the time, it was Townsville, which has a pretty good soccer base. It didn't work out, the world cup bid got in the way a bit, but this time next season we will have hit the all-time high established in season 6 of having 11 clubs in the A-League. That's progress, even if it happens to be a club about to set itself up on a sheep paddock outside of outer Melbourne.
TK
Guest
Maybe so....but I am still going to the game tonight and will watch another couple of games over the weekend. Not everyone is abandoning the a league but I agree the product has gotten pretty poor.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Meanwhile grassroots football, at least in NSW continues to thrive. There appears to be more money available in the form of sponsorship, playing surfaces are being improved, lighting at far more grounds and plenty of players registered.. It isn’t perfect by any means but it satisfies a large chunk of the footballing market across the country. In that context, FFA is just a distant body that takes money to support the national sides and Football NSW are similar but nobody has any idea what happens to their slice of the pie. It isn’t raining, the ground is open, there are toilets and the canteen is brewing a fresh batch of coffee. The smell of bacon and onions wafts across the ground and the under 6 Tigers are all having fun as are the under 9 red team playing 7 v 7 and the under 11’s are on the far side playing in a 9 v 9 game. Everyone is enjoying the morning and is well fed and watered. There is little to no talk of attending an A League game later in the day although there are plenty of club shirts being worn by players and supporters. That’s what is right with the game but it also reflects the huge disconnect and disinterest and everything that is wrong with the game.................. but, grassroots football learnt to live without a thriving senior competition many years ago and it has no value for any organization beyond the district that provides the fixtures each week.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
"it’s entirely possible someone may go and order more tunnel." Hahaha
Waz
Roar Rookie
That’s an excellent article, even though I disagree with about a third of it and there’s a few generalisations in there that don’t help the argument. But the game is in crisis, and with a capital “C”. And it’s been there for about 5 years - at the point we had fans boycotting games, the Matilda’s refusing to go on tour, fall outs with our only FTA broadcaster and a variety of other niggling issues - all caused by the central administration otherwise known as the FFA - we had a crisis on our hands. In that time the only thing that’s really gone up is the salary and bonuses of the senior executives at the FFA. As the game struggled they rewarded themselves with pay rises and bonuses. But don’t dare criticise them because, you know, the NSL and all that. Unlike you I see light at the end of the tunnel, and yes this is football - it’s entirely possible someone may go and order more tunnel. The NLWG seem to be on the right track, just slower than expected but I examined the (publicly available) State concerns and they weren’t unreasonable nor insurmountable. If they deliver independence in the next couple of months the A-League will be fine. The second division is exactly what football in this country needs, it looks like it will be a semi-professional, bottom-up competition that will strengthen the 100+ clubs below the HAL. That’s a good thing and people need to stop worrying about “the commercials” and “pro/rel” .... it will create better players, better coaches, and close the gap between elite and amateur divisions. Youth development I’m less concerned about, and I say that as a junior coach “in the system”. There’s not enough of anything apart from players! But the club academy pathways are better than the AIS/NTC, the NC is not the demon many thought it would be, and it looks like the States/FFA are waking up to the fact governments will fund stuff ... if you ask nicely and have a reasonable plan. It’s not great but it’s not bad either - you want to see a crisis in youth and grassroots go and look at pretty much all the other codes, it’s pretty ugly for many. We have an evolution going on in football, even though many want revolution - it continued in the ACT midweek with a certain texter being brought to account. We just need to pick up the pace of change and not buy into the doom-mongers scare tactics, many of which will post in this thread very shortly I’m sure.