Is what's perfect getting in the way of what's good for football?

32 teams? If everyone who watch EPL and ECL watched A League we would be the biggest paid sport in Oz. But they do not and we are a feeder league, even to America now. This video shows an argument where a real journalist "destroys" two vloggers about the depressing financial state the state of their XFL/CFL (Canadian gridiron) leagues. I substitute ECL and EPL for NFL and College Ball in this argument and hear precisely the problems for A - League. They too thought start with minor free to air but move soon onto more popular TV stations and the money will grow. Except, as the journalist points out, in North America no one has ever made a cent trying to compete with the NFL and College leagues. The loss of Friday night football on SBS was huge. It's popularity with middle aged types looking for a quiet, advert free football match has morphed into the death spiral of ABC in mid afternoon. The old lawn bowls time slot for those old enough. Remember the famous faces who helped launch the A - league? He describes the embarrassing losses those types make buying into sports. When he explained the XFL don't even have grounds I immediately thought of McArthur being allowed in without a home ground and a slow return to the non payment of players. So we are back to the bad old NSL where matches seemed more like the chance for Uncle Mario to sell cheap sausages than professional football. The family of jews they openly and often derided are gone, along with their Big Four Bank and Corporate Australia connections. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy6VFjO8LkI

Wow, fully understand that young kids like to watch other sports, I love other sports too. However, lots of them had their premier league sides or followed Barcelona or followed their fathers team in Serbia. Young kids now who aspire to be a Ronaldo or a Messi more then Smith or a Slater. There are lots of football players, yes some play for fitness, but lots love to play & watch the game, while they may have talked about the Broncos 20 years ago at half time, these days they are talking all sports including lots of football. Both Manchester United & Liverpool filled the biggest stadiums in Australia for friendly games. Ronaldo's Real Madrid filled the MCG. Now I'm not talking about the kid who was a Broncos fan, who's parents are ex Redcliffe or Wynnum Manly supporters.

Understood. Normally one needs a reason to initiate a solution. Please also consider that the guys playing Lower leagues do so to keep fit and often have zero reason to watch the game, most I grew up with talk about the Broncos at half time. The participation argument we constantly here on these pages is largely irrelevant for the reason above. Culture will rule this argument in Australia, and we do not have the cultural connection to soccer as other countries do.

I am not giving reasons for why it does not work, I providing a 'call to arms' as a solution rather then a reason. See I see a big difference between the sport of football & the A-League, you maybe don't. I know lot of people be it friends, be it in my local football club, in many other discussions with others in other football clubs, in forums, we have the biggest participation sport, the majority of these players love to play the game, they know & follow the game, most don't go to A-league games, worse still they bag out the A-League. But these are football fans. Yes I know the A-League doesn't quite measure up with the O/S competitions, but you are comparing players on $5-10 million dollars a year to players in the A-League being $100-200 Thousand a year. Of course there is a difference in standard. Now not telling them they have to follow the A-league, but don't bag it out, as above you can't compare in quality due to the lack of funds to get the best players, but all those players playing park football are football fans, some follow the A-League, some the old NSL, but mainly those who follow their fathers team back in Germany, or Sth America or worse still follow Liverpool or Barcelona. The AFL fans I would say 98% follow the AFL in this country. The Rugby League fans I would say 97% would follow the NRL in this country. The Football fans, I would say less then 30% would follow the A-League. It's the other 70% that I'm 'calling to arms', to back football in this country.

Punter.....I appreciate the enthusiasm for a 'call to arms'. I also appreciate that it is a hollow dream, and possibly suggest it is used as an excuse by some on these pages for the code not being strong in this country. Sport is entertainment, the public will select what they see on the screen or at the ground as being attractive to watch. What happens in the background is not what they seek out, NRL behaviour issues come to mind. I believe this old/new footaball thing is not valid and all codes operate under different levels of administration running their own level competition. We have a competition in place, aired on TV and radio, if the viewer finds it attractive they will watch again. The game needs to focus on marketing the product rather than giving other reasons why it has problems.

Missing my point totally. I have no issue with anyone following their own team. My point being we are all football fans in a country where football is a minor code, we have too many fractions & we are not united as a code, whether it be grassroots, to NPL to A-League, whether it be local associations, to State run federations to FFA, whether it be people who follow the O/S competitions, a A-League fan, a NPl fan or a grassroots fan, we are not all united to make this great game bigger in this country.

I think Mid has probably identified what a lot of people what to see in the long term. The problem is how to get there. I’ve often seen that we have to connect to the large participation base, or we have to play in ‘clear air’ or we have to connect to the community better. These are all considerations and important in their own right (though I don’t think there is ‘clear air’ in the Australian sport market) but they are not the answer in and of themselves. I think the way forward is dependent on the media deal. People say we do not have the ratings to justify a better media deal. That is probably true in terms of the Australian audience. But we are a global game. We need to identify not broadcaster/s but media partner/s. Which media partner’s can recognise our vision and help us get there while seeing value to it for themselves. To me that means the local FTA are not an option except as onsell targets. they are simply too small. Stan/Nine or Optus/10 may be the way to go locally. But what about globally? Optus and DAZN may be more value there. Then the consideration is whether the APLs align with the national team media deals. A ‘whole of football’ package would be worth more than the sum of the parts. Do football create the content and provide it to the media partners? Do football buy-back WC qualifiers from the AFC like Saudi Arabia has so that that can be included in a ‘twin-deal – whole of football’ package. What about lower NPL leagues – what are the plans there. Potentially, football can get a media deal that can rival the AFL and NRL – but only a small component of that will come from rights in Australia. The other side of the equation is that we don’t engage global players and have to cut our cloth to suit a smaller deal. The deal will also determine when we play. A large international deal may mean a winter comp, may be more likely (stadium considerations aside) as it will provide content when other leagues are dormant. It would also almost certainly bring forward expansion and a NSD in search of more content. A smaller local deal will mean that we will probably revert to summer in some form and mean a much slower, incremental fulfilment of where we want to be. The next few weeks are crucial to what trajectory we take. There is a real opportunity there now. Football has had more clear cut opportunities before and shot themselves in the foot. This one is much more difficult to achieve but potentially is the biggest opportunity to date.

I feel this old/new football thing remains overstated. It is safe to say the not many follow an NSL team, plus every chance those who do are simply happy to follow their team rather than identify with an a-league team. How is this a threat to the game? I would really like to understand this argument. PS....many years ago my team was the local small town team in a local league. Our support did not threaten the national professional league.

You're probably right. I'd be guessing that their 1 billion loss is off a far greater revenue base.

MLB also lost over a billion. Amazing what Covid does to bottom lines

true.

Definitely something that needs to be worked out, and I'd say there are a few options available. Anyway, at the moment it's all academic because it still looks years away.

There in lies the problem for me. P/R to and from the NSD. has anybody given a thought as to how it will actually work. If we stop and think for a minute the ramifications of any team being relegated from the NSD. For the sake of an argument, lets say it is a NSW team. They drop back into the top tier of the NSW NPL. To keep the balance right for that division, it will mean they [Football NSW] will have to do some fancy negotiations with the promoted club from the 2 division NPL that year. Will they say no promotion, sorry. Until questions like this are openly discussed and agreed to by all state bodies, [good luck with that too] then it is just another hurdle for our game.

Actually, the billionaire who was going to pay $325 million for a license has already pulled out, but it's likely they'll find another billionaire to take his place: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/apr/05/mls-cost-for-new-team-soccer-us The MLS lost a billion dollars in 2020.

If that's the case, either: 1. Adelaide never gets a team in the NSD, or 2. one makes it, lasts a season or two and then gets relegated back to wherever it came from.

No we don't do the Champions of Champions, or didn't when I had some influence. Our junior set up is or was a simple 10 or 12 team league P/R normally 2 or 3 divisions but once upon a time we did run the state championships, where the 6 metropolitan zones played in a round robin over a weekend or a long weekend to decide the Zone Champions. There are no 'Rep' teams in a league format, like there are in NSW. The different metropolitan zones each run their own leagues. Some are school based comps, others are a combination of school and small local junior clubs, maybe some amateur clubs have some juniors. The closest Zones to anything you have in Sydney would be our North West Zone JSA and Elizabeth & Districts JSA. E&D have mostly Amateur clubs and purely Junior based clubs, with some school teams. Fiercely independent and for many years resisted in formally joining the then SASF. Their argument was one of finance. Football SA run the semi-pro comps here plus all the associated coaching, refereeing and development. Exactly like Football NSW. It frustrates me at times, watching some games and this is where I agree with AA a lot, when you sit and watch some A League clubs and they play to a set pattern and it becomes so predictable. WE and I mean all of us, should have higher goals [pardon the pun] and expect more attractive football from our clubs. I mean for crying out loud, this is the safest league in the world, it is harder to get into the A League than get out. We should be playing the most attractive football on the planet, fast, attacking, skilled. But no, most teams/clubs are happy, it seems, to plod along playing football that is as boring as bat anything. I accept that not every club has a Ninkovic or a Castro but even at times those clubs revert back to crap football. I could go on, but I hope you see my point.

yes - the dreaded footrace indeed! - do you play champion of champions in South Aus? I petitioned some years back for it to be renamed as it seemed to me that from under 13 to under 18, the winners were always the team that could play a long ball to some kid who was lightning fast and could smash it past an advancing keep - if he came off the line! Its funny you mention about sitting in an elevated position like that - it must be a disease amongst those of us who have watched the game for quite a few years. I much prefer watching a live game as my eyes are darting all over the field for the same reason although often it is just about predicting what they will do next with the ball - isn't usually hard to guess!

Interesting history lesson jb. No know alot has happened in the past lets hope the lessons are learned for better decisions for future success. However im mainly talking about futsal where it hasnt been harnessed enough especially at grassroots and youth development in Australia and often the late Johnny Warren was a big advocate for it as well. But good post!

Buddy - thanks for that. I too get frustrated with that style of play you mentioned, where possession is considered as some kind of holy grail, and rather than having the vision to see an opening forward, [unfortunately so many players don't] they play 'safe' by going for a 10yard pass behind them rather than the more adventurous 30 yard through ball for an appropriate player to run onto. The number of times, in my elevated viewing position, I see the opening and the opportunity only for the ball to 'retained' with a backward pass. However many of the local games I have watched, I would rather see an entertaining game with at least some skill levels, than mostly youth players running at 100mph with no idea why they are doing what they are doing.

Just cast your mind back to the last days of the Adelaide City time in the old NSL. Do you honestly think either City or West Adelaide or any other community based club could garner enough support to sustain a lengthy time in a NSD? Hasn't the Adelaide City social club already stated they won't put that side pf their business at risk for the sake of the football side of the business? And West Adelaide well, how is their Kilburn ground going these days? Yes I'm skeptical of these two clubs ever seriously wanting to pursue a place in a NSD, I don't think they will have the finances to carry it forward.