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Opinion
Let’s break down why football needs to be a winter sport with numbers.
Firstly, let’s start with the average attendance for the A-League, NRL and AFL.
| Season | A-League | NRL | AFL |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-06/2006 | 11,628 | 16,484 | 36,412 |
| 2006-07/2007 | 14,034 | 16,577 | 38,108 |
| 2007-08/2008 | 15,348 | 16,321 | 38,287 |
| 2008-09/2009 | 12,963 | 17,098 | 37,760 |
| 2009-10/2010 | 10,444 | 17,367 | 38,423 |
| 2010-11/2011 | 8805 | 17,243 | 36,428 |
| 2011-12/2012 | 10,819 | 17,346 | 32,748 |
| 2012-13/2013 | 12,658 | 16,643 | 33,461 |
| 2013-14/2014 | 13,479 | 16,798 | 33,680 |
| 2014-15/2015 | 13,048 | 16,155 | 33,367 |
| 2015-16/2016 | 12,706 | 16,057 | 33,163 |
| 2016-17/2017 | 12,650 | 15,704 | 35,207 |
| 2017-18/2018 | 10,926 | 16,206 | 36,687 |
| 2018-19/2019 | 10,877 | 15,800 | 36,317 |
| 2019-20/2020 | 8617 | 3851 | 7767 |
| 2020-21/2021 | 5665 | 12,959 | 27,880 |
| Average | 11,541 | 15,538 | 33,480 |
Let’s calculate the bounce back after last year’s poor seasons.
AFL crowds this year are 76 per cent of what they were in 2019. NRL crowds are 82 per cent and A-League crowds are just 52 per cent.
If the A-League had retained 82 per cent of their average attendance like the NRL has, the average crowd would be 8927. That’s 3262 more people than the current A-League season average of 5665.
So that is a drop of 3262 fans in a winter format. Let’s say a GA ticket costs $25, so 3262 less fans at $25 each equals $81,500 loss per home game.
For 12 home games, that is around $1 million less a year. Can the A-League clubs sustain that? That’s not nothing in today’s climate.
As a side note, the drop from 15,348 in the 2007-08 season to 10,887 in 2018-19 did happen in summer.
This can be due to numerous factors such as the form of Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney, for example, as their attendances have gone down.
(Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Very few of the world’s top leagues are played in summer. And only a handful play in average temperatures above 20 degrees.
Australia is the hottest summer league in the world. I get that we like to be battlers but let’s not make our league the most difficult in the world from a temperature perspective.
Australia (27.5) leads China (24.5), Korea (24), USA (22), Armenia (21), Japan (20), New Zealand (19), Scotland (16), Norway (15.5), Iceland (13) and Denmark (12).
Football needs to grow through the technical side so it can compete with streaming other international football leagues first of all.
At the moment the A-League is the hottest summer league in the world. Ideally, it than needs to align with the upcoming national second division to bring all the NPL and ex-NSL clubs under the one banner.
At the moment the only other professional outdoor team sport played on a pitch in summer in Australia is cricket. That says it all.
But an extra $1 million loss a year for teams can be very serious. However, it has been proven that the A-League in winter is faster as per the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Before the A-League went into hiatus in March, only two teams had more than 14 passes per minute of possession with four teams below 13. After the restart in July, six teams had more than 14 passes per minute, some close to 15, while no teams were below 13.”
So the entire standard of the league increased from two teams to all teams.
This does seem like a hard choice for the A-League clubs, who have already invested so much. But if there is talk of salary caps coming off, wouldn’t that also recruit bigger names and draw bigger crowds in winter?
Wouldn’t more international coaches come to the A-League so they can implement winter systems of football such as City’s 90-minute press?
I don’t think anyone can press for 90 minutes in summer. Wouldn’t this lead to a higher quality product on the field and bring the fans back?
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