Football is a colossal industry worldwide, but the money it commands doesn’t come directly from fans. Hold onto that thought for a second.
Have you noticed the diatribe of ‘the A-League is crap’ coming from eurosnobs across the country and that it’s starting to infiltrate even the most passionate Australian football supporters?
‘Matildas suck. Socceroos suck. A-League quality sucks. Broadcaster sucks.’
And look, admittedly the quality has slipped over the years, and it seems our high-quality youngsters are bailing out to move overseas earlier and earlier in their careers. Remember the days of Tom Rogic, Mat Ryan and Mustafa Amini at the Mariners? Where did those days go for the league?
When we cut right down to it, the A-League is financially poor. The salaries offered to players and the money clubs have don’t come close to other leagues from poorer countries with smaller populations. And while we might normally justify that with other sports being more popular in this country, there’s more than enough money to go around. So where is it?
How do we get more money into the A-League without actually spending money as fans?
We know the TV rights play a big part in how much money goes into our game, but merely watching matches isn’t going to cut it. There’s so much more to it than that.
TV rights are worth money because of TV advertising, right? I mean, that’s how they can put a dollar value on these things. But that’s not the only income for the league and the clubs. They get a lot of advertising income from other sources, like shirt sponsors, the advertising boards around the ground and at training and by getting the club and players to do appearances.
(Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
This all adds up – it does not only come from viewing numbers. These days there are new metrics to consider, and it can mean big money for clubs and the league alike.
I want to talk about social media trends and sentiment analysis, and I want to talk about how the biggest marketing agencies and departments – the people who decide where their marketing money goes – get excited when these numbers go up.
Take the simple example of a hashtag like #WSWvPER and how it’s used to group tweets and other social media around a game. These hashtags, as well as #ALeague and team-based hashtags, are monitored automatically by both social media platforms as well as specialised tools like Google Trends. It all goes into a big suite of databases, and when there are significant numbers and growth, it gets the attention of these marketing gurus.
The ‘sentiment’ attached to those hashtags is analysed as well. There is AI that can statistically pick up on each post and provide a really good analysis of whether someone is talking positively, negatively or neutrally about the subject.
Now imagine how bonkers those departments will go for the A-League when there is a 200 per cent increase in social media posts and sentiment for all games and for the league itself – and how quickly Harvey Norman or similar companies will jump on the A-League bandwagon, how quickly foreign ownership and investment will go up and how much competition there will be for that coveted shirt sponsor, for stadium advertising and for paid appearances by players.
These days these metrics matter, and for the fans they’re free. It’s free to tweet or to post on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and more. But for the league it means the money it sorely needs to keep our best players, attract better players from overseas and lift the entire quality of our local game, the Socceroos, the Matildas, our youngsters and more.
Your online activity is worth a lot to our game, so don’t just watch it; get posting. Hashtag away. And get your mates to do it too.
It’s for the good of our game.
Kewell
Roar Rookie
Brainstrust, yep, here we go again. If you want mediocracy then fine keep going as we are. I don’t want to be mediocar, I want our teams to win in Asia. And we are no where near having the quality players to do that. I note Sydney were beaten 3 nil last night. People are turning off football because of our lack of success. We are becoming the laughing stock of Aussie sport. And what is more disappointing is the FFA’s inaction on selling the game and youth development.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Here you go again the best athletes? The AFL sprint race had a taxi driver in the final and was won by an amateur. I dont really see any top athletes there. The best athletes in the NRL go to the NFL and they are nowhere near where the athletes in the NFL are. Appiah -Kubi is probably the fastest guy I have seen locally and while he did go to Korea for a while I think he is somewhere in South East Asia.
Kewell
Roar Rookie
So the Socceroos can’t score a goal, the Matildas struggle against hold descent opposition, our junior recruitment is not getting the best of Australia’s young athletes. And the problem is money, geez. Better to fix the base and that will flow through to our National Teams and sponsors will come. It won’t happen immediately but it will happen. Get the best athletes into football not the cast offs that other codes do not want.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
What about getting some proper professional beggars at the top level. The AFL is the sporting world leader in begging, they get whatever they want. Once at Burwood shopping center they had this old violinist in a nice but rather old looking East european suit busking outside. I was thinking wow this is top of the range quality. I was about to put in some money, when three East European looking shady guys come up to him and take all his money from his case they said something to the guy and went off. It might have been the same guys in the city but I one of those beggars with the the sign on cardboard with the supposed tale of woe on it and they came and took the money but handed him some thing small in return. Maybe his drugs the violinist they gave nothing. While I wasn't sitting there to monitor who got the most money per hour, quality sport isn't going to charm governments here or else there would be money to show for it, we need better beggars in administration .
Waz
Roar Rookie
“TV rights are worth money because of TV advertising, right? I mean, that’s how they can put a dollar value on these things”. Substitute subscribers for advertisers in this case. The APL had similar thoughts to you - the (rumoured) $30m investment in “broadcast platforms and social media” was meant to address this …. But what we got was KEEPUP which was do bad I deleted the App and don’t even follow their socials: it’s one thing knowing what to do, it’s another thing being able to do it right.
jbinnie
Guest
Matt - An interesting viewpoint but can't help wondering if your sole target somehow misses the point. The A League is 18 years old and in the main has at least 8 of the teams that have been there since day one. That makes them "Businesses" of some long standing and yet it is hard for fans like you and me to understand why, as on going businesses, their marketing "arms" appear to be awfully quiet or even in existence. Melbourne Victory, the best supported team in the comp, have only to start winning to lift their attendances substantially and it will be interesting to see if Sydney FG enjoy the same reaction when they move back to their original "home". Brisbane Roar with the third largest support (in recent years) took a chance by re-positioning their games to a Northern Suburb, a chance that has proved disasterous when it come to actual numbers attending their "new" home. We must always refer back to the number that Lowy's number crunchers came up with way back in 2005 when they worked out that to exist is the long term an attending number of 10,000 was needed, In the season just nearing end only one team appears to have that sort of attraction, so I pose you the question ,how do Western United, CCM and the Jets get that sort of attraction. The last question , do the football power brokers of both ruling bodies have a "marketing division"????? Makes on wonder. Cheers jb.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
I didn't know that they used # for that purpose, thanks Matt. There's a lot of negative sentiment during matches, more because some fans are very harsh critics. Unless their team wins, everything is bad. Doesn't mean they're not watching or can be manipulated by advertising. It does make you wonder though, how the refs managed to attract an advertiser. Thanks Matt, for the diversity.
Jack Twohill
Roar Rookie
#awesomearticle ;), you're right, the more hashtags the more the league is seen, the interest gathers steam, and we will be in a good place, nice article.
josh
Guest
Here's a better suggestion, double the salary cap overnight. The quality gets better, more money comes in. In a few year's time, double it again.
Grem
Roar Rookie
Interesting thoughts Matt. We certainly need more revenue so I'll keep on liking and commenting on Facebook and Instagram. At least I'll feel like that hour or so I spend on those sites is not a waste of time!